Bringing Back the Treasured Homes of the Past in Bloomington, IN
By: derekandjenrichey
Tags: 1900s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 4th Street, Bloomington, Bloomington Fading, Bloomington Then and Now, Calvin Worrall, Fairview United Methodist Church, Indiana, Monroe County, Post office, Washington Street
Category: 1880s, 3rd Street, 4th Street, Bloomington, Bloomington Fading, Fairview United Methodist Church, IN, Kirkwood, Monroe County, New Urbanism, Post Office, Then and Now
We can’t yet bring back Woolly Mammoths, but what’s stopping us from bringing back the wonderful old homes that were razed that we often lament about? What if there was just such a project launched in Bloomington, IN? What if we brought back some of the most treasured houses and buildings we lost during the Post WW2 demolition derby?
A dream, a wish for the future.
Click bottom right box on video to enlarge video.
Bloomington Fading 
Not to be picky, but it’s more like “muh-LOTT,” not “MAL-et.”
I do like this “blue-skying.” And you’re right to describe the proposed houses as “approximating” the old buildings. Take a look at some of Nichols’ floor plans. How do you add bathrooms? A path will no longer suffice… Or what about the doctor’s office/former jazz bar on Kirkwood? Do you rebuild just the original house, or do you rebuild the kludge that was the store front as well? There were probably other changes made to that building over the years. Some may have worked well, but remodeling is oft better tagged as “remodeling.”
Life has changed, not in just what we include in our household furnishings, but in where we work and where we live and how we move between those locations. There were certainly no large screen video devices in your golden age. (Nor were there computers, but you might be able to hide one in a roll-top desk.) In the late ’70s, I lived in a nice little house built in 1941. In the seven years there, I never found a good location for a small TV — the house just had not been designed for that use, though a baby-grand piano did fit well. A well-designed house fits the lifestyle of its occupants — it’s not just a container, but a system.
The idea of living and working in close proximity is much more workable because it is natural to us. Living above the shop has worked pretty well for seven hundred or so years in Venice, Italy… or did until steep rents forced most workers to live on-shore. But even in the Indianapolis days of Booth Tarkington’s “Penrod,” a commute was likely to be a walk. Then came the interurban… often with an amusement park at the end of the line. That drew people to outlying areas and began urban sprawl, initially because there was economic incentive to provide goods and services to those drawn to developing neighborhoods.
With convenient and affordable personal transport — the automobile — the sprawl sprawled. Throw in the National Defense Highway System, rugged American individualism, the collapse of bus systems and interurbans, and it’s no wonder how gutted downtown commercial activity has become.
Brooklyn, NY, has become a hip location again, and descendants are returning to the Lower East Side of New York their immigrant forebearers fought so hard to leave. “Block 13” will become a valid development model, and not just for one city block in Bloomington.
Thanks Steve–your remarks are well taken. I agree the new houses will be approximations, and yes, would definitely serve the modern era of technology, etc –especially if they are offices and businesses. Never knew Claude Mallot’s last name pronounced like that!
I whole-heartedly endorse SM’s POV. Well said!