A City of the Future

Last Sunday, I took a walk through part of "old" Speedway, 

to search fro some of the original garages that were built 

when the town was started on July 14, 1926.

The track was first opened in 1909 and the first Indy 500

was held in 1911. One of the track's founders, Carl Fisher,

envisioned the Town of Speedway as the nation's

"first horseless city," with paved streets, brick paved alleyways

that provided access to garages that were built

adjacent to each of the new homes.

As far as I can tell, many of the little garages survive 

in various stages of repair. Most of them have 

been sided over, with nearly all having their original

hung doors replaced with overhead doors.

A few still had their original doors, but could also stand

some attention and restoration. The one below

at least had an overhead door made to resemble

the hung doors originally specified by the designer.

This one had been encased in vinyl siding that has been 

allowed to loosen and split from the corner, 

where I could see the dry, gray original wood.

Oh, yeah, when this "city of the future" was laid out, 
sidewalks were not a part of the plans. While steps have 
been taken to rectify this matter, especially in 
recent years, there are still sections of the town
where pedestrians must either stumble along an uneven
curb, or risk being hit by speeding cars.
Even then, plans were afoot, so to speak, 
to make us so entirely dependent on our cars 
we could not safely walk to meet our neighbors. 
Thus, the "Lard Ass Nation" was conceived.