Capital weekends

Zippy Union Stations still thrive in St. Louis and Washington, D.C., but
Indianapolis evidently figures it has outgrown the trend. I had booked a room
at the Crowne Plaza, because its promotional material still bragged about its
Union Station locale and pointed out that 26 of its 275 units were in
converted Pullman cars.

When I pulled into the Crowne Plaza driveway, I noticed railroad luggage
carts, complete with old steamer trunks and leather suitcases, flanking the
entrance. White, fiberglass figures–train ghosts!–held positions around the
lobby: a guy getting a shoeshine, a porter bending to pick up a couple of
suitcases, a pair of nuns waiting to board an invisible coach, a sailor
lighting a cigarette. . . . The bell staff wore the vests and caps of
old-timey railroad personnel.

Themed-out and settled in, I was ready for a little Nap Town excitement, so
I walked over to Union Station’s front doors. They were bolted shut. An
obscure entrance around back led to an indoor go-kart track–and nothing else,
except a Grand Hall and meeting rooms. All the rest of Union Station had been
reduced to plasterboard and emptiness.

Wholesale District

The loss of a grand, dazzling magnet like Union Station might spell the end
for most urban centers–the final gasp in a battle the suburbs won.

But in less than a block, I could walk into a new downtown Indianapolis
that defied recollection. The only familiar sight was St. Elmo Steakhouse
(“famous since 1902”). It held its place in a handsomely restored building, a
part of town the street signs now identify as the Wholesale District.

Everything else looked fresh off the shelf: the parking garage and
micro-brewery across from St. Elmo; the big plaza commemorating the Pan
American Games of 1987; the Circle Centre vertical shopping mall with its
Nordstrom and Parisian Department stores; a dazzling glass atrium spanning
Illinois Street with a sign that said it was the Arts Garden (a performance
center and box office) (this sentence as published has been corrected in this
text).

High-end restaurant chains like Palomino, Morton’s of Chicago and P.F.
Chang’s stood ready to serve before or after movies at the multiplex or plays
at the Indiana Repertory Theatre or shows at the American Cabaret Theatre.

Dazzled and disoriented, I walked into the visitor center at Pan American
Plaza. Mary Roberts, guest information officer, offered help.

“What happened to Union Station?” I asked. Roberts frowned as if dredging
up a memory as distant as my own. “Oh, yes, it had many shops–all upscale
boutiques,” she recalled. “I guess people did not want to spend that kind of
money, and eventually the shops all closed–the last one about six years ago.
However, there is a racing car facility up there on the second floor.”

That much I knew.

Outside the visitor center, the RCA Dome–home of the Indianapolis Colts of
the National Football League–loomed like a giant pillow waiting in vain for a
city that can’t seem to sleep. A few blocks east, another dome, Market Square
Arena, stands alone and forlorn. The Indiana Pacers of basketball fame moved
to the brand-new Conseco Fieldhouse, three blocks south, one more imposing
hump on the skyline. Big blue signs bearing a horseshoe imprint and a single
word, “Believe,” have been posted across town. The meaning? I suppose the
Colts, formerly of Baltimore, have become a faith-based team.

Topping the statehouse

I believe this is one of the few state capitals with two major sports
franchises and domes and fieldhouses that overpower the dome that tops the
statehouse. Besides the Pacers and the Colts, urban Hoosiers can stroll across
downtown to attraction-filled White River State Park and Victory Field, one of
those newly minted retro ballparks with real grass and quaint brickwork. Their
Indianapolis Indians aren’t big-league, but they do serve as the top farm team
for the Milwaukee Brewers (this sentence as published has been corrected in
this text). Tony Perez and George Foster are among the Indians’ distinguished
alumni.

The most major of the city’s major sports isn’t downtown. Indianapolis
Motor Speedway, since its founding in 1909, has been out in what’s now the
land of muffler shops and fast food. The Speedway needs plenty of room. Half a
million spectators jam the sprawling grandstands on the weekend of Memorial
Day for the running of the Indianapolis 500. Formula One racing is also on the
racetrack schedule.

The Indy 500 track is 2 1/2 miles around. On a bus tour of the facility, a
canned voice with a Canadian accent noted the infield holds four holes of an
18-hole golf course called Brickyard Crossing. Our Canadian friend also urged
us to notice some bricked pathways made out of the material that covered the
original track, which now, of course, is a ribbon of asphalt.

