The Polklore Micro-Museum doesn’t just share the history of the Martindale Brightwood neighborhood on the eastside, it immerses you in it. Housed in the new Cohatch Polk Stables co-working space, the museum displays personal artifacts from neighbors who recorded their stories and memories.
Terri Taylor, a community organizer who grew up in Martindale Brightwood, donated a wooden rolling pin to the museum, which is operated by the Harrison Center. Using the augmented reality app Wintor, guests can hear her recall the smell of her mother’s pies, specifically the fried pies she was known for baking.
An old Polk Sanitary Milk Company sign represents a memory from the late Bill Rasdell, who badgered an Omar Bakery employee to give him free cookies, which he and a friend washed down with milk from Polk’s in the 1950s.
Eunice Trotter, who grew up in Martindale Brightwood and is also the director of Indiana Landmark’s Black Heritage Preservation Program, talked about walking to Indianapolis Public Schools John Hope School 26, which closed in 2007, and grabbing breakfast from the apple and pear trees along the way. This memory is accompanied by a painting of the school building by artist Alicia Zanoni.
Many of these stories were collected during Storytelling Drawing Sessions, hosted by the Harrison Center. Participants were paid in $25 Kroger gift cards for their stories.
As more industry and development moves into Martindale Brightwood, community leaders and Harrison Center workers are striving to preserve the history — and voice of — the neighborhood. Founded in 1872 as a historically working-class suburb of Indianapolis, the 1960s brought substantial changes to the community. White flight and the construction of the interstate effectively segregated the city, and modern-day housing and other development initiatives have changed the dynamics of the neighborhood in recent years and sparked conversations about the risk of gentrification.
Through these shared stories, museum guests get a glimpse into what the neighborhood was like for residents, both before and after the construction of the interstate in 1959, which fractured the neighborhood, both literally and figuratively.
Repairing the fractures caused by gentrification
Lifelong resident Linda Belton said the museum is a great way for those who have been disconnected due to gentrification to come back together to share their stories.
Belton created a string-work tree that recounts her mother’s struggle to stay in her home when many neighbors either left the neighborhood willingly or were forced out by rising property taxes and zoning.
Belton’s mother, Lula, grew up in Mississippi and saw the hard work her own mother put into providing a home for her children. As a young mother in Martindale Brightwood, she wanted to be sure her children could have a safe place to call home.
Belton said her mother, now 86, put her “blood, sweat and tears” into her three-bedroom house on Yandes Street, which she bought new in 1970. The home, particularly its large tree in the front yard, was a gathering space for neighbors, friends and families.
In 2018, when the city needed to put up power lines, Belton said the elm tree was uprooted while her mother was at the grocery store. The depiction of the tree in the Polklore Micro-Museum is a way to honor her mother’s work to stay in her home, where she still resides.
“It wasn’t so much about the tree,” Belton said. “It’s how they bullied us and how they took it. The tree (artwork) has her face in it, and then the stones in the branch of the tree represent me and my siblings. The green circles are meant to show the canopy and how it was broken up, but the roots are still here.”
Harrison Center CEO Joanna Taft said the organization wanted to ensure COhatch worked with and respected the community’s residents and history.
“The neighborhood already had a story, and new people are welcome in, but I don’t think that developers coming in and viewing a neighborhood as a blank slate is good for the developers or the neighbors,” Taft said. “Our big message is: Let’s know who we are; let’s know and love our neighbors.”
The Harrison Center, a nonprofit arts organization, opened in 2000 as a for-profit organization with several tenants in its building on the northside.
The center first started working in the Martindale Brightwood community around 2015, with the Greatriarchs program, honoring longtime residents of the community, starting soon after.
The center’s Preenact Indy program, which runs every year, envisions the long-term benefits of an emphasis on equity and economic mobilization.
Before the shift to working within communities to preserve their histories, the Harrison Center embraced a role of “urban pioneerism,” a movement in which churches and other institutions served as landlords for their respective communities. Starting in 2001, Redeemer Presbyterian Church — which used to be housed where the Harrison Center currently operates — bought the building and started acting as a landlord to artists and three nonprofit tenants.
Along with the museum, which will grow as more artifacts are donated, the space will also house studios for Harrison Center’s resident artists and a recording studio for artists and entrepreneurs to record music and podcasts.
While in its pilot phase, the Polklore Micro Museum is available by appointment only. Visitors can find information about hours or scheduling tours and visits through the Harrison Center website.
Harrison Center hopes other neighborhoods ‘steal’ the idea
Nestled into the right side of the COhatch building, the first piece guests will see before entering the space is a mural that captures the people and places that have helped shape the neighborhood, including figures like jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery and landmarks like the Atlas Factory.
Martindale Brightwood native and Harrison Center fellow Cierra Johnson, 38, used archival photos to create the mural. Johnson also helped collect neighborhood stories for the museum.
“We want to be on the cutting edge of technology and development, but we want to honor our history, as well,” Johnson said. “Our elders and our young people and everyone in the middle can share knowledge and learn from one another. We can honor where we came from while we get to where we’re going.”
Mirror Indy reporter Breanna Cooper covers arts and culture. Email her at breanna.cooper@mirrorindy.org. Follow her on X @BreannaNCooper.
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