Ep. 29 - Anderson York - The Indy Bench Mench
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Intro
I received a text message a couple of months ago that said, “This is Anderson York. He said if he doesn’t come on Third Space Indy, it will be an affront to god.”
Since that day, I have witnessed someone who is entirely and wholly committed to making this city better with or without permission from what some people perceive as authority. I have seen somebody with a real impact on his community and the communities of others. And I have personally gained someone I consider a friend (and a bully who makes fun of me for riding the Red Line so much).
Anderson suggested we take a ride on the bus and have a chat, so we did just that, we took the 8 out east. We talked about where he draws inspiration, why he stayed in Indy despite some other places maybe looking more appealing, and how what we both perceive as a city failing its people can improve. I really hope you’ll enjoy our brief conversation and yapping as always. I imagine it may not be our last.
Can be found here:
Links to listen
Links of references from the show
Production learnings
Story Time
Episode Summary
Episode Transcript
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Important links and mentions
Anderson York
(317)397-6663
Production learnings from the episode
I recorded two podcast episodes within two days. I haven’t fully edited this second one, but this was a pretty interesting experiment. I personally believe that the stress of paying attention to whether the camera is falling over, the constant sounds from bumps and the bus itself, as well as trying to focus on a conversation, makes this type of thing pretty difficult to maintain. Shout out to Subway Takes for keeping it together always, maybe I just need more experience — or maybe his videos are just well edited.
As for the video and audio. I actually think on the whole it was pretty good. The video looks pretty good for being in a wobbly, literally ever-changing environment. The audio, in my opinion, sounds pretty good minus some moments of rockiness on the road, but that’s no one’s fault, truly. Overall I’m pretty happy.
I do want to highlight the small production error that occurs toward the end. The new iPhone has a side button for taking pictures and recording videos. That’s its only purpose. My tripod that I use lines up perfectly with this, so sometimes what happens is the tripod will hold down the button, causing it to record. In this case, the jiggle of the bus started ending and starting the video over and over again. Luckily, this only happened toward the end of the show. I have since disabled the button so this can’t happen in the future and makes it so I’m not playing chicken with that button.
The Mayor of 46th Street
Why is it that Anderson York, who has no interest in providing leadership to the city, but is interested in just doing good things, provides a better vision for the future of Indianapolis than the actual mayor of this town? I suspect it has something to do with the profit incentive that the mayor runs with. The mayor is working to destroy public schools, standing by while public transit struggles, and is silent on the potholes, the housing crisis, and his own administration’s scandals.
So, of course, people like Anderson have a better vision for improving the place they live. He experiences the bad parts of living here and shares that with others. He also talks to neighbors in and out of his neighborhood. So he hears it. I suspect that the mayor lets his staffers take the brunt of the feedback so that he is effectively completely removed from the public. So it’s obvious to me that we should certainly think about how to move forward with or without the support of the city, but I think we are moving towards a positive shift in leadership soon.
I look forward to when that shift happens, and I wonder if the Mayor of 46th Street will be at the forefront of the work.
Third Space Indy is supported by City Rising
Episode Summary
In this episode, Anderson and I ride the 8 bus out to the east side of the city and back and talk about whatever comes to our minds. We talk about how Anderson got his start and inspiration for being the Bench Mench, some visions of a better Indianapolis, and overall just spend an hour talking about random stuff.
I am really thankful to have had Anderson on the show and I hope you enjoy.
00:00 Introduction: The Vision for a Better City
01:46 Highlighting Community Builders: The Third Place
02:51 Meet the Indy Bench Mench: Anderson York
04:44 Gifts and Foraging: Anderson's Unique Contributions
05:07 The Origin of Indy Bench Mench
08:24 Building Community: Benches and Beyond
20:05 Inspiration and Collaboration in Indianapolis
23:57 Challenges and Opportunities in the City
32:10 The Importance of Third Spaces
34:13 Parking Dilemma in Indianapolis
36:25 Heat Sink Effect on Snowfall
37:41 Third Spaces and Community Building
40:50 Libraries and Childhood Memories
42:28 The Decline of Third Spaces
43:45 Engaging the Youth
46:25 Public Safety and Transportation
48:18 Favorite Local Spots
53:12 Indianapolis vs. Other Cities
57:36 Vision for Indianapolis' Future
01:00:48 Wrapping Up and Final Thoughts
Episode Transcript
Anderson York
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Both Speakers. Transcription tool failed: [00:00:00] So like when you look at what you're calling a failing city we have a failed city government.
And it's failing the, it is failing the city.
paint. Paint me a picture of your vision of the future. I mean, I kind of hit on it. It's that community and, and like the actual taxpayer focused government where right now our current city government is like the consultant industrial complex. Where we just pay a bunch of people to tell us what to do. and what they tell us to do is build another hotel and, but it's like, what does a hotel do for like me?
Like what does a hotel do for the alleged crime issue? the city needs to take 15, 20 years and just pound the city with. its resident focused, like planning and changes. My neighborhood has four of the 14th streets, four of them have sidewalks.
and two of those streets, it's kind of like, eh, there's sidewalks in some places. And then the other ones are like, everyone wants connectivity. Like we need to make a plan for the next 15 years of how do we fix all the sidewalks that we [00:01:00] implement, sidewalks, how we get like street lights. There was a 30 year ban on like putting in new street lights and there was, same with sidewalks.
We unraveled the city for 30 years with banning of things. It's gonna take just as long, if not longer, to undo that. So there needs to be a long term commitment to resident focused like infrastructure. So sidewalks, the roads, programs for our youth, our schools. like all of that stuff.
So there's my, there's my vision.
Both Speakers. Transcription tool failed: Hey, in 1989, a man wrote a book That man was named Ray Oldenberg, and he wrote a book titled The Great Good Place. In that book, he [00:02:00] described a place that was not home, not at work, and he called it the Third Place.
This is a place where you can go exist, be together, and build community. And I've made it my goal to find people in Indianapolis who are creating third places all over the city. So today I'm ready to highlight my, my guest. Um, I've got a little intro. This person goes by many names. It's true. Uh, The mayor of 46th Street. Yes. The Snow Angel. Yes, the Indy Bench Mench. That is the newest one. The mo, the most modern one. I'm gonna give him my own designation. Ooh. Which is the people's handyman. I like the Ooh. Yeah. I'm gonna get that. Like embroidled.
Embroidered em. Embroidered. I don't know. I'm the hillbilly. Leave Me Alone. This person has gone on record months and months ago, gone on record saying if I do not come on the third space Indy Podcast, it will be in [00:03:00] affront to God. And so we've come together here on this beautiful Sunday to make an appeal to God himself, to record together.
Is this true? Yes. I'm a religious man. I'm not. And I'm the one that sent you front to God. Um. Also, this person was recently featured in a Mirror Indy article where my good friend Peter, who I've never met, my good friend, Peter. Peter Blanchard. Yeah, yeah. Uh, cop, cop Blanchard's. What I'm going to, Peter, uh, highlighted the Indy bench mench as somebody worthy of reaching out to the police for arrest.
Yeah. He called BNS, like, come on dog. So as a result, I didn't think he went far enough. No actions were taken. So I just wanna let you know I've contacted the FBI Perfect. And after we get on the bus, off the bus today, you will be arrested. Wouldn't even be the first time.
Uh, all that said, [00:04:00] the today's guest is the Indy Bench Mench himself. Anderson York. What's up? What's up? We are literally riding the bus, believe it or not. We are riding the bus with, well, we thought Will Hazen was going to be driving it, but no, he's doing a training. Uh, we had like four guests back here.
