Jordan Ryan

I’m so proud of them and this summer learning together. ❤️

Yesterday marked our final Archives teaching day for our Indyology internship. The students learned about memorialization from Leon Bates & Ahmaud Carroll-Tubbs, looking at national examples, then designed their own memorials for our cemetery. They then sculpted monuments to place in their designs.

Residential drawings

Model of convention center

Drawing from former zoo

Model of downtown

The City-County Archives went on a great field trip yesterday, visiting Ball State’s architectural archivist Cody Sprunger. We learned about DIY humidification chambers to make our architectural drawing collection work more efficient. And of course we had to end the trip with some Pizza King!

Take me on another ghost canal tour please!!!

Thank you for being there! And meeting my dad ❤️

'Tell those stories': Greenlawn Cemetery excavation revealing hundreds of 19th century burials amid Henry Street expansion Amid the excavation of part of the city's first cemetery, an archaeology firm has found more than 1,100 graves filled with 19th century artifacts.

@indystar.bsky.social: www.indystar.com/story/news/l...

@fox59.bsky.social: fox59.com/news/more-th...

@wishtv.com: www.wishtv.com/news/politic...

@wthrcom.bsky.social: www.wthr.com/article/news...

Greenlawn Cemetery excavation update: What Indy has learned Research is starting to shed light on the lives and deaths of people buried there.

We have an amazing team of consultants, community members, historians, archivists, genealogists, and preservationists who have been working diligently on this project.

I'm thrilled to see such informative and positive news coverage:
@emilyhopkins.bsky.social: mirrorindy.org/indianapolis...

Some members of the community advisory group

Thanks to everyone who attended our Greenlawn Cemetery excavation + Henry Street Bridge project public information meeting. I am excited to see where the research takes us in the next few years. In case you missed the meeting, the presentation slides are here: wridinfrastructure.com/june-2024-up...

If you'd like to learn more about the excavation & some preliminary data related to the human remains and artifacts, please join us at the public information meeting next Tues 7/8 at 5pm at School # 47.

Follow along on our project website: wridinfrastructure.com/archaeology/...

Miles to go.

Grave shaft table showing 1,027 grave shafts discovered

Invitation for meeting 7/8 5pm at school 47

Last week we hit a new benchmark on the Henry Street Bridge Project excavation - reaching over 1,000 graveshafts identified. Not even 50% through our excavation. On our tiny, 1.5 acre parcel of a larger 25 acre cemetery.

He was humiliated last weekend. This weekend he bombed someone.

My guess is there is a relationship between those two events.

Stonewall: Movement, Monument, Myth In February 2025, under the orders of the Trump administration, the National Park Service (NPS) removed the words “Transgender” and “Queer” from the…

New from me in Mas Context: In February NPS removed Transgender and Queer from the Stonewall National Monument website. NPS also removed LGBTQ America: A Theme Study of Lesbian Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer History—the 1st federal account of the LGBTQ community.

The motorist must have been going so fast to shatter 2, 2” thick concrete planters. It terrifies me to think what would have happened to someone using the calming lane if those planters weren’t there to stop the car. I hate this.

A destroyed neighborhood mural and planters

I’m shattered.

Our traffic calming project survived 2 months before a motorist wrecked through it.

Listen to neighborhoods when they tell you we need more traffic calming measures.

Pedestrians and cyclists are not safe. 💔

Architectural model of downtown

Architectural model of downtown

Architectural model of downtown

Architectural model of downtown

Special thanks to my reference archivist who surprised me & assembled this model before a tour. This is a rejected proposed plan for the GM stamping plant. It’s a great artifact and teaching tool that captures a moment in time of the downtown and west side’s built environment.

#whatanarchivistdoes

Seriously. Every time I start thinking about the beloved map librarian being laid off I start crying - I’ve depended on her for 15 years now and I’ll be lost without her. 💔💔💔

Brilliant and dedicated historians, librarians, archivists, and curators - gone. 💔

civic shame.

👏

A tiny but wild snapshot of the current chaos

If you can't make it to AHLP that's ok - there will be years of discussion moving forward and I hope to continue the conversation later this year.

Monuments are often the physical evidence of hegemony. What does a successful memorialization look like at a site with layers of erasure, who gets to decide, what constitutes successful, and how can we deploy digital memorialization techniques for further accessibility and continued scholarship?

1866 map of Greenlawn Cemetery

I'm excited to share that Jeannie Regan-Dinius and myself are starting a dialogue at the Alliance for Historic Landscape Preservation conference. Our presentation, "The Monumental Effort to Excavate and Memorialize Greenlawn Cemetery," discusses the physical, archaeological, & contextual challenges.

Just finished the book - congrats!!!

Fountain Fletcher District Association Offbeat on the Trail

Please consider submitting your own stories and historic photos to the FFDA & myself and stay tuned for future phases! I would love to do a phase 2 🙂

There are small orange QR codes or you can follow along digitally here: fountainfletcher.com/historytour/

#thisplacematters

This place-based digital history tour gives you a taste of the history of the near southeast side thanks to a generous Historic Preservation Education grant made possible by Indiana Landmarks and Indiana Humanities. This tour features brief histories & essays.

🥳 Happy Historic Preservation Month!

What do a union steelworker, a clairvoyant palmist, and the inventor of Bar Keepers Friend all have in common? These individuals all made history in the Fountain-Fletcher District: the area including the Fletcher Place, North Square, and Fountain Square n’hoods.

Gus Barthel and the Little Deutsche House in Broad Ripple Exploring the story of Gus Barthel of Broad Ripple and his roadhouse named the Little Deutsche Haus.

A new post about the history behind a mystery photo at an ice cream establishment in Broad Ripple. www.class900indy.com/post/gus-bar...

Visual of mural painting with quotes from the article overlaid

3 neighborhoods came together to do a tactical urbanism project on a problematic piece of infrastructure impacting each of us.

And I spoke with WFYI about it: www.wfyi.org/news/article...

Oh, and I thoroughly enjoyed waving the safety flag at motorists.

😱🥰