January 2012: A Year in Review

Happy New Year from all of us here at the Cultural Trail!

In March, the Trail kicked off its biggest construction year yet, with four miles of the Trail under construction this year. All major construction will stop shortly until after the Super Bowl when work on Virginia Avenue and Washington Street will once again commence and be completed in late 2012.

Vito Acconci’s bold piece, Swarm Street, was announced in April. A prestigious ArtPlace grant was awarded to the Cultural Trail in September in support of it, and the second part of a two-part video interview with Mr. Acconci was released in December: watch it on youtube! The installation is going well and it will be complete in the Spring.

In June, Indianapolis Cultural Trail, Inc., the non-profit that will be responsible for marketing, managing, and maintaining the Trail, announced the hiring of their Executive Director, Kären Haley.

Moving Forward was expanded from three to seven bus shelters in July, with the addition of shelters with poems by Mitchell H.L. Douglas, Micah Ling, Vienna Wagner, and Jenny Browne. As of now, the shelter with “The Painters” by Richard Pflum in Fountain Square is completed. It is pictured above, and here are more photos.

There will be seven Moving Forward shelters total—two on Mass. Ave. two on Washington Street and the remaining two on Virginia Avenue will go in during the Spring.

Also in July, WFYI-PBS’ Together In Peace: The Glick Peace Walk won an Emmy in the Historical/Cultural Program or Special category! Additionally, the last two luminary gardens, for Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr., were completed in the fall.

Many public meetings took place, where trail-side businesspeople and homeowners had the opportunity to get their questions answered and voice their opinions and concerns.

In December, the public art project E Pluribus Unum was discontinued; read the press release.

We hope 2012 be as bountiful and productive as 2011.

Click here for the latest construction update.