They all left 'cause they did not wanna sit with us anymore. That's true. We are a nuisance to the public. Um, we so just keeping up the theme of Anderson. Perfect. Yeah. Riding the, riding the bus was Anderson's idea. His, I think in is an ideal, in his ideal world, somebody walks up to us and gets on the microphone.
Uh, yeah, it's like Subway takes. Like Subway takes, yeah. Which IndyGo really wants me to do if we're being honest. So I, I didn't really plan any conversation pieces. 'cause I, first of all, I just wanna thank you for these gifts that you gave me. Yeah. Um, do you need me to hold them up for you? No, I don't think Oh, okay.
Know if we were, well I try to like keep, keep it oral That fair audio. Audio because we can [00:05:00] auto audio lies the things that I gave you. It's fine. Uh, yeah. Don't hold 'em up. Just Okay. Just list them off because, uh, wait, wait. Before we do that, so Anderson is, uh, self-described anarchist. Yeah. Correct? That is correct.
Uh, what that means, I think varies to a lot of people. 100%. Yeah. But, uh, I think in the case of Anderson York, it means that he. Seeks to do good in the world without permission. That is exactly it. It's what's written on my benches now. It is written on all the benches that he delivers. Uh, not all of 'em.
Sometimes I put other stuff. We'll, we'll talk about that in a little bit, but, uh, Anderson said that every time a neighbor moves into his neighborhood and he gives them a little gift bag. And he decided that I'm his neighbor, uh, and gave me a gift bag. so what, what's in the gift bag? Yeah. You are my neighbor.
Uh, so it's a myriad of stuff. Obviously. I do a lot of foraging and gardening and stuff on top of my [00:06:00] menching. Uh, so there is, uh, there's wine in here that I made from foraged, uh, service berries, mulberries and cherries, all mixed together. most of the service berries were from a group of girls, uh, and myself that all kind of, we've, we've come together to forage, uh, stuff together.
there's some grape jelly from wild grapes. Uh, Brookside Park. There is some vanilla extract that I made using, uh, whiskey from Loom on 46th Street. Uh, there's some soap in there made with coffee from Gold Leaf on 46th Street. Uh, there is Persimmon pudding that I made, uh, from Persimmon off of the Monon.
There's also a lot of, there's persimmon in there from the, the group of girls that I, I I've helped train to forage more. Yeah. Uh, there's some pickles in there from my garden, uh, along with some grape leaves, uh, off of my grapes that I apparently [00:07:00] need to get you some more of. So I told you I would make some stuffed grape leaves.
I will give you all the grape leaves in the world for, in exchange for food. I'll happily do so. It is, uh, that is a process, but I'll happily do it. Uh, what else is in here? Oh, and some, uh, tincture that I made. It's good for like upper rec, upper respiratory, uh, so if you're like stuffy or uh, you got a sinus infection, stuff like that, you just do a little, couple dabs underneath the tongue.
Uh, you know, take your conventional medicine too. But this is a herbal. Like way of, of combating some upper respiratory stuff. Huh? I had just realized we were driving through Irvington, and this is making me realize how easy it is to get to Irvington on a bus. Uh, it's extremely easy to get everywhere on a bus.
That's why it literally was 15 minutes, uh, from 46th Street to the transit station. Uh, and we are, uh, the time isn't up here. Yeah. I don't know. Whatever. It's like a, it's like a half hour drive for me from my house. Yeah. And I [00:08:00] think if I had only taken the bus, it would've been probably 40 minutes, which is not that bad.
I love living in, uh, Broad Ripple area for a lot of, lot of different reasons. The one, the only negative that I have about living in Broad Ripple is that driving takes forever to get anywhere. Uh, so you should just not do it. Amen. Yeah. I just don't do it. Um, all right, Anderson, let's talk about, well, actually, I want to touch on the gifts that you said.
Yeah. Because the past couple episodes I've brought up this idea of food sovereignty. Yeah. And like taking control back. Um, I do enjoy that your podcast has become like an alt-left pipeline. I'm trying, uh, I'm trying to make it for the layman though. Um, so it's a pipeline, like Yeah. You know, just like strictly like blatantly.
Can you tell me about like how you got started [00:09:00] foraging and creating and crafting? Nice and just like, like making tinctures and, and soap. Yeah. So, honestly, uh, I think like most people it was, uh, like 2020 during the pandemic. Uh, I was doing, there's somewhere out there, there is a shirt with my face on it that says, uh, York's yum yums on it.
My wife has one, but there was more made, that sounds kind of dirty. I really hope that there's like some Goodwill where there, there's my face is like roaming around. Uh, I was selling bagels. I was making bagels like out of my apartment and like some other stuff with bagels was what most everybody wanted.
Um, and so that just kind of like set me down the, the path of, of creating more, cooking, more. I worked at Rooster's Kitchen, like RIP uh, during the Pandemic as well. Ross Katz let me kind of, we did some farmer's markets and he kind of let me just, I. Hey, there's some stuff in the freezer go create. So I got to be kind of creative and just make [00:10:00] whatever I wanted.
Um, and then kind of getting more into the, the foraging and stuff was, is just trying to connect more with like my surroundings, Indianapolis and, and things like that. Um, and same time in 2020, I was, when I was let go from my giant, my like full-time job, uh, before they let me go, they offered me like four different positions out west.
They were just like, Hey, come move to Arizona. I'm like, I'm fat. No thanks. Uh, come move to Vegas. And I'm like, I hate gambling. Uh, got moved to Idaho and I was like, that's not a real state. Um, so I stayed and the, the real reason why I stayed was my sister had a stroke. Uh, so I, like, for me it was to stay and take care of my sister, but when I decided to actually stay.
In Indianapolis instead of moving. It was, I wanted to try to do as much as I could to connect, connect more with [00:11:00] my city, connect more with my surroundings, connect more with just everything, just be a better hoer. Um, so I mean, my sisters stroke, uh, kind of is what kept me here and got me to dedicate, you know, more of myself to my city.
So she's my, she's my good angel. That kept me here. So. So did you, before any of this occurred, were you, like, would you consider yourself like closed off or No, no, no, no, no. I, uh, I was talking to my boss on Friday, uh, 'cause she finally found the Mirror Indy article and she's like, so how long have you been like
the helper?
And like, good to everybody. And it's like, well, one of the comments on the Mirror Indy article was somebody who went to high school for, and he said Anderson would give you his like shirt off his back. And I was like, I haven't talked to this dude literally since high school. 34. Do the math. Uh, I'm not, uh, so I, I've always been, you know, [00:12:00] trying to give as much as I can to others.
But, it was then when I started doing more like hyper-local, hyper, like the things in my own backyard, things in around the city. Yeah. I've been thinking a lot about, uh, being unemployed recently, just like how the, like the manic life that is. 'cause like some days you'll be like, some days it's awesome, you're like, oh man, I'm, I'm, don't have shit to do today.
But then eventually you get to the point where it's like, oh my God, I don't have shit to do today. Every once in a, I, I used to, when I was still like active on Twitter, when I would take like PTO I would always like label it as like, like, I'm unemployed and I would just do the most like, random shit possible.
And I would just keep posting it to Twitter and just be like, your unemployed friend at 2:00 PM on Tuesday. Uh, 'cause I just would be like in the middle of Marrot Woods or some shit. Um, with like three beers, but I was thinking about like the, the, like trying to get a job and in an interview. My line would [00:13:00] always be like, something along the lines of like, I'm super people focused.