There also was enough room in the infield for the famous Gasoline Alley
maintenance area and a parking lot with row upon row of identical sport
utility vehicles, all of them white. “Those are the official pace cars,” the
driver told me. “Oldsmobiles. They’ll be painted up with the official pace car
colors.” I thought there was only one pace car each year, never stopping to
think that they appear in an awful lot of dealerships after the race. In the
Speedway Hall of Fame Museum, a display case holds models of pace cars past.
All are American marques, and some, like the Indianapolis-made Studebaker, no
longer exist. Oldsmobile, manufactured in Lansing, Mich., another state
capital (and another story in this section) will make its final pace car
appearance before fading into auto oblivion.

Bygone products

Nap Town (a term apparently as defunct as Union Station boutiques and
future Oldsmobiles) was once an automobile center that rivaled Motown.
Examples of bygone products like Stutz and Duesenberg glisten on the Motor
Speedway Museum floor, as well as 30 of the race cars that won the Indy 500.
When I dropped in, I could sense an air of anticipation. Workers in maroon
blazers shared the lore of races past and buffed up the Oldsmobile pace car on
display. A flashing electric sign at the main entrance–where cars turn off
16th Street and drive right under a section of the track–displays the exact
number of days, hours, minutes and seconds until the next Indianapolis 500.

Five-hundred also might be the number of attractions that Indianapolis, the
city, has to offer. Big-city people who care to drive the 185 miles from
Chicago or the 246 from St. Louis might figure they have seen everything a big
city can put on the table. But a good metropolis should have a few unique
features.

Indianapolis is a good metropolis, at least in that regard.

For example, the collection at the stunning Eiteljorg Museum of American
Indians and Western Art is like an instant trip to the best of Santa Fe with
fine examples of Frederic Remington, Charles Russell and Georgia O’Keeffe.

More attractions

The Children’s Museum, said to be the largest in the world, whacks visitors
with high-tech, hands-on exhibits and four floors of learning experiences
presented in wild colors and stunning graphics. Set your watch with the
colorful water clock (also the world’s largest) in the noisy atrium.

The Indiana State Museum is full of intriguing surprises, including a
full-size, typical small-town Main Street and an entire floor devoted to the
history of Hoosier broadcasting.

No other city in the world can display the original El Grecos, Renoirs, Van
Goghs, Cezannes, Monets, Sargents, Turners and Hoppers that hang in the
Indianapolis Museum of Art. The museum has been tucked away on Michigan Road,
across from the gigantic Crown Hill Cemetery (where native luminaries James
Whitcomb Riley, John Dillinger and President Benjamin Harrison rest). Robert
Indiana’s big metal LOVE sculpture (you know the one) stands on a knoll near
the museum’s front door.

Inside, amidst the masters, I came upon a huge canvas by German painter
Theodore Groll. It depicts a bustling, Victorian-era city scene entitled
“Washington Street Indianapolis at Dusk.” We get to see the state Capitol and
surroundings as they looked in the 1890s (Groll was in town visiting
relatives). A horse-drawn streetcar picks up passengers; grocery carts,
buggies and pedestrians mingle in fine urban disorder; stores selling
medicine, newspapers and furniture advertise their wares.

The Capitol–topped by a dome, its Corinthian details made of Indiana
limestone–was completed in 1888. Indianapolis (Indiana = “Land of the
Indians” + polis, the Greek word for the center of things, i.e. a city) was
created specifically to serve as the state capital, a place in the geographic
center of Indiana, which joined the Union in 1816.

Now it’s a city of 813,670 residents, some of whom work in skyscrapers that
dwarf the otherwise imposing downtown war memorials and the statehouse itself.
I wanted to get the same perspective on the Capitol that painter Groll
captured, so I took an elevator to the 7th floor of the building that houses
the Public Employees Retirement Fund.

“The view? Oh, we never have time to look out the window,” receptionist
Patrice Stevenson told me. She helped me find a conference room with windows
overlooking Capitol Avenue, but they failed to duplicate anything like Groll’s
artistic vision. Cars jammed the thoroughfares. Plazas and high-rise buildings
had replaced the little shops and vendors’ stalls. The medicine on sale is
Prozac, made here by Eli Lilly. Indianapolis can be startling if you don’t
keep an eye on it. If change is good, the city exudes goodness.

“I used to live in Chicago, born and raised there,” Patrice Stevenson said
as she took in the unfamiliar view. “Then, 15 years ago, we left and came to
Indianapolis. One day, my Dad just said, `There isn’t any sky left in Chicago.
Let’s go!'”

Stevenson should gaze out the window more frequently. She would realize
that Indianapolis is fast running out of sky as well.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Weekend expenses for one

Lodging (two nights) …. $242

Meals ………………. $174

Gas …………………. $47

Museum admissions …….. $33

Parking ……………… $19

Total ………………. $515

IF YOU GO

GETTING THERE

The 185-mile drive from Chicago to Indianapolis takes about 3 1/2 hours,
via Interstate Highways 90 or 80/94 south and east to Interstate Highway 65
south. Exit at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street (Exit 114).

