Great city! It seems to me that Indianapolis has done many many things right in the last 10-20 years with their downtown. It is amazingly clean, bright and safe (feeling) in the center of the city late at night. Their modern architecture in the CBD leaves quite a bit to be desired, but they nonetheless have a decent skyline and some very noteworthy spots, such as Monument Circle, which is just wonderful, and the 'Artsgarden', which is a large glass pseudo-dome over an intersection where various arts events are held. Most of the historic buildings I saw in the immediate downtown area were well preserved and in use. There are numerous clear, legible signs directing one around to the various downtown attractions and from 9am to 9pm a small bus runs every ten minutes from stops around these attractions. There are people down there past midnight! Not gigantic crowds, but a nice streetscape of walkers and partiers cover most of the area. Their Nordstroms downtown seems quite nice, well integrated into the streetscape, and even the Circle Center Mall looked relatively decent.
Conseco Fieldhouse is very cool, all new and glass and pretty, surrounded by fresh infrastructure. A fair number of restaraunts, clubs and bars. Even the RCA Dome is okay, what with a nicely landscaped park to one side of it and hotels and Union Station to other. As an added note they have the HRC and Jilians etc. and I have to say that while they are nice, they're obviously just so worthless and the people they attract are....not necessarily my type. But they do attract people, so....
The real clincher though was the canal walk that meanders through the west side of downtown...it's awesome, if a little bit sterile and 'new'. Very well lit, immaculate, well planned walkway that has many major attractions on it. There is a new talking Medal of Honor memorial across from the Indiana State Museum, which is a beautiful modern glass building, and the NCAA Hall of Fame, as well as an Indiana History museum (wish we had some kind of great regional history museum), all with great views of downtown and pretty water. The canal runs into an amphitheater at one end and spills into the White River, near the Zoo and Botanical Gardens at it's far end. The view is great, with a triple arch bridge covered in streetlamps crossing the river, and the small lake where the canal and river meet. All very impressive, not to mention the neat little bits of art sprinkled thoughout.
Someone has been doing things right in this city, and while it lacks much of Kansas City's historic charm, feeling of size and grit, and character (IMO), it is nonetheless exceptionally clean (really, I don't know how they did it, like 1 or 2 bums, no grafitti, no trash), well planned, and pretty. KC leaders could learn a lot from those in Indy, I think...even if it does feel the slightest bit artificial.
Also this is only downtown...didn't have enough time to explore any nieghborhoods etc. At least not until next time.