Like, I'm like, that is basically of my entire selling point is that I like love helping people. Yeah. I love talking and helping people. And if you didn't know this, that will never get you a job. Well, at least not the jobs. I was trying, I was just say the jobs that you do, I like, I'm not gonna, I'm not, I'm not gonna say who my employer is, but like, you know, I, I work in sales, I work in service and, uh, that is what's gotten me really far Yeah.
In, in my career is, is being problem solving focused like, uh, for, it's, you can listen to what someone's need is. And you can craft that into whatever the hell you're trying to sell them. Yeah, definitely. So it it, it, it is useful.. So let's talk about the, because I, again, I always gotta think of my mother. If somebody doesn't know what the Indy Bench Mench is, can you tell me what the Indy Bench Mench is?
Uh, it was a joke. Dead serious. Yeah. [00:14:00] I, uh, so I have a newborn, well, do you still call it like 10 week old newborns? I don't know what the cutoff is anymore. Wait, I don't how old? I have a, it's 10 weeks old now. That sounds new to me. All right. We'll call it. We'll, it's still a newborn. So I, I need to start a little bit farther back.
Over the summer, there was some like trash lumber in the Alley next on the Monon, and there was no bench at 49th in the Monon. And I was like, oh, I'm gonna take this lumber and build a bench and throw it just right here. So that, and now I've moved another bench that was somewhere else that I'm not gonna say.
Uh, and now there's two benches there. Yeah. And we call that our office, like me and our neighbors, we just kind of hang out there. Anyway, so now the bench mench origin of this was, uh, we had a neighbor, or sorry, I was, we had Jesus, we had a child. We were on a walk with our newborn. Uh, my wife had to stop and breastfeed, so we were right there at the Monon.
So we stopped and sat on our bench. I took a picture of my wife, I put it on my personal [00:15:00] Facebook and just said, build benches so hot girls can breastfeed. And one of my other like friends on there commented, the next thing you're gonna know, there's gonna be an Instagram page called Bench Mench and you're gonna build benches for people.
And I said, no, wait, hold on. That's kind of funny. And made the Instagram page and just like shared it and said, done. Uh, I put the first, I put that same image in my wife. I didn't say hot girls on that one. Uh, and just said, send me 40 bucks and a place you wanna bench and I will deliver to the bench. Yeah.
Uh, and now there's like 20. Three benches. 2323 benches. It's only been like two months ish. I have un, I have unmedicated. A, D, H, D. Yeah. It's my superpower. I, I would say I have undiagnosed A, DH, DI don't know. I, I'm not, I'm not also di not diagnosed, but I know how I feel after like Three Red Bulls is very different than [00:16:00] before.
And it's like you're the opposite of what you're supposed to be. It's like hyper-focused in, you're like, oh, this is ADHD real sick. Um, 23 benches now. I, I remember, uh,
oh, I will say ever since you, basically, ever since the Mirror Indy article, which was two weeks ago-ish. Yeah. Um, I will say a lot of these came after that. Oh, okay. Because a lot of it was just a lot of just people throwing me money and just saying, put a bench wherever. So I've had to put up a lot of like, Hey, where do you wanna be?
I, I don't, 'cause I don't know. I know my neighborhood. I know I lived in, I lived in Irvington, I know that neighborhood. I lived, uh, a frequent township. Like I know that neighborhood. I don't know. Like your neighborhood. Yeah. So it's like, I don't know where. You actually need one. so I just always throw it out there like, Hey, I've got money for a bench.
Where do you want it to go? [00:17:00] Yeah. It's sort of like that conversation around, like when, when people see that you're doing a lot of work, they go, Hey, I would love to help you. Just let me know how. Yeah. It's like, I don't know how you can help me. I need you to tell me. I get that a lot. I where people were like, Hey, can I come help, like build benches?
And I was like, I don't know. I did do that to you. You did do that, you're fine. But it was like randoms. Yeah. And I'm like, uh, I don't, I don't, I'm not just gonna like, come have you hang out in my garage. Um, and then I have, I've also had a lot of people that it's always funny, like they'll throw me money and they're like, oh, here, pick a bench forever.
And I was like, I'm doing this at cost. Like I'm not really making money and you're putting it through my Venmo. So my personal Venmo, so I'm gonna end up paying taxes on this. So I love, I love what you're doing, but you know, don't just like throw me money if you don't actually have an idea. but I do love the support.
I'm here for it. Yeah. I don't wanna like stop anyone from doing it. Oh. But what I was saying though is that I feel like since the Mirror Indy the article, I've seen [00:18:00] people in other cities who have been doing this. Like Yeah, Cincinnati's done it, uh, Cincinnati, long time. Seattle. Similar place. Yeah. Uh, Cincinnati.
They actually like did it and then worked through their city government to make it legal. Yeah. Uh, Cam Hardy, I need to talk to him about that 'cause he was involved in that. Uh, so that's what I meant to ask Andrea Hunley when I was with our like, weird, this is our like, estranged child together photo was, I was gonna, that was a very odd photo.
I was, I showed up with this bench and they're just like, Hey, everybody go like, take a seat. They sit. Andrea Hunley next to me like we are right now. And I was just like, uh, I I, my hair is all crazy 'cause I like. I don't know. I have a 10 week old, like sometimes I look crazy. Uh, I'm pretty sure you weren't even planning to be there that day.
No, no, I wasn't. It was like. An hour before someone was like, Hey, can you come bring a bench to this? And I was like, uh, I have one that's supposed to go at 10th and College. [00:19:00] I'll bring you that one. But you have to take it up there afterwards. Uh, and I did, I did partake in taking it up there. Thank you. I carried it three blocks.
Not nice. They're heavy bitches, man. They're, they're nice. So
you bully me. I do, I did actually, that's also in the bag. I gave you a, a, a a bus route map. Oh, this cemetery is nice. Sorry. I'm like, I'm like a cat or a dog or a, yeah. I used to be called a golden retriever. I just like things that I, I need to, I, I'm awesome. My wife calls me a golden retriever, like I did a Flanner House, like tree giveaway thing, and I realized I'd been there for hours, hadn't eaten anything.
So I went over to Cleo's and got a sandwich and I was, ended up just sitting at Cleos talking to random people, just holding the sandwich, never eating it. And then I come back to the tree thing and it was like 45 minutes later, they're like, where the hell have you been? I was like, ah, just, just yapping. I just forgot.
Uh, and I still had this sandwich, ea sandwich in my hand. It's a great sandwich if you haven't had Cleo's. I have had Cleo's, it's [00:20:00] three rules. Um, when I went to go talk to Nick, Selm actually, who, which is actually what I wanna talk about. Okay. Um, these people around town who inspire you or have inspired you or you inspire them, that's sort of cyclical nature of, of, uh, you've had a few of along your kind of work.
Yeah. Uh, can you talk about people like Nick Selm and Sierra, uh, Sierra Nuckols and Yeah. And maybe other people I haven't met yet who do work that inspires you? Yeah, those, so Nick run.., I mean, you've had him on, so Nick runs the FEED program and Flanner, uh, like the whole flanner like organization run by Brandon Cosby.
He's, he, if you wanted like a huge vision of what Flanner, like Brandon would be a good one to talk to. Um, but, so Nick is, was one of the first people to encourage me to come out and just like share my knowledge with other people. He reached out to me. And was like, Hey, uh, I want to teach people how to build garden beds for free.
[00:21:00] Uh, just using like pallets that we have at the farm. Uh, so I sat down, did a couple different designs, and we ended up just going with like the easiest one possible. Um, and it's literally just four pallets put together with some, um, fabric like, uh, garden fabric. Yeah. And we do a hoggle method, which a what?
