>> Funding for "Journey Indiana" was provided in part by: The WTIU Vehicle Donation Program.

Proceeds from accepted donations of a car, or other vehicle, make this program possible.

Most vehicles are accepted, and pickup can be arranged at no cost.

Learn more at WTIU.org/support.

>> Charitable IRA rollover gifts, individuals aged 70 and a half or older may make a tax-free charitable distribution from their IRA to WTIU.

Consult your advisor and visit Indianapublicmedia.org/support for more details.

>> WTIU sustaining members, committing to regular monthly contributions, providing WFIU and WTIU with reliable ongoing support.

Becoming a sustainer is one of the most effective ways to support public media.

>> And by viewers like you.

Thank you!

♪ >> On today's episode of "Journey Indiana," we're exploring the Indianapolis cultural districts.

Travel through those districts on the Indianapolis Cultural Trail.

>> It's made a place where people are face to face, instead of in their cars.

>> Visit a historic and eclectic block in Mass Avenue.

>> And there's this beautiful bridging of the generations or the centuries of what the building used to look like and what it is now.

>> Enjoy an art spectacle in Fountain Square.

>> We want everybody to participate, and we want things that are different and try something new.

>> And explore an icon of Indiana Avenue.

>> And to think that she had the vision for something like that in the early 1900s is just amazing.

>>> That's coming up on this episode of "Journey Indiana."

♪ >> First up on our tour, let's learn about the trail that connects the city's six downtown districts.

♪ Boasting 8 miles of picturesque pathway, connecting some of downtown Indy's most iconic locales, the Indianapolis Cultural Trail is a fantastic way to traverse this bustling city.

>> It's made it a bikable city.

It's made it a walkable city.

It's made it a place where people are face to face instead of in their cars.

And so that's why I think it really has helped inspire a new culture in Indianapolis, and really has set the mold for what people want in their city.

>> The Cultural Trail was devised in the early 2000s as a way to connect the city's newly created downtown cultural districts, but in order to build the trail, the city needed to make a not-so-insignificant sacrifice.

>> The city made a decision to give up on busy city streets, a lane of vehicle traffic, to give it back to the pedestrians to build the Cultural Trail.

And I think really should be celebrated that Indianapolis could prioritize pedestrians and people in a land that is, you know, generally filled with cars.

>> While the trail sits on public land, its development, maintenance and funding, are all managed by the nonprofit organization, the Indianapolis Cultural Trail Incorporated.

>> We don't receive any funding from the city to continually operate and maintain the cultural trail, which generally is a shock to most people.

And so we are really grateful for our donors and our partners and our funders to allow us to continue to bring this truly gift to the city of Indianapolis.

>> And like any thoughtful gift, the trail's designers considered even the smallest details.

>> So the Cultural Trail is designed with safety and accessibility in mind first and foremost.

So there's lighting along the entire Cultural Trail.

That might seem much, but the lights are always on.

The wayfinding is also available in the paver patterns that you see on the cultural trail.

It's very repetitious.

And so you just keep following the brick pavers.

There's also cues within the pavers as to where the trail is going, if it's turning or if you are coming to a part that might have more conflict with vehicles.

>> But the trail is more than a simple path.

It's also an open air art gallery.

♪ >> The design team and the founders really wanted to highlight how Indianapolis is a cultural capital, how it's an artistic capital, and how you can be in this community and thrive and be surrounded by public art, so that you would have something to see and do and have a dynamic experience when you are on the Cultural Trail.

>> And while the art will wow you, the urban oasis will also soothe you.

>> So the landscaping is such an important part of the Indianapolis Cultural Trail.

In the downtown of a major city in the United States, you are surrounded by greenery, by trees, by animals, by insects.

We've seen bunnies hopping across the trail.

And so having a place that is welcoming and has a natural element to it, it kind of softens the harshness of the urban landscape.

>> Of course, like any well-traveled public space, the Indianapolis Cultural Trail means many things to many people.

>> It has lights on it.

So it's safe to walk on it at dark, as well as he appreciates that there's nice green space downtown.

>> For me, there's too much concrete or too much city, right.

We need to remember we're on earth and Mother Earth and the green and bring it back into the city.

>> The best part is it shows you the entire city.

So you can literally get to any point of the city from the Cultural Trail.

>> Exactly.

Also there's a huge safety point.

And just to be able to get off the roads from cars.

It's just multiuse and it's safe.

>> We talk to people from all over who live here, who have moved here, who have grown up here their whole lives, and they all say, I can't imagine what my commute would be like if this wasn't here, or what my neighborhood would be like if this wasn't here.

There'd be more vehicle lanes of traffic, you know.

There'd be more hardscape.

