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| Mass Ave in the 1970s. |
One of my first jobs out of high school was a route driver
for Calderon Bros. Vending. One of my stops was refilling cigarette machines in
the dive bars on Massachusetts Avenue.
Now this was the late 1970s and Mass
Ave. was probably at its low ebb. It was exciting to me as a 19-year-old kid
seeing the characters in these dives – barflies, grizzled old barkeeps, winos, prostitutes,
hustlers and numbers runners. My coworkers at Calderon Bros. laughed and teased
me about having to work Mass Ave., but I didn’t mind.
A few days ago I found a nearly 40-year-old book called Indianapolis Architecture. It’s a
wonderful look at the city’s buildings, past and present. Mass Avenue was noted
in the mid-1970s as a “skid row” and I clearly remember the gutted and boarded
up buildings and the general malaise of the area in during that period. It’s great to see what Mass Ave. has become today, with its unique and thriving restaurants, art galleries, nightclubs and boutiques.
It goes to show what people with vision can make of a once nearly abandoned area.
In 1979 I certainly wouldn’t have envisioned the Mass Ave. of today, but a small part of me misses the grittiness and rugged character of the Mass Ave. of that earlier time. -- Larry Lawrence
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| Mass Ave. today. |
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