Hoggle. Can you spell that? Uh, no, it's German. It's basically, it's like layering, you put like tree br uh, tree logs at the bottom, then tree branches, then leaves, and then other compost and stuff in basically you're creating, uh, biodiversity that will break down over like over a long time to create the nutrients that the garden actually needs.
Got it. And then also because you have lifted it from the ground, right? Correct. So that's where it becomes more difficult also, so that you're not putting, you know, pallets are what, like three fill high. You're not putting three feet. By like nine cubic yards of, uh, soil, which would be ungodly expensive, whereas [00:22:00] there's Chreece everywhere.
Yeah. Like throw that shit in the bottom. Uh, so that's like Nick was the one that first encouraged me to like, come out and like share. Sierra's a person that I've always kinda watched from afar and watched what she does. I've, I've. I used to have one of her, uh, boxes at my own house. and then I've like helped her out a couple times where she'd be like, I need someone to come pick up and move boxes.
She was always someone that I would just do random like work for. but then when we had the snap, ending freeze, freeze, yeah, thank you. Uh, they, I was, you know, you, you see online everyone's like. What can I do to help? What can I do to help? Uh, Sierra had a post where she was, people were asking her for boxes and she said she's completely out of boxes.
I had a bunch of random money from, like, people were like, Hey, build a bench wherever. Uh, so I reached out to Sierra. I was like, Hey, what if we do, [00:23:00] we take all these people that want to do something to help and hold a workshop and just build a bunch of boxes and we can just send them out into the world.
So we, when we created on that day, uh, 24 complete boxes. There's another seven or eight that are not complete, that we're actually gonna use as like produce stands. and so that those can go out into the world. So there's oh, nearly 30 new like, access points of food throughout the city. so that was really fun.
That was really cool to get to, able to do. Um, so yeah. Is there anyone else around Indianapolis who's like, and if you don't know their name, that's cool too. Like just someone doing stuff that's like interesting to you? Well, there's a, uh, I don't wanna give na, there's a lot of like, so you don't wanna get banned?
No. Yeah, yeah. No, I don't wanna give names, so. Oh, okay. Okay. What I'll say is there's a lot of like. And city employees that are doing a lot of like hidden background work. cause I, I'll we live in a failing city. [00:24:00] Yeah. Like, and because of the leadership of our city, it's a failing city. Yeah. Uh, but there are like city word employees that are like holding this shit together.
Uh, and they're fucking awesome. same with IndyGo. There's like hidden IndyGo people that have, thrown some support my way. Uh, there's, I, my biggest fans are just the people of Indianapolis. Yeah. Like the people of Indianapolis will show up and show out for anything and everything. Like they love committing to our city.
Yeah. So I was walking around with, uh, Jesse Brown the other day actually. We got coffee and we were walking down Michigan Street. We walked past Alley Cat. And like a block from Alley Cat? Well, about two blocks from Alley Cat is the women's prison, which is ideally gonna get renovated. Um, sorry, when you say Alley Cat, I think Broad Ripple.
Sorry. Ceramics Alley Cat Ceramics. Yeah. On Michigan. There's so many things named Cat in this city. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so there's a women's prison, like two blocks, but [00:25:00] like between Alley Cat ceramics and the women's prison, there's just so much, not only empty lots, but buildings that are dilapidated. Yeah. And I was telling Jesse that like when I see those buildings and I see those empty lots, I see so much potential and so much like.
Like, truly like beauty and I have like a vision for what could be. Yeah. And when you say that Indianapolis is failing, like I feel that because I see these places that could be beautiful and could be third spaces or community like things. Um, my radical take is that the city should basically, like if they have, if there's these dilapidated properties and they haven't done anything with them for five, 10, whatever the appropriate, you know, way of like, they haven't done anything with this property for five years.
It should be seized and it should be, uh, like the community, if there's a community organization within that area, it should be essentially given to them to decide, like [00:26:00] to do something with. Yeah. Uh, 'cause there's people who are just like sitting on land or Yeah. Dead buildings just waiting for. Something.
And there's so many, many people, like within your own community that have an idea, but they don't really have the money or the way the means to like buy these properties to do these cool things. So the city should be encouraging. 'cause that's the thing is they're sitting on these empty buildings that they essentially just use as a way to not pay taxes.
So the city should take them and then give them the people that will actually pay taxes. Yeah. And that will benefit the, it will create a benefit within the community and then also benefit to the greater, like Indianapolis with creating a larger tax base. Yeah, definitely. I actually share that view. I just couldn't phrase it as eloquently as you, no one's ever said elegant about me, so I don't know about that.
One time when I was a freshman in college, the RA not my RA but of RA of a different floor. I lived in Forest at IU Bloomington. Shout [00:27:00] out. Um, he gave me like, I don't know, it was just an observation.
It didn't feel like an insult or a compliment. He was like, Michael, you seem like somebody who wants to be perceived as deeply silly, but it's actually like on the inside, like pretty serious. And I was like, I think you're kind of right. It's like, I'm like pretty, I'm like a pretty serious person, but I, when I drink too much coffee, it gets silly.
Is will he even smoking a cigarette? Yeah. Will smokes ciggies. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, he's a heater. I've seen him, I've seen him like when at the bus stop by his house waiting to like, make a connection and he is just, just throwing back darts. I love the kid.
Yeah. I, that's a, that was a, that was only like the first time that we connected. There was something, you were talking about third spaces and it was about like, when people stopped smoking cigarettes, it was like the biggest lost third space. I think that was the first time that we communicated.
I've never smoked a cigarette. I don't, I But also I don't think you do either. I don't either. But it's, [00:28:00] but it's, it's real, like it is, so many people are working and then like, they take their, they take a smoke break and they go outside and they talk about literally not work. Yeah. And that is a third space.
Yeah. Like going outside and talking about, not like, and, and now that we're like. Vaping inside, you're like a terrible person. And then also not going outside and like being a part of the collective. My hat. Your haters need haters. I do need haters. what's the, okay, so the current mayor of, uh, New York City, um, why is his name Tony is, why is his name escaping me? Uh, Eric Adams. Eric Adams funny is he's one of those people that if he existed outside of government and I just got to see him just outside of government, I'd think he's the funniest person.
Just like Donald Trump. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Born, born comedian. Literally, yeah. Like. This is my like, terrible take. We should have had like Mitt Romney as president or something terrible and then Trump should have been like, press secretary. That would've been fucking [00:29:00] hilarious. It, the, a lot of terrible shit would still happen, but we would just, like, Trump would just be the like, like the funny guy.
Yeah. On the side. Um, oh, so current, current mayor of New York City, Eric Adams likes to, or has gone on record to say, turn your haters into waiters at the table of success. And that's my favorite thing to say. I say it to Anna all the time whenever she just, like, whenever Anna will be like, Michael, why are you doing that?
I'll be like, Anna, turn your haters in the waiters.
I'm here to, I'm here to serve. HeyThird Space Indy. It's sponsored by cityrising.org. Shout out to Mark Latta for sponsoring the podcast.
City Rising is a social impact studio that leads and supports innovative projects that strengthen, celebrate and repair people and places. So if you're a people or you live in a place and you're interested in improving your built environment, your community, or the world [00:30:00] you live in, reach out to me or reach out to Mark Latta cityrising.org and we'll get you connected.
