Something I never noticed before....

...these glass bricks with colored lights behind them.
I pass this doorway many times a week and I've even posted a picture of this awning from another angle with the signs showing what's upstairs here. But I never noticed these lights and the lovely magical effect they have even in the daytime.

Obama HQ - Terre Haute

On Wabash in the 400 block.
Yesterday morning. It was cold. Grand opening for all Indiana Obama hq.
Saxophone player, Papapatty (my husband), played on the sidewalk for about an hour.
You can't see from this picture, but inside, the room is packed with people, wall-to-wall.
Excitement, hope. Young people, old people, many ethnicities.

Coming Attractions

At the Verve nightclub.

Work in Progress

Crossroads Sign

Hilton Garden Inn...

...from inside the Corner Grind.
Not so long ago this view used to be of the Terre Haute House- a once-grand hotel abandoned for decades, and the subject of endless debate, speculation, and eye-rolling disgust. As banal as a chain hotel may be, I'm just glad that there is finally something that has some life and energy on this corner, which is the epicenter of downtown.

My friend tifani

This is the back of my friend Tifani's head.
Oh, yeah, and that is Hillary Clinton reaching to shake her hand on her recent visit here.
This took place at an unscheduled stop as Clinton's motorcade traveled from the Terre Haute International (don't laugh, now!) Airport, down Poplar Street to her scheduled stop at the Saratoga downtown.
Tifani is a nurse at a nursing home and residents were lined up waiting to see the motorcade hoping for a wave. I saw this line-up as I was going headed up Poplar on my way to Rose-Hulman for the previously posted Wellness Fair.
To everyone's surprise, Senator Clinton stopped and shook hands and even sang Happy Birthday to one centagenarian.

Rose Hulman-Stairwell

Another from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology - this is looking up the stairs from the first floor of the Union from here:

Rose Hulman - Wellness Fair

I was out at Rose to help Martha of RiverWools do a table at the Wellness Fair. Here she is knitting away, wearing a wrap I made.
Our sign says "Knit & Crochet For Health (And Cool Stuff!)"
Anecdotal accounts of the health benefits of knitting have been circulating for some time. Now studies are being done that bolster those accounts, particularly in the area of stress reduction. It was great to be able to participate in this fair and talk about the side effects of knitting and other needle arts.

Rose Hulman - Art in the Hall

Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology has a great art collection, athough I didn't have time to see much of it as I was busy with a table at the recent Wellness Fair. Here is a hall in the Union -- just lined with paintings.

Union - Newspaper Guild

Terre Haute is a big union town.
Home of Eugene V. Debs....yeah, that's something I LIKE about this little city.

knitting

Just a little thing I hung in a tree at a public building as part of a relatively tame guerilla art endeavor.
This is the only thing still in place after two years.
I visited it the other day, to take its picture.
It used to be BRIGHT orange.

alley-a door

alley-shadows

ArtReach

The downtown revitalization goes on at street level and above. This location (over the Crossroads Cafe) has long had artists' studios upstairs. Right now we have a gallery, a couple of boutiques and ArtReach.
ArtReach is different things on different nights. On Tuesdays (age 14 - adults) and Wednesdays (adults w/kids under 14) from 6-8 p.m., people can go and just make art. There are big tables, supplies and experienced artists to learn from.

Ohio Street & 7th- looking west at sunset

a tad creepy - and a bit embarrassing.
This 3-lane one-way street is a main thoroughfare through downtown Terre Haute. I'm standing near its intersection with 7th Street, another main street.
And it's so empty at 7:30 p.m.
One expects the sidewalk-roller-uppers any minute. (There's the Vigo County courthouse way in the background.)

alley-winter vines

an alley off 7th near Ohio.
i love vine-covered buildings.
i'll take a picture of this again when there's green...

...and a little more mystery

....and behind the Mysterious Blue Structure, a lone glove is impaled on the barbed wire.

