Use Spark Monument Circle as your launching point each Sunday for a series of self-guided tours developed by ActiveIndy Tours, which are designed to get you out and about and exploring Indianapolis! This 7 mile ride showcases the Cultural Trail/White River Wapahani Trail connection in White River State Park, leads you down paths surrounded by Indiana’s famous, native limestone, and haves you cycling across the Fall Creek suspension bridge. Bonus: You’ll be treated to one of our personally favorite art installations along the Cultural Trail at Indiana Avenue on the return trip! Check in at the Welcome Trailer to view the route map and receive your cue sheet of directions before departing.
13
Sep 2015
ActiveIndy Guided Bike Tour: Cultural Trail & Historic Neighborhoods
During Spark, the Circle is the launching point for ActiveIndy Tours’ most popular tour – a guided bicycle tour of the Indianapolis Cultural Trail & Historic Neighborhoods! This tour covers 10 miles at a casual pace allowing you to explore downtown while learning about our city’s history, architecture, public art & connections to pop culture. Rental bicycles available & advance registration required for this fee-based tour. Get details and sign up here.
12
Sep 2015
DIY Playground
Family fun time in the Blue Foam Playscape.
Learn to build, create and play with a variety of shapes
including ramps, tubes and spheres.
12
Sep 2015
Indiana Landmarks’ Monument Circle Tours
Indiana Landmarks’ guided tour explores the physical and symbolic heart of Indianapolis and tells the intriguing story of Monument Circle, past and present. During the tour, you’ll hear about the Soldier and Sailors Monument, including why the woman on top faces south, as well as the roundabout’s role in the city’s original plan and stories regarding encircling architecture.
No tour if raining cats and dogs! Reservation required. Advance tickets are $8 per adult (12 and up); $5 per member of Indiana Landmarks; $5 per child (6-12). If space is available the day of the tour, tickets are $10 per person regardless of age.
11
Sep 2015
Indiana Landmarks’ Monument Circle Tours
Indiana Landmarks’ guided tour explores the physical and symbolic heart of Indianapolis and tells the intriguing story of Monument Circle, past and present. During the tour, you’ll hear about the Soldier and Sailors Monument, including why the woman on top faces south, as well as the roundabout’s role in the city’s original plan and stories regarding encircling architecture.
No tour if raining cats and dogs! Reservation required. Advance tickets are $8 per adult (12 and up); $5 per member of Indiana Landmarks; $5 per child (6-12). If space is available the day of the tour, tickets are $10 per person regardless of age.
07
Sep 2015
Spotlight: The Monument Circle Motorbike Guy
In general, it’s rather easy to spot the Spark programming on Monument Circle. There are signs designating the various Big Car booths, a wooden sasquatch atop a Wagon of Wonders, a stage for musical performers, etc. However, some of the programming is less conspicuous.
For instance, even if you have visited Spark during Phono Fridays, you may have missed a guy in a tie and dress shirt atop a 1968 Honda CT90 motorbike with a 1980s Sanyo boom box in tow, and two cassettes taped to his motorcycle helmet. Fear not, the free cassettes he offers onlookers do not serve as bait. He’s not crazy, at least not in any dangerous or threatening way. He’s an artist named Stuart Hyatt.
“Just for fun, I kind of dress like somebody who’s on their lunch break from their insurance executive job,” Hyatt says. “The kids don’t even know what these weird things are with this magnetic tape. They love it though.”
Each Friday during Spark, Hyatt cruises around Monument Circle at an average speed of four miles per hour on his motorbike for nearly two hours. Occasionally he stops to disperse random cassette tapes supplied by local record store, LUNA Music. “They’ve just got bins of them,” Hyatt says of LUNA. “I cannot vouch for the quality of music that I’m giving away. There’s a lot of hair metal bands. It’s purely a fun thing.”
Hyatt got the idea for his Spark contribution during trips to Africa and Latin America. “These amazing, resourceful people turn these little motor bikes into stores, basically,” Hyatt says. “It’s something you don’t really see in the states. It’s everything. It could be a refrigerator repairman, but on these vintage motorbikes that have been cobbled together with thread and used vegetable oil. So, it was kind of that wacky resourcefulness of the developing world mixed with the tradition of punk, hip-hop and DIY culture of pedaling tapes out of your trunk. I mean, I love that. … It’s supposed to just put a smile on people’s faces.”
When he’s not cruising around the Circle, Hyatt can likely be found collecting field recordings for his various sound art projects. He’s in the midst of releasing a five-album series of site-specific recordings under the name of Field Works. You may have caught wind of his work on the Indy Sound Map. His most recent LP featuring sounds collected at Pogue’s Run will premiere at LUNA on Sunday, September 13.
Hyatt is very serious about his Field Works project, but his contribution to Spark is more laid back. “It’s just one of those things that puts a smile on people’s faces,” he says. “I kind of bop my head, but I also try to be a good, corporate executive who just had to bust out for a few hours.”
“People talk a lot about food deserts in our city,” Hyatt says. “I just want to make sure there aren’t any cassette deserts either.”
06
Sep 2015
Cool Bus presented by Word On The Street
Every Sunday at Spark, visit the Cool Bus (a mobile literary arts center) for a word challenge, a place to read, and free books! Explore word games, rhyming challenges, poetic forms, and maybe meet a visiting author. You can also check out the book selection and take a book home for free.
The Cool Bus is a program of Word On The Street, a not-for-profit focused on engaging neighbors in reading, writing, and exploring in spaces that inspire imagination and wonder. Word On The Street created the Cottage Home Microlibrary as well as the Cool Bus. Central to the organization’s mission is giving away free books and increasing excitement around and access to literacy opportunities. The Cool Bus was the “5×5: Make Your City” winner in 2013.
06
Sep 2015
DIY Playground
Family fun time in the Blue Foam Playscape.
Learn to build, create and play with a variety of shapes
including ramps, tubes and spheres.
06
Sep 2015
ActiveIndy Self-Guided Bike Tour: Pleasant Run Parkway Trail Loop
Every Sunday, Spark Monument Circle will serve as the launching ground for Hoosiers to get out and explore Indianapolis by bike through self-guided tours developed by ActiveIndy Tours. This 6.5 mile tour will have you riding on and exploring four different bicycle infrastructures including the Cultural Trail, the Shelby Street Cyclotrack, the Pleasant Run Greenway, and a traditional bike lane as you explore the area just southeast of downtown! Check in at the Welcome Trailer to see your route map and receive your cue sheet of directions before departing.
06
Sep 2015
ActiveIndy Guided Bike Tour: Cultural Trail & Historic Neighborhoods
During Spark, the Circle is the launching point for ActiveIndy Tours’ most popular tour – a guided bicycle tour of the Indianapolis Cultural Trail & Historic Neighborhoods! This tour covers 10 miles at a casual pace allowing you to explore downtown while learning about our city’s history, architecture, public art & connections to pop culture. Rental bicycles available & advance registration required for this fee-based tour. Get details and sign up here.