Let's do it. Uh, but Mark has sponsored a question. Have you ever met Mark? Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. I, uh, couple times at like Cottage Home stuff. We was like, uh, hang out at the, at the Cottage Home, like park, uh, it was like a dad's bonfire over there. Uh, and then I went to the, like Jesse Brown, like march through D 13.
I think it was mostly, it was a, it was a show of like. To VOP of like, would your constituents do this for you? Yeah. Nah, that's how I felt at the ILEA meeting. It was like a charter school person would go up, say their statement that sounded like scripted, oh my god.
And dude, those, oh my God, it sounded super scripted, like silence. And then it'd walk away. And then the IPS supporter would walk up, um, it was like genuine statement, genuine from the heart. [00:31:00] It was genuine from the heart. And people would go crazy and like clap and stuff. And I was like, okay, I see where the people's people's hearts are.
Dude, those, those, those charter school. I don't wanna get into a charter school thing on here. No, that's, that's a future conversation on the podcast. But like, those charter school like are so bad what they give people. 'cause I was at the State House for one of these and they had a lady up there. They, they brought this lady, this Hispanic lady out to like speak Spanish and bunch of, you know, rural Indiana Republicans like, yeah, sure, that's gonna go great.
Yeah. But this lady, like it was saying that they were gonna take her buses away. Like from her kids and they were like afraid. Like, and then she said she, her kid goes to an innovation school. Yeah. And I was like, no dog. You get buses for free through IPS. Someone told me that a lot of these charter schools, I, we don't have to keep going on this tangent, but a lot of charter schools, uh, intentionally choose not to take the IPS bus like service [00:32:00] so that they can then go to these ILEA meetings and complain about it.
Dude, like it's shooting yourself in the foot. Yeah. So like, then say that he shot me. Yeah. Like, what are you, anyways, Mark Latta has sponsored a question on the podcast, which is, what is a third space to you? To me, to you? Uh, well obvious. So Indianapolis, like just the whole of the city.
The whole city. Well, just utilizing the ci, like obviously I make these benches. So that you go out and those benches are a third space and it's, it's creating a third space within Indianapolis. You know, a lot of 'em are at bus stops, but I, there's one that's just at this, like empty lot that dudes hang out at.
Uh, so use Indianapolis as your third space? No, we have a lot of, there's a lot of like really cool spaces within [00:33:00] Indianapolis that need to be utilized
more.
Like I love our greenways and I love our, our parks and everything. And it's like we need to be hanging out in these places more. I think Broad Ripple Park is one of the nicest parks I maybe have ever been to, but it feels dead all the time.
All the time. And I don't know why all the time. And they're trying to pave a road through the center of it. Did you know that? Oh dude, that was awesome. They're still trying to do that. It's not, I. I, I, I, I'm very close to one of the BRVA people that is doing some good work on it. And he, he also runs like the farmer's market.
It is a road through the middle of the park. Is it Andy? It's Andy. Okay. Uh, it is a road through the middle out. The Andy, Andy Porter rules does, that's another one. Doing a lot of great work. I like Andy. Um, they're building a road through the middle of the park and they are gonna cut down like five very large ancient trees, which, yes, that sucks.
We hate that. More roads in Indy. We hate that. I get it. I understand. [00:34:00] Uh, it's farmer's market. It's the largest farmer's market in the city. It has no permanent home. It's literally in the, like a parking lot. I hate it. A sub-parking lot of Lowe's. That's not in Broder pool. That's not in Broad Ripple. The only way they could hold it in that park is if they were to put all the vendors within the park and just destroy the park.
Now I have a question. There's two very large parking lots. Why can't they use those? I, I, that was what I said. I did say that I be, and I think they're like, well, because like, where would people park? 'cause you know it's Indianapolis. Yeah. 'cause people can't, everyone has to drive. I've, I've learned that actually this is, this is a recent development in my thinking is that drivers don't have object permanence.
No, they don't. This was the biggest thing about that Broad Ripple meeting where they were like, talking about where I met woke Mayor Braynard, by the way, uh, about the dr. Like, they were like, we need more parking. And it's like, you could build a literal, like mini parking garage in front of every single, um, like business in Broad Ripple pool.
[00:35:00] And people would still bitch be like, unless, like they will bitch, unless they can want get out of their car and it's directly in front of like the place they're gonna go. They're gonna, there's. Because they were talking about making the fire department that's in the middle of like Westfield Boulevard, like into a, a police station with like holding cells.
Yes. And I was like, absolutely not. And then they were talking about more parking, and I was like, we have a parking garage on College that has a police substation in it that no one uses. Did you see my, uh, it's not the Turkey Trot Drumstick Dash. Uh, that morning I posted like, oh, the people found the parking and Broad Ripple yeah, yeah.
I was like, oh. They finally figured out that there's neighborhood streets and you can walk like a half block. Actually, it's crazy. You can walk places in Broad Ripple, um, like no one ever parks on my neighborhood street. I, it, I cannot foresee a scenario where so many people park on my neighborhood street that it becomes a problem.
Like there, there's so much space you just have to walk just [00:36:00] like a smidgen. Um, dude, that's the thing. Unless like we are, we are trying to create solutions for people that were will complain no matter what. So it's like why throw those opinions in the absolute garbage and, and only do things that are of benefit?
Yeah. For those of you who don't know, parking and car based infrastructure is the most subsidized form of land use. You know why in the US we didn't really get much snow yesterday because we, we were just a giant heat sink. Uh, so it creates dry air, which like all that moisture just like creates that bubble.
Like, so the, the, all of these streets and lanes and parking lots and everything is why we didn't want have snow. You want, I saw that if you want snow, you want a real snow day, uh, get rid of lanes. So we were for, for context. Uh, on what Anderson just said, like we were supposed to get like four or five inches of snow.
Yeah. Up to six. Six or seven. [00:37:00] I'm a 10-year-old. Uh, um, but I was seeing these graphics from local like meteorologists that just like the snowstorm, it looked like a conspiracy theory that Yeah. Is that the snow? Someone said it just like went around the city, which is like crazy because of what you just said.
There's so much heat in the asphalt on the ground. Yeah. It create the heat, it's a heat sink and then it creates dry air so that moisture doesn't like break through. It's creating this like dry air barrier. Yeah. That we have the, it has to overcome. So that's why it snowed all around us for hours. And then finally it started snowing here.
'cause it broke that barrier. Yeah. And all the roads are like pretty clean right now. Um, pretty crazy. Uh, third space is the whole city. Just, well, I mean, you gave the definition at the beginning, it's just anywhere that's not work or home.
Yeah,
so like my everywhere else. Yeah. So it's like get on a bike, go find a part.
Like I love riding my bike through parts of town that I [00:38:00] don't actually know that well. 'cause when you're on your bike, you're low to the ground, you're out, you're out in the open and you say hi to people. You talk to people, you get more stories about other people in their neighborhood. So I always try to like pick a random neighborhood that I haven't been through before.
So there is a, um, can all touch grass and talk to people. I've probably said this on the podcast before, but, um, I'm gonna repeat it 'cause I really like it. Almost everyone I talk to tell them what I'm doing here. I say like, are you interested in connecting with more people? Are you interested in having more friends?
Are you interested in like creating community, that type of thing? And overwhelmingly the answer is yes. Yeah. And then the follow up question to that is, have you tried? No? And the answer is always no. So this is, so this is why I started our like, neighborhood association Uhhuh, was because the Sober alliance, sober alliance, we had a, we had a long time neighbor who was [00:39:00] like, I really hate association.
