Indianapolis, IN
Indianapolis begins demolition of long-troubled Towne and Terrace housing complex
Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett gives update on Towne and Terrace on east side
Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett spoke with other officials during a press conference Monday, Dec. 16, 2024, at Mount Carmel Baptist Church in Indianapolis.
The city of Indianapolis has started tearing down eight vacant buildings at Towne and Terrace, a blighted housing complex on the far east side, and has paid to relocate a total of 120 households to allow for demolition of the entire site by early 2026.
Built in the 1960s, the townhome complex near 42nd Street and Post Road devolved into a hotbed for drug dealing and crime in recent years, in part because of mismanagement by prior homeowners association leaders, the city says. City officials began buying up the complex’s 32 buildings following a 2022 settlement that ended a nine-year legal battle with the HOA, Towne and Terrace Corp.
The city has set aside $14.4 million to buy and demolish 32 buildings and relocate about 120 households at Towne and Terrace. Demolition started Monday on eight buildings, and 23 remaining properties will come down throughout 2025, according to Aryn Schounce, senior policy adviser to Mayor Joe Hogsett. The first building was demolished in 2023.
“This demolition is more than just removing buildings,” State Sen. La Keisha Jackson, whose district includes the Towne and Terrace site, said at a press conference Monday in nearby Mt. Carmel Church. “It’s about restoring hope and assuring safety for the families who lived here.”
Once the complex is razed, Schounce told IndyStar, officials will plan the future of the site in tandem with the neighboring Oaktree Apartments, another property the city acquired and demolished. Schounce said the two sites work better together as one 38-acre mixed-use redevelopment project, rather than two separate smaller ones.
Hogsett said police have received fewer calls for service to the housing complex since the city demolished one building last year. The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department also installed four surveillance cameras at the site and increased patrols of the area.
“We look forward to continued improvements in public safety as more buildings come down over the coming months,” Hogsett said.
How the city is relocating Towne and Terrace residents
Officials expect the 20 households remaining on the site to find new homes by this spring, with the help of employees in the Department of Metropolitan Development.
Under the federal Uniform Relocation Assistance and Real Property Acquisition Act, the city offered subsidies to tenants so they could pay the same monthly rent as they did at Towne and Terrace for the next three and a half years. For owner-occupants, the city had to pay the difference between the cost of any new comparable home and their home at Towne and Terrace. The city also reimbursed moving expenses.
Liz Durden, a Towne and Terrace resident since 1989 and the current HOA president, said she was reluctant to leave when the city first shared plans to raze all 32 buildings last April.
In the following months, however, Durden found a more expensive single-family home on the far east side, and the city paid for the difference. Now, the 62-year-old grandmother said she owns a better home without any monthly mortgage payments.
Although the process was stressful and she’s sad to see the place where she made so many memories destroyed, Durden has embraced the change.
“I’m real emotional about it, but it gets better and better and better,” Durden said, “because when I walk through the door of my new home, I love it.”
Email IndyStar Housing, Growth and Development Reporter Jordan Smith at JTsmith@gannett.com. Follow him on X: @jordantsmith09
Indianapolis, IN
Meet The Indiana University Indianapolis Librarian Billy Tringali
BILLY TRINGALI’S OFFICE at IU Indianapolis feels more like a Comic-Con booth than an academic’s hidey hole. Posters of saucer-eyed anime and manga heroes cover every vertical surface, and memorabilia line every horizontal one. “It’s like an open-air museum,” Tringali says. “There’s not an inch of wall that’s not covered.”
Tringali is IU’s instruction librarian for undergraduate health sciences, which sounds pretty buttoned up. Until he starts talking about what it entails. “I teach students to hunt things down,” he says. “I do basic AI literacy training. Essentially explaining that you don’t just trust what a chatbot says, because it’s probably lying to you.”
But that’s only part of the story. In addition to his day job, Tringali is also founder and editor of the Journal of Anime and Manga Studies, which makes him arguably one of the world’s leading voices in the scholarly study of the subject.Anime has exploded in the U.S., fueled in part by its omnipresence on streaming services such as Netflix. And manga with titles like My Hero Academia and One Piece are wildly popular among younger readers. Well, not just younger readers. Plenty of grown-ups read them too.