Mysterious Blue Structure

This is in a kind of industrial area I pass by nearly every day....railroad tracks, huge scrap metal pile, abandoned buildings with peeling paint. Because there are Terre Haute leaf pick-up vehicles parked nearby, I am guessing that this yurt-like structure behind chain-link and barbed wire has something to do with composting.

In any case, it's an interesting-looking structure which I have probably passed 100s of times without any curiosity. I'm really enjoying how doing this blog has changed the way I observe my surroundings, how much more mindfully I move around the city.

St. Benedict Catholic Church

Terre Haute has some lovely churches. St. Ben's is one of them. Last year there was a big restoration/maintenance project going on for this church, lots of scaffolding involved.
The thing I've always appreciated about this building is that when the sun is low in the west, all the crosses sort of shimmer and radiate light. I wish I was a good enough photographer to catch that. I tried in this picture:

Warning Siren?

I have always believed this downtown tower to be the source of the every-other-Friday-at-11-a.m. siren test I can faintly hear from my home. This, if it is the siren, is the only such siren in this whole county. So, if it sounds to warn of a tornado...a very limited number of folks are going to hear it. Spring in the Midwest....I don't know that I will ever get used to the tornado watches and warnings and be able to take them in my stride as most of those here seem to do.

Old Parking Garage - Ohio Street view

My kids used to love riding up/down in this glass-sided elevator at the southwest side of the downtown parking garage. Made having to park up on the fifth level (a rare occasion) FUN!

Tracks

I'm not good with tracks. I'm thinking "cat." I love how this set of prints gives me the picture of the critter at the moment of hoisting itself up on my porch, two front paws and the back...

Vigo County Courthouse

This always seems a perfect setting for a gothic novel, an immense foreboding atmosphere seems to come with this building. At Christmas, they string arcs of lights from the top to the ground, and never looks festive to me, more like a a giant spider with legs of blinking dots.....

Corner Grind

Our newest wireless coffee shop, connected to Boo's. This corner, 7th and Wabash, is called the Crossroads of America. Wabash is US 40 and 7th Street here used to be part of US 41 (which now is 4 blocks west.) When I first moved here and lived just off of US 41, it was intriguing to think that , theoretically, I could drive from my house in Indiana to my sister's house in Florida....taking only one road the entire way.

Boo's Crossroads Cafe

I eat here a lot when I go downtown. This always seems like the kind of place reporters like to visit when they are looking to take the pulse of a small town. I took the picture at nearly 2 p.m. Earlier, I would have had to ask for a lot of releases to post this!

Crows

We have a Crow Problem in Terre Haute. Probably because this city generates a warmth that is singular for many miles around, and because there's food for them here (I think we also have a Garbage/Trash Problem....)
I happen to love Crows - there is a powerful, mystical energy associated with them. However, I do not live in one of the neighborhoods that has become a roost to hundreds at a time. I would likely feel a bit differently.
In any case, the Crows were not cooperative in my trying to get a picture of them the other day. This is a tiny, enlarged section of a picture I took from a distance.

7th & Cherry looking South

And here's a view of a block of the Arts Corridor, looking towards the main downtown intersection of 7th and Wabash (the Crossroads of America.)That's the east side of the old Federal Building in the right foreground, and the new Hilton Garden Inn to the left.

7th Street - The Arts Corridor

7th Street from Indiana State University through Downtown Terre Haute has been designated and re-imagined as the Arts Corridor. Here's one of the lightpole banners that line that stretch of road. Lots of good things are awakening in that area.....

Railroaded

A familiar Terre Haute experience.
Being in a long line of cars waiting for a train to pass, no cars going by the other way, because they're all stuck in a line on the other side of the train.
"I was railroaded." - the #1 excuse for being late in Terre Haute.

Headstone Friends / Mural

Headstone Friends - time warp. It's the 60s inside, incense, black lights, Indian print bedspreads. Lots of music. Groovy and outasight.