Like, let's not be a neighborhood. And I was like, cool, what's your idea? Then she said, Alliance, we went with it. It's, it's Cher. She's the best. She's the most, she's like a, a purple house that's all pink inside. She's the most lovely. That's crazy. Yeah, she's lovely. I love her. And that's what she wanted. So we gave it to her.
Uh, but this is why we started this was I, we as millennials, like crave being with other people, but we're so fucking terrible at like doing it. So our neighborhood association is not really about like. Changing infrastructure, which we are like I gave John Barth our like priorities. Um, but it's about like creating community, like gatherings.
We do a picnic, we had Halloween, uh, and then doing mutual aid for each other. Like I had, um, eight people that were willing to go shovel snow today, uh, for our elderly and disabled na neighbors. And then it [00:40:00] rained and all the snow's gone, so they didn't have to go out. But like, that's what I'm trying to create is more connections with our neighbors.
'cause the more you like, you know about 'em, and that's why I bring 'em the bags is so that I get to know their name, like the bag they know, like I'm the kooky dude with the garden out front. And normally there's chicken eggs, but my chickens are protesting right now. That's okay. Uh, so, you know, that's a, like, I give them a little piece of myself so that I can get more out of them.
Uh, but like that's what our neighborhood like association is about, is just creating that opportunity. To connect with each other. Yeah. what is a third space for you that you've had in the past that no longer exists for you?
A lot of, a lot of libraries. Honestly. So like are there libraries locally that have just gone, like going poof, they've gone away or they've moved or things like, so, so like one of my fondest, so when I was a kid, [00:41:00] I live, I, like my mom moved to Kansas City and so I was spending a lot of time at my, my dad lived out in Putnam County, but I was still going to schools here in Indy.
So I spent a lot of time like at my grandparents' house, basically like waiting for my dad to come get me. Uh, and one of like, my fondest memories with my grandpa was we would ride our bikes up to the, like, Eagle, Eagle Dale Library. Um, 'cause it was like the only, we could safely ride bikes there. Um, but it's moved, it's over on like 38th by the Meyer on the West 38th now.
Um, but that old, and it's, it's one of the new buildings. It's beautiful. But I miss that old like, neighborhood hoodie, small library. Like I remember the computers having the like. Dos and like orange font on the, like, it wasn't like where you go to like play Roblox or whatever. It was like where I went with my grandpa to get books.
I ran like a, basically like a programming education program with [00:42:00] a, with a brothers and sister. Uh, wait, what's the organization called? Little Brothers. Big Brothers. Big Sisters. Big Brothers, big Sisters in Bloomington when I was a student there, and we would teach them like a short programming lesson and then the kids would be like, I'm Play Roblox.
They'd be like, shut off. It's like, okay, well that's fine. Move on with your life. No. Or like. I was thinking about this a little bit and I was like, what's a third space that's, that's gone for like a lot of us. Uh, what I was trying to think of like, what was the downfall of some third spaces, and I think I've tied it to McDonald's getting rid of Play Places when McDonald's got rid of all the Play Places.
Like there was no like cheap place you could feed your kid, like, and then like let them go play. Yeah. And it's indoor because like, we have a lot of parks obviously, but you know, it's 20 degrees a day. It's snowy. Like where do you take your kid today? Yeah. Uh, you could have taken him to the McDonald's Play Place.
I think the conversation, I, I do think, my good friend Mike, who, I won't say his last name, [00:43:00] but my good friend Mike, uh, said I think about this almost every day. we were talking about. I was talk about schooling. Mm-hmm. For some reason, this was months ago, and then Mike just said children are the most hated minority.
Yeah. Of any, yeah, like, like any group, there's no profit in, like, there. The, the, there's no like. Tangible profit off of like children, like creating spaces for children. There's no tangible profit, so they just do not, and that's why, you know, when they say there's like a youth crime problem in the city and it's like, well, what the hell have you created for these kids?
Yeah. Not a damn thing. Yeah. Like take some of these dilapidated places that you're talking about. Create spaces for kids. Or like even, it could even be for like, some of the older kids, create incentives for like, putting kids to work. Like have some of these Put 'em to work. Put 'em to work, put the, the kids yearn for the mines.
That's
what say,
uh, [00:44:00] like my, like my son in particular, he loves building the benches. He loves building things. And it's like, and he's only 10. Yeah. So there's kids that want to do these things and it's, they wanna be engaged. Yeah. Give them a get, get some of these, like, contractors across the city get, like incentivize them to give an apprenticeship to a kid, you know, 16, 17, 18-year-old, whatever.
Put some cash in their hands, put some time, you know, outside there is actually, like, there's a high school program. It's called like Young Entrepreneurs or, yeah. I forget what, do you know what I'm talking about? It's like a, there's a couple different schools that have that, like tech. So Tech has some good, some good program.
They have like a carpen injury program, the Ottawa Auto Shop, there's a. Uh, do welding. You can do welding there. Yeah. There's a lot of like that stuff there. Well, and obviously Ben Davis does the career centering. Yep. Um, but that's where, when I went to school at Punto County, we had like area 38 and if I would've graduated from, I, I, I moved back to Indy.
But if I would've graduated out there, I probably would've gone to area 38. Done the like diesel [00:45:00] mechanic program and, you know, worked on like Cummins or whatever. And uh, that would've been the story of Anderson. But I moved back to Indy. Um, what was I gonna say? But yeah, like I, I think, I'm not a child, so I can't say this for certain with certainty, but I just feel like you need to pull their attention away from whatever they're doing to engage them.
And then they don't do trouble. Yeah. They kids. That's why, that's why Fortnite's so effective. 'cause it's, it's like a, it melts your mind. It's the same. So Roblox, so I, I've read this before about Roblox because there's no like end to Roblox. It's just the constant, just dopamine fix. It just constantly gives you satisfaction and like, that's why they get addicted to it.
Yeah. And it's, you were playing Magic the Gathering. Uh, my dad did. I wasn't really like, there's like a joke that says like, get your kids in the Magic the Gathering. So they don't do drugs, but they'll still be poor. They're spending someone [00:46:00] money on cardboard
yet.
Uh, no. And that, that's something that we need to do.
Like, we need to engage our, we need to engage the youth. And there's, um, you know, we always talk about the profit motive of, of it. And it's, okay, well how can we incentivize we pull that out of the public safety dollars? 'cause if, if you're saying that it's, it is a crime issue with, with kids, then it, it needs to come out of public safety dollars.
Yeah. And that in, same with, I, I've heard that like, IndyGo is gonna get targeted by the State House because they're saying the IndyGo budget is higher than IPDs. And it's, I, I believe public transportation is public safety as well. A hundred percent. Creating ways to go to work, engage in your community, all these things reduces crime.
So, well there's that. But also like we just got done with a Safe Streets Protest a week ago. Yeah. And this removes so many cars from the street. Yeah. And like if the [00:47:00] more cars you have on the street, the less safe it is. That's the thing with like Vision Zero that always frustrates me is so many like motorists get upset about Vision Zero.
And it's like if you actually read Vision Zero, like 80% of this is about making sure that cars don't crashed into cars. yeah, a hundred percent. Uh, wow. We've been going. I'm a yapper. We can yap for a while. Yeah. We'll go until the bus We're back at the station. Yeah. Um,
oh. Every episode I ask a question from the previous guest who? The previous guest is Amanda. Okay. Gibson. Yeah. From Amanda in Indy. She asks, what fictional food would you want to eat? She said the burgers from Bob's burgers or like be able to go into their restaurant. She also mentioned the food from Hook.
