Community leaders on June 20 celebrated a 1-mile expansion of the Indianapolis Cultural Trail along a historic stretch of Indiana Avenue.
The extension runs along the Madam Walker Legacy Center on Indiana Avenue and continues north to 10th Street. It then heads west on 10th Street to a planned bridge leading to the 16 Tech Innovation District.
Once a thriving hub of Black business and culture, the construction of a highway and the IUPUI campus displaced an estimated 17,000 people from the neighborhood and shuttered many Black-owned businesses.
“When Indiana Avenue was at its height of operations, my grandfather owned a cleaners on this very street,” Candyce Offett, president of the Ransom Place Neighborhood Association and a third-generation Ransom Place resident, said at the event. “My connection to this place is in my bed, and I love it here.”
Others to deliver remarks included Mayor Joe Hogsett, U.S. Rep. André Carson, City-County Council President Vop Osili, Glick Philanthropies President Marianne Glick and Madam Walker Legacy Center President Kristian Little Stricklen.
Also in attendance was A’Lelia Bundles, who wrote a 2001 biography of Madam C.J. Walker, her great-great-grandmother.
The expansion brings greater walkability to the Indiana Avenue Cultural District and also creates a new connection to the Fall Creek Greenway and White River Wapahani Trail. An additional segment of the Cultural Trail along South Street toward Lucas Oil Stadium is slated to open later this year.
Peter Blanchard covers local government. Reach him at 317-605-4836 or peter.blanchard@mirrorindy.org. Follow him on X @peterlblanchard.
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