Finding Excitement in a Sleepy Place

North America » United States » Indiana » Indianapolis
June 10th 2011

Published: March 5th 2012

Edit Blog Post

Roosta

First Indy 500 winner

The Marmon Wasp, winner of of the first Indy 500 in 1911.

Indianapolis, the capitol of Indiana, has a sedate reputation.

Many people, even those who live in the state, call it “Indiana-no-place”, meaning a city where the most exciting thing is a huge Civil War memorial downtown.

This reputation has some basis in fact; the city is the very low key capitol of an even lower key farming state.

The reputation is also unfortunate, because Indianapolis has things worth seeing.

I spent the day at a few of them.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway

My first spot was the only reason most people know the city exists, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

It is one of the largest and oldest racetracks in existence.

It was built in 1913 as a test track for several auto manufactures who were based in the city at the time (about the only one non-historians have ever heard of is the Duesenberg Brothers).

The first race was held two years later.

The Indianapolis 500 has continued every year since, except the depths of World War II, making it the oldest auto race in the world.

The race was based on existing European auto races, and it has continued to follow European trends since.

The biggest consequence is

1980s Indianapolis 500 race winners

that the race, held Memorial Day Weekend, is for open wheel cars instead of stock cars.

The speedway celebrates its history and its most famous event at a museum called the Indianapolis Speedway Hall of Fame.

It’s located in the middle of the infield, so guests need to drive under the track to reach it.

The centerpiece of the museum is a large hall containing over seventy race winning cars, including the first ever.

I found it most interesting as a display of evolving racecar technology over the decades.

The first cars were modified street cars; imagine a Model T with no roof to get the basic idea.

The cars quickly evolved into bullet shaped narrow body cars that were more aerodynamic.

These lasted until the late 1960s.

At that point, cars evolved into the rear engine and huge spoiler racecars that define modern open wheel racing.

The museum also contains a large selection of ephemera.

The winner of the Indianapolis 500 traditionally drinks a bottle of milk at the finish.

It started by accident.

There was a driver in the 1930s that drank milk after every race to

Bricks from the Brickyard

Actual bricks originally used to pave the Indiapolis Motor Speedway

refresh himself, Louis Meyer.

He did it in victory lane after winning the race in 1936, and an instant tradition was born.

The speedway is known as the Brickyard because it was originally paved with bricks (as were many regular roads at the time).

The bricks cracked after a few races, so the speedway owners replaced them with asphalt.

The museum has a collection of the original bricks.

It has a vast collection of toys inspired by the race over the years.

It has the collection of trophies won by a driver in the 1930s, and much more.

For many race fans, the highlight of a visit is a bus tour around the track.

It runs on the actual race surface, at about thirty miles an hour.

This is fodder for an obvious joke.

Resist the temptation, because the museum staff have all head it at least a million times.

The tour has taped narration that describes the different parts of the track.

It starts with a call to “Start Your Engines” accompanied by race car noise.

The first part of the

Start Finish Line

The start finish line at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, holy ground for race fans.

tour was along the backstretch.

It runs through a golf course.

The course, which is owned by the speedway, was deliberately partly built in the infield.

The turns are slightly banked, around four degrees.

The tour then reaches the thrilling front stretch.

Indianapolis is the only US race track that has grandstands on both sides of the front stretch.

Drivers (in NASCAR, at least) often call this the canyon.

In the middle of the front stretch is a huge tower called the pagoda.

Its design is based on a tower that existed in the early 1950s that was used by spotters and media.

This pagoda is filled with luxury suites.

The start-finish line, the only part of the track still paved with bricks, is located in front.

Next to it is the garage area, long called gasoline alley.

What struck me the most during the tour is the sheer size of the place.

Indianapolis is two and a half miles per circuit.

Over fifty thousand people will fit in the grandstands, with even more in the infield.

The place is so large,

Turn 1 at Indianapolis

Turn 1 and part of the front stretch, shot from the museum parking lot. The tail end of the frontstretch canyon is visible on the right.

all of Martinsville Speedway (see Racin’ With the Good Ole Boys) could fit in one end of the track, sideways.

Oldfields Mansion

The next thing I saw in Indianapolis was Oldfields.

This mansion was built by businessman Hugh Landon in 1913.

Twenty years later, he sold it to a descent of Eli Lily, who had founded the eponymous drug company.

Both families left their mark.

The tour is self guided.

Like most, it focuses on architecture and decorative objects.

The mansion design is very similar to those I saw in the South, which is not surprising (see Southern Nostalgia)

It serves a similar function, to show off the family’s wealth.

