Indiana Preservationist 1985

              Historic
Landmarks
Foundation
of Indiana
^ The Indiana
Preservationist
No. 1, 1985
3402 Boulevard Place, Indianapolis, IN 46208
Main Street wins overwhelming support of state legislature
IF Governor Orr signs a bill recently passed by the
General Assembly, Indiana will have a Main Street
program. The Main Street approach to downtown
revitalization, described in a recent issue of The
Indiana Preservationist (No. 5, 1984), holds great
promise for cities and towns throughout the state.
Indiana's program would be based on the highly
successful model developed by the National Main
Street Center in Washington, DC, and currently in
practice in over 100 cities in 14 states. The program
employs a four-point approach to downtown
revitalization: 1) strong organization; 2) economic
restructuring; 3) promotion and marketing; 4) design
(with respect to facade renovations, signage and
public improvements).
Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana helped
develop the proposed program and will be active in its
operation. The measure recommends the creation of
the Indiana Main Street Program within the
Department of Commerce. The program would
require an appropriation of $290,000—$175,000 for
FY85-86 and $115,000 for FY86-87—to the Department
of Commerce budget.
During the program's first year, five communities
would be selected as demonstration sites from among
all cities and towns that apply to participate. The
program would also provide workshops and technical
assistance to other communities.
The Indiana Main Street Program bill was
introduced in the House by Stephen C. Moberly (R-
Shelbyville) and co -authored by G. Edward Cook (D-
Plymouth), P. Eric Turner (R-Gas City), and David G.
Cheatham (R-North Vernon). In the Senate, the bill's
sponsors were Edward A. Pease (R-Brazil), William Costas
(R-Valparaiso), Frank L. O'Bannon (D-Corydon), and
Michael E. Gery (D-West Lafayette).
Representatives from the following agencies and
organizations testified on behalf of the proposed
legislation: Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana,
Indiana Association of Cities and Towns, Indiana
Chamber of Commerce, Purdue Extension Service,
Indiana Division of Historic Preservation and
Archaeology, and Department of Commerce. The
measure passed both the House and Senate by
overwhelming margins.
The objectives for the Indiana Main Street
Program's first three years in the five demonstration
towns are ambitious:
1) Foster reinvestment of $15 million in private funds.
2) Implement 100 facade restorations.
3) Achieve a net gain of 60 businesses.
4) Create 300 new permanent jobs.
THE success of the Main Street approach is evident
in two Indiana cities—Madison and Greencastle.
Madison was one of three towns in the U.S. selected
by the National Main Street Center for the original
Main Street pilot project in 1977. Main Street
Greencastle, a program initiated by HLFI in
cooperation with DePauw University, local lending
institutions, merchants and businesses, is now just
over a year old. Operating with a budget of only
$27,000, Main Street Greencastle has spurred an
impressive degree of investment:
New construction $3,000,000
Rehabilitation construction $   500,000
Facade improvements 1
Restoration projects 6
New construction projects 2
Business starts 11
Lt. Gov. John Mutz stressed that the Indiana Main
Street Program is a self-help initiative based on local
participation and cost-effective management. He noted
that Main Street programs in other states have
resulted in renovated buildings, new businesses and
jobs, business expansions, increased tax bases, and
improved community images. In a Ways and Means
Committee hearing on the Department of Commerce
budget, Mutz testified that the program addresses an
enormous need identified by the mayors of Hoosier
cities and towns.
Mutz observed that while the program is aimed at
preserving the best of the past, its comprehensive, self-
help approach is oriented toward bettering the
economic future of Indiana's cities and towns. HLFI
president Reid Williamson applauded Mutz's remarks.
"In over 100 cities across the county," Williamson
stated, "Main Street programs have demonstrated that
economic development and historic preservation
strongly reinforce one another"
New Albany celebrates
by Stephen Beardsley
THE Victor Pepin Mansion, an 1851 Venetian
palazzo, stands, sprawls, and soars near the
center of New Albany's Mansion Row Historic District.
Its ballroom on December 13,1984 was the scene of an
elegant banquet. The occasion was the tenth
anniversary of the founding of our Main Street
Preservation Association and its purpose was to honor
Richard Stem, a businessman who more than twenty
years earlier had purchased the Culbertson Mansion
directly across the street to save it from being razed
for a gasoline station.
As I looked about the rooms that evening I was
amazed by the mix and numbers of people who had
come to celebrate our group's birthday. Sitting in the
glow of the crystal chandeliers I saw the present and
former leaders of our city and county governments,
the chief officers of our banking institutions, all of our
friends from the historical and preservation societies,
and the leaders of our major corporate enterprises.
And amidst this throng, here and there, greying but
still passionate, were the founding members of our
organization. The crowd was noisy, celebratory,
exultant, and hopelessly nostalgic.
The Mayor of Louisville, Dr. Harvey Sloane, a
preservationist par excellence, was the featured
speaker on a program crowded with luminescent
personalities. My constant thought throughout this
gracious and exuberant evening was that the
philosophy of preservation had come of age in New
Albany with a robustness and vigor that few of us
could have imagined ten years ago.
IT was not always so in New Albany, a river city
founded in 1813, three miles down river from
Louisville. When our city entered its Gilded Age in
The 1868 Culbertson Mansion stood vacant and
condemned in the 1960s. Today it's one of the
jewels of New Albany's Main Street.
1850, it was the largest city in Indiana. Its 8,000
residents enjoyed the prosperity of an economy
driven by seven banks, several iron manufactories,
railroad companies, and large tobacco and ship
building industries. Beginning in that year and
continuing until 1875, Main Street as we know it today
Mansion Row comeback
was constructed. To this street came the new and old
wealthies, the tycoons and bankers, the politicians,
publicists and financiers, the intellectuals, scholars
and musicians. In earnest competition with one
another, they built residences that strove for size and
uniqueness and which expressed virtually every style
of American architecture.
Here, along ten blocks of a broad boulevard—now
again lined with trees—are Greek and Gothic Revival
homes standing side-by-side with Italian villas, Federal
townhouses, Italianate houses, Second Empire
mansions and other Victorian beauties. Here had lived
preeminence and power expressed in the
personalities of William Culbertson, Washington
Depauw, Michael Kerr, a Speaker of the U.S. House of
Representatives, and others less famous but not less
wealthy, who bristled with all of the importance and
authority that a Gilded Age could confer.
BUT the rise of the railroads put an end to New
Albany's steam boat industry and the economy of
the city was launched on a long and painful slide to
the skids. The nadir was reached in 1960. In that year,
the philosophy of urban renewal was in full blossom,
inner city America had fled to suburbia, and our
historic neighborhoods were placed on the sacrificial
altar of progress.
At that time the Culbertson Mansion stood vacant
and condemned to the bulldozers. A new bridge from
Louisville was to reach Indiana soil at the center of
Main Street, with towering concrete and steel
superstructures. The housing shortage of World War II
had caused most of the mansions on Main Street to be
subdivided into apartments and by 1960 most of them
were victimized by neglect and dilapidation. The 1861
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