GETTING AROUND

You’ll need that vehicle, because most attractions are not within walking
distance of one another. The downtown is walkable and has a lot to offer, but
those who fail to venture beyond will miss a lot. Bus service isn’t swift and
the routing requires deep study. Use the car. Even during rush hours, I found
the traffic kept moving fairly briskly, and parking is cheap and readily
available by big-city standards.

LODGING

I chose the Crowne Plaza ($121 per night, including taxes) in the mistaken
belief that its home base, Union Station, was still a hot property (see main
story). Even so, it’s a fine location. Neighbors include the elegant
Canterbury and most of the top chains, including a brand-new Marriott near the
Capitol. Room rates across town range from $30 for the cheapest unit in a
decent motel to about $175 in a luxury hotel downtown. The Crowne Plaza is at
123 W. Louisiana St. (317-631-2221).

DINING

In my initial bewilderment, it appeared that all the downtown restaurants
were owned by out-of-town chain operations. That explains the $19 lunch at
P.F. Chang’s (in the City Centre, 49 W. Maryland St., 317-974-5747) and the
$57 dinner at Palomino Euro Bistro (also in the City Centre, 317-974-0400).
Both of them fine places, by the way.

Then I found the Majestic Restaurant (47 S. Pennsylvania St., 317-636-5418)
in a corner of an 1896 building and enjoyed the thickest chowder this side of
New England. An immense spinach salad helped assuage the guilt. Nineteen
dollars for the lunch, including coffee.

Shapiro’s Delicatessen Cafeteria (808 S. Meridian St., 317-631-4041) piles
the pastrami (lean) fist-high. To get to the sandwich maker, you pass
cafeteria cases laden with side dishes and meringue-topped pies even thicker
than the sandwiches. Sandwich, bean salad and key lime pie: $13.

St. Elmo (127 S. Illinois St., 317-635-0636) is about steak, prime rib and
such steakhouse classics as shrimp cocktail and creamed spinach. I passed on
the shrimp cocktail, only to learn afterward that it’s the signature dish with
a sauce that packs plenty of heat. Next time. A small filet mignon, creamed
spinach and drinks cost $75, including tip. Note: the meal price in our
“Bottom Line” also includes breakfasts and other light repasts.

ACTIVITIES

A weekender will run out of time before running out of things to do in
Indianapolis, but the budget shouldn’t break. The Indianapolis Museum of Art
(1200 W. 38th St. at Michigan Road, 317-923-1331) is free, except for special
exhibitions, and so is the Indiana State Museum (202 N. Alabama St.,
317-232-1637). The Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art (500
W. Washington St., 317-636-9378) charges $6, but that includes parking in the
brand-new parking garage at White River State Park.

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame Museum (4790 W. 16th St.,
317-484-6747) costs $3 for a visit to the museum and another $3 for the bus
tour that roams around the infield and sometimes takes to the track when
things aren’t busy.

Adults pay $8 at the Children’s Museum (3000 N. Meridian St.,
317-334-3322), but there are all sorts of age and volume discounts.

The Indianapolis Indians (at Victory Field, 501 W. Maryland St.,
317-269-3545) wind up their season Sept. 1 against the Toledo Mud Hens. Box
seats go for $11, reserved grandstand $9 and unreserved
grandstand/bleachers/lawn $7. Kids under 14 pay a buck less in each category.

I toured the James Whitcomb Riley house (528 Lockerbie St., 317-631-5885;
admission $3; children 50 cents), not so much because I’m a fan of the Hoosier
poet (“Little Orphant Annie”), but because the carefully preserved home
represents a fine example of how life used to be in the Lockerbie section of
town. It’s a fine district to stroll and admire old houses, meticulously
restored. Massachusetts Avenue art galleries are just a few blocks away.

In a corner of White River State Park, the adjoining White River Gardens
and Indianapolis Zoo (1200 W. Washington St., 317-630-2001 for both) display
flora and fauna with as much flair as space permits. A combination ticket
costs $12.75 for anyone older than 12 and younger than 62. Seniors pay $9.50
and children 3-12 $8. Babies get in free. Parking: $3.

INFORMATION

Indianapolis Convention & Visitor Association, One RCA Dome, Suite 100,
Indianapolis IN 46225-1060; 317-639-4282; fax 317-684-2598; e-mail
Icva@indianapolis.org; www.indy.org.

–R.C.

———-

Robert Cross’ e-mail address is bcross@tribune.com.