There'd be more asphalt, and there'd be less lighting.

There'd be less gardens.

There'd be less investment in public art, and it probably would look like any other city that you go to.

>> Now let's head to Mass Avenue to check out the Athenaeum, a one-of-a-kind building that's been nourishing hearts and minds for well over a century.

♪ >> In the Mass Avenue District in downtown Indianapolis, sits an ornate and strikingly well-preserved 19th century building, the Athenaeum.

Today, this building is home to more than a dozen businesses and organizations.

It's a vibrant multiuse place where folks can enjoy a drink, see a show, and even break a sweat.

And it's pretty much been that way from the beginning.

The Athenaeum was erected by a group of German immigrants called the Turners with a couple of goals in mind.

>> These Turners, it was a movement that came out of Germany post-Civil War and they had a motto: A sound mind and a sound body.

So as they immigrated here to The States, Midwest, they built these temples, if you will, of a sound mind and a sound body.

The idea was that, you know, on any given day, you could service both your body and your mind in the same space.

>> Originally called Das Deutsche Haus, it was changed to the Athenaeum in reaction to anti-German sentiment during the first World War.

>> The name Athenaeum refers to the Greek Goddess Athena.

The name by etymology is a house of higher learning.

>> And to be a member, you didn't just pay a fee.

You became part owner.

>> You actually bought stock certificates to be members.

So you actually owned portions of the space or of the building.

Like, anybody could be part of the club.

It wasn't exclusive.

So you had, like, a melting pot of all of these different cultures coming into this space.

>> It served as a vital cultural hub for many German immigrants in the city.

>> So it was a very large organization at its beginning, and stayed rather large for quite a few years.

It wasn't until kind of second generation families really started to either move on to different areas of the state or the country, or as families, you know, aged out.

This building actually almost didn't make it.

The roof was leaking.

There wasn't a sprinkler system for fire safety.

There wasn't an elevator.

All of these things led to intervention from the Lilly Endowment to come in and save the building in the late '80s.

♪ >> That investment did more than just save the building.

It brought it back into the fold of life in the city, while still holding true to its original mission.

♪ >> It's a vibrant space, alive and many different kind of designs and intentions.

Even today, we still live by the motto of a sound mind and a sound body.

And we approach it a little bit differently, but, you know, we are able to pay homage to the original intent of the building and keep that moving forward.

We still have an active gym.

The YMCA has a gym in the space.

So we are one of the YMCA branches in the city.

We have a very active coffee shop, Coat Check Coffee, which was built out here in the space.

A Rathskeller Restaurant.

If you've been to Indianapolis, if you had a pint of beer or a liter of beer in this town, you've been to the Rathskeller, both the internal restaurant for their German cuisine, also outside in the beer garden, which has one of the most beautiful, breathtaking views of the city skyline.

We have a 400-seat cabaret theater on the top floor of the building that is home to many different production organizations, as well as ourselves, as we put on different shows throughout the year.

>> And even though the Athenaeum has had its share of updates over the years, echoes of its past still linger in every corner.

>> When you walk down to the substructure into the Rathskeller, it's literally like you are walking back into the early 1900s.

It's wild.

A lot of the original decorations.

Most of the tables and chairs are still original.

I mean, imagine, those things are like 125 years old.

♪ The theater itself is practically untouched from when it opened in 1898.

The same art reliefs in the plaster.

The proscenium is the same, the stained glass, which is absolutely stunning.

All of the bits and pieces of that space are the same.

Even in the YMCA, the gym has some of the original equipment from when they were doing gymnastics, like practice ladders.

It still has all of the original hooks and eyelets from when they had rings in the building.

And there's this beautiful bridging of the generations or the centuries of what the building used to look like and what it is now, and how they're married together.

It's absolutely amazing.

>> It's a place that marries the present to the past.

Celebrating old traditions while creating space for new ones.

♪ >> We do an Oktoberfest adjacent event.

We call it GermanFest.

It's in celebration of German-American Day, which is always on October 5th.

We do a lot of the same kind of celebrations, beer, food.

We do wiener dog races.

We do stein holding.

We do sausage eating.

We've got great German folk music, but then we also shine a light on German immigrants that came to central Indiana and the impact they have on the Hoosier state.

>> Tiki taki tiki taki oi oi oi!

>> It's a big event for us.

It's our largest fundraiser that we do every year.

Although, nipping at its heels during the holiday season, we now do a Christkindlmarkt for four weekends out of the year, where we convert the Rathskeller beer garden into basically the Swiss Alps.

It's like you are walking into a different country.

We've got 14 different huts.

We've got food and beverage and retail.

All local, but done in a Germany flair.

>> From beer gardens to live music, there's always something happening.

