The Central Canal

As I have been rummaging through the relics of my former experiences with film photography I have come across as many memories as things.  As I was shooting the first new rolls using the Petri again, I started looking through the contact sheets of the rolls I shot 30 years ago.  Some places long since gone, some timeless and unchanging and some completely transformed.  As I thought about these latter locations, I thought it would be interesting to go back to those places now and use them as subject matter for the Petri.  The first such place I did this was the downtown section of the Indianapolis Central Canal.

 The Central Canal was constructed 150 years ago, initially with the plan to aid in the transportation of goods down the white river.  The canal begins about 5 miles north of Indianapolis as a shoot off White River, in what at the time would have been farmland.  For 6 miles it winds through the old north and north west side in Indy until it emptied back into white river.  Along the way it winds through the Broad and Rocky Ripple neighborhood, the near northwest side and via an aqueduct, passes over Fall Creek before passing along the west side of downtown.

With the advent of the railroads, its life as a transportation corridor was short, but a reincarnation of purpose lasted for several decades afterwards.  It became the water source for Indianapolis.  As it started north of the city, before city run off befouled the White River, it was a cleaner source than the river itself.  A pumping station downtown was built next to it to process and distribute its water.

As Indianapolis grew further north it extended past the beginning of the canal, the quality of the water compared to other sources grew similar.  Growth also meant that the city added additional water infrastructure.  Water was taken from Fall Creek and Eagle and Fall Creek reservoirs were built and lessening the city’s reliance on the canal. 

As a result, during the 50’s and 60’s as routes for the new interstate system were being plotted, the route of the canal became the target of planners looking for a place to run a stretch of I-65.  For about a mile and a half, the canal was filled in and interstate built on the land.  North of the interstate the canal still flowed with water and a new pumping station was built.  South of the interstate, below 10th street is where change occurred.  The canal ran dry.  For 30 years a 10 yard wide, empty ditch ran through the west side of Indianapolis.  The canal also became a dividing line, on one side Downtown on the other, places you didn’t go.

Back in the summer of 1990 I shot the canal from both ends.  I have to admit; at the time I did not know they were the same piece of infrastructure.  Up north a lazy, grassy banked canal filled with water and ducks winds through the Broad ripple neighborhood, past Butler University and past the Art museum.  Pictures taken today would be indistinguishable from those taken in 1990.

But at the bottom of the canal the story was much different.  Back in 1990 and during my early 20’s I was doing what would eventually become the genre of UrbEx photography.  I was looking for blight to take pictures of.  In and by the canal I found it.  A civic embarrassment located just 5 blocks from the statehouse and the new gleaming skyscrapers of the mid to late 80’s.  But changes were a foot and through the images I took on two visits, I was capturing it.  Seeds were being planted but I had no idea what was to come.

The canal was being re-imagined and rebuilt.  Instead of the bucolic charm of the northern part of the canal, the downtown canal was being lined with concrete as its reconstruction, as it inched north, block by block, from the river over a 10 year period.  New museums were built along its banks with entrance doors facing both street and canal.  Additions to the state government complex acknowledged its existence and it became break space for state workers.  Most surprisingly, new housing was built, apartments in ever increasing levels of luxury until a block of million dollar townhouse condos was added. 

The confluence with the White River, now a manmade waterfall, became part of a growing recreational complex known as White River State park.  Across the retired Washington Street bridge over the river is the new zoo and the river promenade.  An entire city area transformed.  Today, the canal is a place to recreate and enjoy an afternoon.  Take a jog, rent a bike or a paddle boat, book a floating tour on a Venice Style gondola, stop at a shop and have some Gelato or visit one of 4 museums - their exhibits, café’s and gift shops.  It’s a place that brings the city together.  The professionals and doctors of the luxury condos jog past girls from the nearby west side looking for a backdrop for their Quincaenera pictures, young kids feed the geese and tourists from the hotels facing the canal take it all in.

It made perfect sense for   me to take my next three rolls of film here with the Petri.  There was progress to document, and no better way than with the subject I first captured 30 years ago.  I had planned to take images from some of the same spots, I could not. Development had closed the points of view. I did my best to try to link together elements of 1990 with 2020. The images from the top of this post are from the summer of 1990, the slide show below, the summer of 2020. Both shot with black and white film.