Dessert

I've been wanting a bit of dessert for days.

Did I want the coconut cake from Cafe Patachou

or did I want to go up to The Flying Cupcake for, 

well, cupcakes? Instead, I went to the 

Frona Mae Dessert Cafe

on East Washington Street, right between a bar 

and an art gallery. A group of people sat at the front

table, bathed in the late afternoon sunlight

pouring through the window.

The building, gutted and restored

to create this space, reminded me of all the 

stories I've read about artists sitting 

in Parisian cafes discussing the latest 

in avant-garde art or sharing their 

poetry over tiny cups of espresso.

I had a bowl of Graeter's black cherry 

chocolate chip ice cream. 

Gawd, I'm a sucker for that stuff.

Even among all the pies and cakes, the ice

cream sang a siren's song.

Teaspoon by teaspoon, I luxuriated

in my little fantasy of being

in a French cafe, wiling away a bit 

of the afternoon as poets

and writers argued some philosophical

point, and imagined great art

hung in the gallery next door. *Sigh.*

Facade

The downtown area has changed a lot 

since I moved to Indianapolis. Buildings have been torn down,

restored, and renewed. Many have been constructed

and many are being built now. 

This building, in the southeast quadrant

of the downtown area, near Virginia Avenue 

and Washington Street, has seen better days. 

Its owners have worked hard to clean it up and to make it 

another of the restored gems in its neighborhood - 

and they have done it with humor, a facade of the past 

reflecting the era of its surroundings 

while remaining its own 1960s or so self.

Textured Tuesday: Crappy Repair

Outside a bar on Washington Street, 

some kind of brick veneer paving 

gave way to what appears to be a repair 

made up of actual brick pavers.

Bassoonist and Mummies

These paintings were done to relieve the usual wooden monotony of boarded over storefront windows. I think they were done by students and have been in place for several years. The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra has offices nearby (the concert hall is a restored theatre on the opposite side of this building's back wall) and it looks as though they may have sponsored the project.

I think the paintings are colorful and charming and I hope very much they aren't destroyed when restoration work begins on the building.

And just because everyone else includes videos in their blogs, I wanted to do it, too. So here is "Single Entendre" by Here Come the Mummies.

Tain't the ISO but it sure does party!  

Paving the Way

It's about eight in the morning and, as a breeze still wends its way through the area, crews are busy all around downtown, trying to get as much as possible done before the heat of the day smothers any urge to work. The men in these pictures are working to repair and replace brick pavers that have become loose or broken in the streets and sidewalks around Monument Circle.


The photo above shows an air hammer being used to chip away the underlying cement and base, not only to improve the foundation for new bricks, but to prepare it for new curbing. It's a fairly selective annihilation; even as the workers pull up the existing bricks, they're trying to save as many of the pavers as possible. Not only will this cut down on the expense for replacements, it also helps to maintain a kind of patina from daily use, which the new pavers would not have. The piles of bricks below will be blended together as they are laid in order to avoid too much contrast between old and new.

The man below is taking a few moments to verify his calculations for the number of pavers needed to complete the project. As the project manager, he's hoping he won't need to order very many more of them, if at all. Lying on his foot he has a working drawing of the area and in his hands a little contractors' reference manual used to look up formulas for various calculations. 

He's got a bit of figurin' to do because the bricks are not only being replaced as needed, their numbers are being increased with changes in the layout of the streets and sidewalks. The following photo shows the markings made at the northwest corner of the intersection of Washington and Meridian Streets; it appears Washington Street is being narrowed with the sidewalks to become wider to provide a more friendly, boulevard atmosphere for pedestrians. The white marks indicate the cut lines for the workers who'll remove the pavement, but the writing indicates "Do Not Cut Bricks." Earlier I'd seen an older layer of bricks beneath the existing pavers. Perhaps they plan on using some of the them, as well, if they can be salvaged.

There aren't any letters to give a clue to the meanings of the orange and red hash marks, but that's a question for another day. These markings extend from the pavement on into the sand and gravel base of the new work. The ones shown above lie to my left as as I looked west on Washington Street to take this picture.