♪ >> And that's the beauty of the design of this building, right?

It was meant to be somewhere you could stay from morning to night.

I mean, you could come work out.

You can have breakfast.

You can have lunch, dinner.

You can go to an event, you can see a show.

So whether it's, you know, meeting some friends after work and having a pint of beer in the beer garden, it's meeting family members that are coming in out of town and having dinner in the Rathskeller.

Seeing the next, you know, big show during the holiday season, whether it's the Nutcracker, or what have you, in the theater or as a local resident just coming and working out.

It's approachable to everybody, which is the beauty and what it was designed to be in a sound mind and a sound body kind of scenario.

>> Next up, we're headed to Fountain Square.

Here the annual Masterpiece in a Day event invites artists of all kinds to come and paint the town red or any color they want.

Come on, let's check it out.

♪ >> Travel to the far southeast corner of Indy's Cultural Trail, and you'll find yourself in Fountain Square.

This neighborhood, once known as the city's theater district, was cut off and nearly wiped out in the 1960s, following the construction of more than 30 miles of interstate, known as the Inner Loop.

Decades later, the energy is back, and Fountain Square is home to unique small businesses, live events, and thanks to a dedicated group of residents, the arts.

>> There was a neighborhood group of us who started an art council here in the neighborhood, and we thought, what a better way than arts to build a community because there's no pressure.

You can just be creative and have fun with it.

And we did an art parade, and then we did the booths and Masterpiece in a Day.

>> All that and more has become an annual event known as Art Squared.

Masterpiece in a Day is an art competition.

The rules are pretty simple.

Don't start before 9:00, and be done by 3:00.

And all artists must work outside, somewhere within a handful of blocks in Fountain Square.

>> I am making my subject the Murphy Art Building, and apparently going to include some streetlights and the church.

I barely got the steeple in there.

I wasn't sure if it was going to fit, but it's in there.

So the challenges are obviously time constraint, composition, design, and getting set up.

>> Really, it's just a matter of getting something on canvas that everybody else is gonna like.

That's the main challenge.

♪ >> Well, you think about art in a day, I mean, that's -- that's a pretty daunting task.

So I think what people do is one or the other.

This is the perfect excuse to try something you don't normally do, and then the other part is you have folks who maybe have a little more confidence in something and know what they can get done.

I think because of that freedom and the kind of fun rocking it out in a day, I think really gives you the opportunity to be a little more relaxed about it.

It is a serious competition, and we really do want good art, but we want everybody to participate, and we want things that are different and try something new, and I think that's really stuck.

So that's why it's eclectic.

There's no real theme.

Just have fun and do it.

♪ >> In my head, I kind of have this play on gender, I guess, because you had to use the sidesaddle if you wanted to wear something resembling a dress.

And so that's kind of my poke in the face of the adversity of whatever.

But I'm just having fun painting.

So, like, it doesn't have to be that deep.

I've seen some truly amazing art around.

If I cannot win, like, best art, I for sure am gonna win best canvas.

♪ >> So I think audience and people watching and seeing art in progress is the most important part of Masterpiece in a Day.

By walking around and seeing different types of people doing different kinds of stuff, painting or drawing or etching or, you know, making stuff out of junk, whatever it is, right?

And I think that just sort of breaks down a barrier between, like, what you feel as an artist and what you feel as just an observer or appreciated, you know.

It kind of brings the two together.

>> I'm with the VA art group, and we decided to challenge ourselves a little bit and come out here with other artists and see what we could produce.

We're all disabled veterans.

We work through VA with an art therapist, and we are in a group where we feel like everybody understands us.

>> Oh, my God, it has totally impacted my life.

Through art therapy, I have learned that whatever you create is art, and it has brought me out of my shell.

This has given me a great outlet, and it has been a tremendous gift to be with art therapy.

You know, this is the first time that I've done something like this.

So it's gonna be interesting.

>> At 3 p.m., it was time for Lori and all her fellow artists to turn in their masterpieces.

And win, lose or draw, the day was a chance for all to celebrate art, overcome challenges, and explore a unique Hoosier community.

>> It is so great to see it continuing.

I love the energy.

It's like a party in your neighborhood, and parties always bring good energy.

And it's been amazing to see what not only the neighborhood has turned into, but how the arts are still such a big part.

>> Last, we're headed to Indiana Avenue to explore the history of one of the city's great performing art centers, the iconic Madam CJ Walker Building.

On the northwest edge of downtown Indianapolis sits the Indiana Avenue Cultural District.

In its hey day in the early to mid-20th century, this was a thriving African American neighborhood, full of shops, businesses, and some of the finest jazz clubs in the country.

♪ And at the center of it all was the Madam CJ Walker Building.