One very unusual feature of this house is that the main rooms have pictures of what they looked like at different points in time; the interiors changed quite a bit as tastes changed over the decades.

The house has extensive landscaped gardens, which should be no surprise.

In front is a wide great lawn that extends to a fountain.

Thanks to the shape of the lots, a city street runs through it.

Mr. Landon paid the city to lower the road, so

Oldfields

Oldfields, also called the Lily Mansion, in Indianapolis

the lawn would appear intact to visitors to his house!

Alongside this lawn is an artificial creek that runs down a hillside.

The entire creek is covered in different flowers.

They were deliberately chosen to bloom in spring and fall, since that was the only time the family was there.

Indianapolis Art Museum

The final sight is next to Oldfields.

The Lilly family donated the estate to the city in 1970 as a new home for the Indianapolis Art Museum.

The museum is yet another regional comprehensive museum.

I liked this one, because it has prioritized certain areas with work in depth, although not at the level of, say, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (see The Fountain of Creativity).

The first notable collection is the Naibs.

This branch of symbolism was active in France in the late 1800s.

It’s most famous member is Paul Gauguin.

They attempted to show the majesty of nature through muted color schemes and exotic subjects.

Personally, I’m not a big fan of the style, but I appreciated the opportunity to see lots of it in one place and compare different artists’ work.

Oldfields Stream

The completely man made stream at Oldfields

The museum has the largest collection in the US.

The second notable collection is Pointillism.

These artists were active at the same time as the Naibs.

Georges Seurat became the most well known practitioner.

The style tried to take the lessons of Impressionism and give them a scientific basis.

Artists in this movement studied psychology and color theory.

Their paintings up close appear to be seas of precisely positioned little dots, hence the name.

From a distance, they resolve into fuzzy pictures of recognizable scenes.

Most of their paintings had matching frames, which have mostly been lost at this point.

The museum display tried to recreate most of them.

The museum has a small but notable collection of Old Masters.

It focuses on religious art by El Greco.

He created pictures of Catholic saints with heavy lines and distorted features, presaging Expressionism three centuries later.

The pictures are an expression of religious devotion.

The final notable collection is an extensive selection of American Art.

Indianapolis was the center of a little known branch of

Oldfields formal gardens

A portion of the formal gardens at Oldfields

American Impressionism called the Indiana School, and the museum has an extensive display of their art.

It has large amounts of work by Ashcan School artists.

The museum also has a number of prints by Robert Indiana, the pop artist who created the famous ‘Love’ print.

He really was born in Indiana, and changed his name after moving to New York City after college.

The museum is the only one in the country authorized to sell ‘Love’ souvenirs, which the artist tightly controls.

On the way out, be sure to walk the tunnel to the parking garage, which is a work of art itself.

It curves like a letter S.

Pop artist Kay Rosen has painted a palindrome on the walls, which is only revealed in stages as people walk around the curves.

The tunnel has really weird echoes, so be prepared to hear walking noises from strange places.

After the museum, I had a long drive to Chicago.

For the most part, it passed through flat farming country.

The view was big fields with small houses and barns in the distance, a

Love by Robest Indiana

A scupture version of the famous Robert Indiana print. The sculpture looks reversed because I shot it from the back.

Grant Wood painting brought to life.

The drive was unbelievably boring.

Then, the highway passed through a wind farm.

In the northeast, a collection of windmills may have a few dozen.

Here, there were hundreds, stretching as far as the eye could see along the road for miles.

They were beautiful.

Before leaving Indiana, I made sure to stop and get gas.

The difference between gas within the Chicago metropolitan area and gas outside it is one of the largest in the country, even larger than Atlanta (see History, for a City that Doesn’t Like Any).

Gas prices in Chicago are among the two or three highest in the country; so high they drag up the overall average for Illinois by a measurable amount.

I don’t plan to drive much in the city, but I’m not taking any chances either.

Once in Chicago, I had one of the little disappointments of this trip.

Chicago is famous for its downtown skyline, one of the three largest collections of skyscrapers in the world (New York and Hong Kong are the others).

The approach to the city has been shown in dozens of movies.

By the

Indianapolis Art Museum

Foutain outside the Indianapolis Art Museum

time I got there, the entire city was shrouded in fog.

Beyond the roadway, I didn’t see a thing.

Only after I pulled on a city street did the monoliths rise like specters on the sides of the road.

I hope this is not a taste of the days to come.

Additional photos below

Photos: 25, Displayed: 25