Tringali says people are attracted to anime and manga for simple reasons: accessibility and variety. There’s decades’ worth of materials to read and watch, with subject matter ranging from horror, to adventure, to esoteric philosophic ramblings—sometimes all three in the same work. “Whatever interests you, it exists in anime, and there is a massive backlog for you to explore,” Tringali says. “Anime and manga can be powerful teaching tools for enhancing cultural understanding and improving language skills.”
In addition to reading and watching pretty much everything in the anime/manga world, he’s also analyzed this corner of the pop culture universe in great detail. His journal is the only open access academic periodical that exclusively publishes works discussing the worlds of anime, manga, cosplay, and their fans. What began as a graduate school project now attracts scholars and aficionados from around the world. Every year, Tringali helps run a standing-room-only academic conference at Anime Expo in Los Angeles. “We pack the house,” he says. “Fans are really, really hungry for academic analysis of popular culture.”
His influence is such that within the community he’s known as the anime apostle. He got hooked on the genre early, spending his childhood sitting on his grandmother’s “horrendously purple” living room rug watching endless episodes of Pokémon. When he realized his local library didn’t offer manga, he established a substantial collection simply by donating books from his own trove. “I watched them all being cataloged and thought, Oh, this is going to be a huge problem for me,” Tringali recalls.
Today, his enthusiasm burns just as hot as it did during his Jigglypuff-besotted youth. He channels his devotion by helping students see not only the academic value in his favorite pop culture genre but also the importance of other subcultures. For instance, he’s developing a student sewing circle for cosplay fans who dress up as characters to learn how to sew their own costumes. For the anime apostle, it’s all about spreading the word.
Indianapolis, IN
More big temperature swings this week
Our Monday brings clouds, but we’re also expecting many hours of sunshine to brighten things up. Winds turn more out of the west, which will allow us to warm temperatures back above average. Afternoon highs reach into the lower 40s.
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The “warm-up” doesn’t last too long. A midweek system brings the chance for rain and snow showers followed by more typical January temperatures.
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Indianapolis Weather Forecast:
Monday: Sun and clouds. High: 42°
Tuesday: Mostly cloudy. Showers possible. High: 50°
Wednesday: Mostly cloudy. Scattered rain/snow showers. High: 42°
Indianapolis 7-Day Weather Forecast
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Indianapolis, IN
IU Indianapolis visits Milwaukee on 7-game road skid
IU Indianapolis Jaguars (4-14, 0-7 Horizon League) at Milwaukee Panthers (7-10, 3-3 Horizon League)
Milwaukee; Sunday, 3 p.m. EST
BETMGM SPORTSBOOK LINE: Panthers -9.5; over/under is 166.5
BOTTOM LINE: IU Indianapolis will look to end its seven-game road skid when the Jaguars face Milwaukee.
The Panthers have gone 5-2 at home. Milwaukee ranks third in the Horizon League in rebounding with 34.1 rebounds. Faizon Fields leads the Panthers with 6.1 boards.
The Jaguars are 0-7 in Horizon League play. IU Indianapolis allows 90.1 points to opponents while being outscored by 5.1 points per game.
Milwaukee scores 77.4 points per game, 12.7 fewer points than the 90.1 IU Indianapolis gives up. IU Indianapolis averages 5.6 more points per game (85.0) than Milwaukee allows to opponents (79.4).
The Panthers and Jaguars square off Sunday for the first time in Horizon League play this season.
TOP PERFORMERS: Isaiah Dorceus is averaging 5.8 points and 4.2 assists for the Panthers. Danilo Jovanovich is averaging 12.5 points and 6.2 rebounds while shooting 55.4% over the last 10 games.
Kyler D’Augustino is scoring 17.8 points per game with 3.2 rebounds and 3.1 assists for the Jaguars. Jaxon Edwards is averaging 10.4 points and 1.9 steals over the past 10 games.
LAST 10 GAMES: Panthers: 4-6, averaging 74.2 points, 33.9 rebounds, 13.4 assists, 5.5 steals and 2.4 blocks per game while shooting 41.7% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 78.0 points per game.
Jaguars: 2-8, averaging 79.1 points, 28.4 rebounds, 20.2 assists, 9.6 steals and 3.9 blocks per game while shooting 43.5% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 83.5 points.
___
The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.
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