I think mine's pretty, like, I'd say like the Ratatouille from Ratatouille because like, I'm a fresh, like a fresh vegetable. I a big garden guy. So like fresh vegetables, like, uh, I wanna know what, like taking that bite that [00:48:00] just 'cause that's the cool thing about food. Like a crazy flashback. Yeah. That like flashback. The nom.
But like your mom making, uh, so like yeah, like Ratatouille. That's funny. well, that's an interesting topic. So you are a, a, a man of the Earth. Yeah. You, you forage and whatever. When you're not being a man of the earth, where do you go? I know you go to Gold Leaf a lot. Yeah. So, um, Gold Leaf Loom, uh, Pawn Shop. Pawn Shop. Yeah. The Pawn Shop Pub. It's, uh, 54th. it's next to like Shadow Lounge, like 54th and Keystone, Keystone Diner uh, Keystone Diner has been the, uh, replacement for donut shop.
Like donut Shop used to be the, like the spot you could get breakfast, like a big ass plate of breakfast for like $5. It was fucking awesome. Yeah. Uh, the, I feel bad. One of the old, like old Asian ladies that used to like work there now, I was like a door greeter at the Meyer across the street. Oh. And she has to just like, look out at her like last employer all day long.
but I [00:49:00] mean, I. I travel the state a lot for work. So there's a lot of places like outside of Indy that I love too. Uh, I think Monon Savages, Alehouse is one of my like favorite places, just for a grilled cheese. It's, it's not their own, it's the old Denny's, like Texas toast or cheese, and then like the mozzarella sticks on the inside.
That sounds good. It, it rules like, it's like 4,000 calories, but it's awesome. But locally, like Pawn Shop is probably where like me and my wife, like frequent eat out the most. Wait, so there's a restaurant called Pawn Shop? Pawn Shop, yeah. I, I have gone there and I, no joke. I had two beers. And the double cheeseburger, like lunch special.
Guess what my, my, my bill was what? Before or after tip? ? Two. Two bills and a double cheeseburger. Two beers. Two beers and double, yeah. I'm gonna go $12.50. Ooh. Yeah. It was like 13 bucks. And then I tipped like seven because I was like, oh no, this [00:50:00] feels wrong. So here's 20 whole dollars, but yeah, dumb cheap. Good. Dude, But yeah, no, if I, and I like to cook at home a lot, so like that's where all my like good food comes from. So if I go out, I eat absolute garbage. Obvious, like obviously look at me. Uh, have you ever seen like, uh, Dwayne the Rock Johnson on his like cheat meals? Yeah. Oh yeah. It's disgusting.
It's not like you in public, you just like, or like, like I go to 16 pancakes, two grilled cheeses, or I go to a lot of like Hispanic spots on like Michigan Road. Um, uh, there's one El Pastorcito at like 79th and Michigan. Oh, it's a little taco spot. They got a, a bakery next door as well. Uh, I have vivid memories of that place because at an old job they made me like, cover all the Hispanic accounts once.
'cause our Hispanic account rep got a DUI. So they were like, uh, Anderson can do it. So I, every time I'd go there, this like old lady, [00:51:00] she would just like feed me. She was just like, take tacos, take tacos, take tacos. So now I try to give her as much money as possible. That's awesome. Uh, or there's a papusa spot.
Do you, do you know any Spanish? No, I, I'm real bad. Like my, my stepdad is, is Hispanic and I can understand, but like when I go, my brain goes to like, put it together. Terrible. I usually try to talk Spanish, like speak Spanish to the, uh, it's like a Central American Guatemalan, uh, grocery store by my on 52nd.
Yep. And I usually try to, when it's the older ladies, I try to speak Spanish to them 'cause they think it's cute. The younger ones are, they're not really into it. Right. This idiot. Yeah. Yeah. But the, the older, like Hispanic, they think it's adorable. So like, I try there. That's funny. Is there any question actually, what's your, like what's your hottest Indianapolis take My hottest Indianapolis take. Yeah, whatever you feel in that question.
I mean, I already said that the city government sucks ass. I don't think that's a hot [00:52:00] take. Well, that's not a hot take at all by any means. Um, do you have a hot take? Do you have a, a take that you think is unpopular? Not really. I mean, I think Indianapolis, Indianapolis is cool. Like, I don't know. Get on the fucking bus more.
That's all. That's my, that's my attitude. That is an unpopular, that is an unpopular technology. Maybe not among my listeners, but actually I will, I, I'm interested to know how many of my listeners have actually ridden the bus. 'cause I bet it's very low. A numbered bus, not a, not one of the, uh, uh, rapid transit lines.
Well, I don't even think the rapid transit lines are among the, the listeners. That's fair. No, it, it, it's, 'cause that's the way I think about it. Like, if we were to take this to the zoo or to the airport. Yeah. Like it was 15 minutes on the 19 down to the transit center, and then it's like 15 minutes to the, to the zoo.
It would've taken me 30 minutes to drive there anyways. I didn't have to put my child in a car seat. Which, you know, there's five minutes of my life that I was never gonna get back. Yeah. Uh, and then I got all like, argue with a 10-year-old who's grumpy that we're going [00:53:00] Actually, no, he loves the zoo. So we wouldn't argue with that one.
I wanna go to the zoo, do the zoo rules. We have some free tickets and I need to go, go. no, I don't know. I mean, Indianapolis rules, there shouldn't be hot takes. I think actually in a, in a, again, not among the listeners of this podcast, but like I have learned that that is a hot take. Like people don't like this city.
It's really like people who live here. like, because I, I scroll on Threads. If you, if you go to Reddit and they, they'll will always be people that are like, Hey, I visited your city, uh, this weekend and they fucking rules. And, and the people that don't like the city are the ones that have like never gone anywhere else.
I agree with that. cause like I, I love lots of other cities I've been to. I've, like, I used to work for a company that was in California. And so I'd go out there a lot. You know, I used, I'd cover Illinois, Kentucky, stuff work, and like Louisville's one of my favorite places in the world. I don't really wanna move there.
can you tell me why other than your sister? I mean, well [00:54:00] my sister actually, so my sister, uh, just to shout out 'cause I love her to death, uh, she finally got. Uh, some care recently, yo had a surgery. if she can actually walk now, let's go. So she's been walking, um, like Pogue's Run, she can do like full laps or before she couldn't even like walk up and down her block, but now she was doing full laps at Pogue's Run the park like on the east side.
I don't think I know that one. Uh, is that It's on, it's often if you're like driving east on 70 Yeah, you can see the like water for it. Oh, okay. Uh, before the like Emerson exit. Okay. Uh, but she can do like full laps there now. So shout, shout out to my sister. Let's go. who, uh, is walking full laps now? So not that I wanna leave this now I'm like fully ingrained in the city.
I'm not going anywhere. But she's, she's not the reason you can't be that Indy Bench Mench somewhere else. Yeah, no, it's the independent. Yeah. Um, different spelling. It's Mensch is also spelled wrong too, so like, that's true. Um, I literally just copied and pasted what someone [00:55:00] said and then later it was like Peter Bo was like, you know, this is spelled wrong.
And I was like. Whoops. Are you're not Jewish? No. Yeah. No. No. so yeah, no, I'm not, I I, I don't know. I just, honestly, if I were to move to Louisville, I would move to like New Albany. That's not Louisville. I, I know, I know what you're saying though. I know. But I would move to New Albany 'cause it's like the cutest little town. That you can like, hop, skip, and jump over the river to be in Louisville.
Uh, and I got some friends that live in New Albany and stuff like that. So, uh, so what do you think it is about, I'm gonna, I'm asking a challenging question here. Okay. It's either what are the, what is it about other places that does not compel you, or what is it about Indianapolis that does at this point?