And if these walls could talk, man, would they have a lot to say!

Constructed in 1927, this triangular brick structure housed a 1500-seat theater, a ballroom, doctors' offices, a drugstore, and a coffee shop.

The building was designed by the architecture firm Rubush & Hunter.

The unique art deco design interspersed with African and Egyptian motifs gives the building a singular look.

But first and foremost, the building was the headquarters of the Madam CJ Walker Manufacturing Company.

Incorporated in 1910, this cosmetics maker found success catering to the often overlooked needs of Black women.

The company employed a small Army of well-paid and well-trained door-to-door saleswomen, spread out across the country.

Their flagship product, Madam Walker's Wonderful Hair Grower promised to strengthen and regrow hair.

>> So there weren't really a lot of options before Madam Walker.

Most women were washerwomen.

They didn't have access to clean water or time.

And so a lot of times their hair was very dirty.

They wore a lot of scarves, that kind of wore their hair thin.

>> The company was so successful, that when she died in 1919, founder Madam CJ Walker, who was born to formerly enslaved parents, had become the first self-made female millionaire of any race in the United States history.

>> She was the youngest of her siblings.

The only one that was not born into slavery.

She lost her parents early.

She married at 14 years old.

Had a child by the time she was 16, and then was a widow.

And so -- all before the age of 21.

And to have to do all of that, at a time when you are really still a child yourself, you know, I think it's -- it's already in you that you have to be an overcomer.

So there is no other way but up.

>> While Madam Walker didn't live long enough to see the building's completion, you could be sure it would have received her stamp of approval.

>> So the legend goes she attempted to go to a movie at another theater here in Indianapolis, and was initially denied entry, unless she paid what they call a Black tax.

So she needed to pay an additional 15 cents just because of the color of her skin.

She declined to pay.

She actually sued the theater, and she won.

But it was also in that moment that she decided that we needed a place for us.

>> It's believed that Madam Walker purchased this corner plot soon afterwards.

>> And so I would like to say it was FUBU before FUBU, for us, by us.

And so -- but that is -- that is how the theater and this building came, you know, to be.

And to think that she had the vision for something like that in the early 1900s is just amazing.

>> The easing of legal segregation mixed with ill-fated urban renewal projects gradually dismantled the historic Indiana Avenue neighborhood.

The Walker building is one of the last left standing from the Avenue's prime.

It was spared, only through years of hard work and activism, which culminated in a National Historic Landmark designation in 1991.

♪ Today, the building is home to the Madam Walker Legacy Center.

This social justice nonprofit is dedicated to serving the local community and honoring one of America's most successful female entrepreneurs.

And its stage has continued to be a beacon for Black art and culture.

>> So we want everything here at The Walker.

We are open to all.

This past spring, we had Misty Copeland here for a speaking engagement.

We've had a play about the life of Charlie Parker that was here.

You know, Netflix filmed an entire comedy special here.

>> I love everything about Indianapolis, man.

This is a beautiful town right here.

>> And so, you know, I think that the opportunities are endless.

♪ What's the point >> A recent performance at The Walker featured some local talent, Indianapolis R&B group, 4cast.

>> It's one of those situations where it's just like as a kid growing up, you know, you would go past the Madam Walker.

And like I said earlier, you would see so many different artists coming in and performing and stuff like that.

And for us to be able to be one of those artists, to be able to touch up such a gracious stage, man, it's an honor.

It's an honor.

>> It's been nearly a century since the Madam Walker became a hub of African American life in Indianapolis.

Now it's poised to continue that legacy for many, many years to come.

>> I grew up in Indianapolis.

I always heard about Madam Walker.

And so I've never not known it, but to be able to now know that my children or my children's children will be able, you know, to come back here, and they'll be able to learn and see it as well, and know that, you know, I had a very, very small part in making sure that it was around for them.

That's amazing.

♪ >> Thanks for watching.

Now that's only a slice of what the cultural districts have to offer.

So we hope you'll take a chance to explore more.

See you next time on "Journey Indiana."

♪ >> Funding for "Journey Indiana" was provided in part by: The WTIU Vehicle Donation Program.

Proceeds from accepted donations of a car, or other vehicle, make this program possible.

Most vehicles are accepted, and pickup can be arranged at no cost.

Learn more at WTIU.org/support.

>> Charitable IRA rollover gifts, individuals aged 70 and a half or older may make a tax-free charitable distribution from their IRA to WTIU.

Consult your advisor and visit Indianapublicmedia.org/support for more details.

>> WTIU sustaining members, committing to regular monthly contributions, providing WFIU and WTIU with reliable ongoing support.

Becoming a sustainer is one of the most effective ways to support public media.

>> And by viewers like you.

Thank you!