Or answer both, if you can. One more time. What is it about other cities like Louisville that does not compel you to want to move there, even though you really enjoy them? [00:56:00] Or what is it about Indianapolis that does compel you to keep living here? I mean, so like, we'll use, I'll use Louisville as the example.
I, I don't know, I just didn't feel connected to the city. I didn't feel, it's, it's really, Indianapolis is kind of shuttered off in the neighborhoods as well. but we all kind of have like a common ground where we all come together and, and care about each other. Uh, but like when I'd be in Louisville, you know, like the far was that like east end, like everyone hated.
Uh, that's very funny. If you're in like Germantown, like you hate the party like the far east side and stuff. I think that's true. Yeah. And it, but it's like, I don't hate any part of Indianapolis. Like, uh, I don't wanna live in Perry Township, but I, you know. Perry Township has like no bike infrastructure. They had no benches, they had no stuff.
Like I went down there and, and provided some of that. 'cause [00:57:00] they need it. They want it and like, so I don't know. It just kind of felt like they weren't, they didn't care about everyone in the city. We're in Indianapolis. We, we care about everyone. That's an interesting perspective. Do you think that like,
I mean like I don't care, I don't like Carmel, but that's not gonna Indianapolis. I know. I'm saying that's what I do. You wanna drop that in there? That's what I, yes. I feel, well I feel like the four East end of. Louisville is probably like Hamilton County would be like, that's actually like a really, yeah, you're right.
Yeah. It's pretty much Hamilton. So like, maybe that, maybe my comparison is wrong. Um, but like, yeah. Uh, I don't wanna live in Hamilton County. So like when you look at what you're calling a failing city or a failed actively city, we have a failed city government.
Okay.
And it's failing the, it is failing the city.
What in your mind. Is the paint. Paint me a picture of your vision of the future. I mean, I kind of hit on it. It's that it's [00:58:00] that community and, and like the actual taxpayer focused government where right now our government is, is the, what's the, not contractor, but, uh, Oh, like consultant. Yeah. Our current city government is like the consultant industrial complex. Yeah. Where we just pay a bunch of people to tell us what to do. and we never do anything that's like, and what they tell us to do is build another hotel and, and, but it's like, what does a hotel do for like me?
Like what does a hotel do for the alleged crime issue? Yeah. The alleged, this is why woke Mayor Brainard said there's no crime, there's no not a crime issue in, in Broad Ripple and we gotta do something about all the cars. This is why he is woke. Mayor Brain. I can't believe he said that. That's like what a good guy.
Yeah. Well, for those who don't know, mayor Brainard is the ex mayor of Carmel. So all the things you like about Carmel came from him. Well, sure. The planning. The planning. Yeah. They had empty fuel. Like they, [00:59:00] they were able to plan with basically an empty pallet. Yeah, he did say that at the first community meeting.
Yeah. Whereas like in Indianapolis, we have 200 year old streets where we're trying to put rapid transit stations and they're having to build that pull up rail lines, where they had just empty. Cornfields. Yeah. So little easier to build out up there. I don't know, what was it? Where was I at? You were talking about woke Mayor Brainard woke. Mayor Brainard, fixing the city. No. So it's, that's what I, we need to do. Just the city needs to take 15, 20 years and just pound the city with. Like its resident focused, like planning and changes. We should be, my neighborhood has four of the 14th streets, four of them have sidewalks.
and two of those streets, it's kind of like, eh, there's sidewalks in some places. And then the other ones are like, everyone wants connectivity. Like we need to make a plan for the next 15 years of how do we fix all the sidewalks that we implement, sidewalks, how we get [01:00:00] like street lights. There was no, like, there was a 30 year ban on like putting in new street lights and there was, same with sidewalks.
We need to, we unraveled the city for 30 years with banning of things. It's gonna take just as long, if not longer, to undo that. So there needs to be a commit, commit, a long term commitment to resident focused like infrastructure. So sidewalks, the roads, the uh, programs for our youth, our schools. Um, like all of that stuff.
So that like, and that, that goes back to what I said where we should be these properties that are just sitting on and letting be dilapidated. Yeah. For, you know, after five, 10 years, we should be taking those and giving them back to the community to do something. That definitely. So there's my, there's my vision.
Um, alright, let's wrap it up.
Okay.
This is long. It is long, but that's okay. First of all, what would you like to ask the next third space Indy guest? [01:01:00] Uh, what is your favorite Indy park? But you can't use like Eagle Creek or like Fort Harrison isn't an Indy park, but I feel like you're gatekeeping the big ones.
Like I wanna know what your favorite like neighborhood park is. Okay, so like me, I like, I grew up at 20th and Kessler, so like 20th and Centennial. It is an absolute dog shit park. But like that little like park has so much
like, like history.
Hey, the video cut out, uh, right in the middle of us talking about, Anderson's question for the week. But, uh, I think we got enough footage, so we're just gonna close it out. Ignore me for, uh, my small technical difficulty. As always, everything's good. , But. thank you so much for your question. It's a good question.
Thank you. So what Indy park? What small neighborhood? Indy park. What small neighborhood. Indy Park. Yeah. What small neighborhood? Indy Park. If you don't have one, go find one. Like it's okay. Not travel. Oh, that is the, that's [01:02:00] what we talked about just after it cut out is just talking about not having me not personally thinking of one.
Uh, you know what? Park I gets a lot of love that I just don't like is the one, uh, down in Fletcher Place that's like looking over the highway. What's that called? I don't know. Yeah, that's. I don't, I don't wanna look at cars. Yeah. It's like, look at this beautiful scene of the highway
of the North split.
Um, all right. So Anderson, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Can you tell the people where they can find you?
Yeah. Uh, I have Blue Sky. It's just Anderson York period. Whatever the hell comes after that. Uh. I have the Instagram Indy Bench Mench. You can reach out to me there. Uh, and then if, I don't know, if you have something that is kind of cool and you want somebody to help build you, build it with you, whatever, man, my phone number's (317) 397-6663.
Like call me, text me. 'cause I don't have like a smartphone anymore. So I'm not on the social media a lot. Uh, I'm not on the social media. [01:03:00] Not on, yeah. So yeah, if you have something cool that you think I can help with, reach out.
Let's go. Let's do it. I still think you're so brave for putting your phone number in this podcast.
Dude, I don't care. I would not be cutting it out. Although we did mention that is is easy to, it's the easiest
thing to find. Like it's
everywhere. You could probably find my phone number if you tried hard enough. Uh, or even not that hard. I don't know, phone number, address, like employer, all that stuff is way too easy.
Please don't look up my address. Don't come to my house. I will meet you anywhere except for my house. Unless you don't come to
my house. My neighbor learned to not go in my garage after midnight, uh, looking for beers. Do you have like
gremlins in there or something?
But I'm not gonna mention on your podcast what I did.
Um, hey, thank you so much for listening to this episode of Third Space Indy. I'm so cold. Uh, you can find me at Third Space Indy on Instagram or at thirdspaceindy.com Indie dot com, where I write a blog every week. [01:04:00] Uh, thank you so much to Mark Latta and cityrising.org for sponsoring the podcast.
And thank you to the local artist Jennasen for allowing me to use your music as my intro music. I really appreciate it. As always. One day I'll give you a million dollars. Well, if I ever get a million dollars to give you. Uh, thanks so much for listening or watching. See you in the next one. Goodbye. I'm gonna go inside of this building.
Goodbye.
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