![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bikeroute.com\/NationalBicycleGreenwayNews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Screen-Shot-2018-09-20-at-10.41.51-AM.png?resize=1100%2C764\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
1984 TV News Video<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The original plan for the Indianapolis Zoo, also being built at that time, was to put a concrete wall between the Zoo and the\u00a0White River.\u00a0I found that totally not in keeping with our celebration of nature and wildlife and Indianapolis’s only remaining natural resource, so the WRSP commission hired Angela Denosia (sp?), a Landscape Architect from California who had worked a lot with natural large stone formats of native stone art and design. She proposed an Indiana natural stone wall that would serve as a backdrop for the zoo and afford a promenade along the White River. <\/span><\/p>\n The Indiana Lime Stone Industry donated 1,188 stones (boulders), \u201cflawed stones that builders had rejected\u201d and they were trucked two at a time from all over southern Indiana. They had them\u00a0<\/span>lined up on the east side of the river where the old paper company was located. Angela\u00a0then moved many of\u00a0 them to where they are now where they serve\u00a0as the backdrop for the zoo. Along the path\u00a0behind the zoo that resulted,<\/span>\u00a0we\u00a0etched into the rock\u00a0 the story of the Indiana\u00a0limestone industry and all the nation’s great structures, such as the Empire State Building, Lincoln Memorial, Grand Central Station and the Pentagon, etc, that were built with\u00a0Indiana limestone. Where the path gets close to the road, we built a small semi-circle theater for gatherings and talks about the\u00a0White River environments<\/span>.<\/p>\n There is so much to the creation of the places people walk through every day in enjoying the beauty of present day Indianapolis. Few, however, know how they came to be and the fights it took to make them real. Perhaps they are just meant to\u00a0<\/span>stand as the products of uncounted people\u2019s visions for their city.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I used to say that\u00a0 no city in Indiana has been more true to the state seal than Indianapolis.\u00a0Even though w<\/span>e cut down all the trees and ran the buffalo off, Indianapolis is working hard to rejuvenate its natural surroundings.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I also used to say if there was a river movie about Indianapolis it would be called a Sewer Ran Thru It.\u00a0 T<\/span>hat\u2019s unkind but it took that kind of language to raise peoples attention to what they really had. Over 156 sewer outfalls, 14 municipalities up stream from\u00a0Indianapolis\u00a0using the water, treating it and returning it to the river the source of 70% of\u00a0Indianapolis’s\u00a0drinking water.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It is important to understand\u00a0 that\u00a0 if Indy had not turned its back on the\u00a0White River for most of the 20th century none of what you see today would have happened, it would be developed till it was not viewable.\u00a0So what destroyed the River saved the River. The pain of nearly losing what we had caused public sentiment to want to see its wonder and majesty restored.<\/span><\/p>\n And today the value created, the public\u2019s commitment to use and respect our White River and its tributaries is beyond\u00a0heartwarming and\u00a0a point of pride for a great city and it\u2019s people.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I was called a visionary but the vision was supported by thousands of people\u00a0who saw the possibilities and supported and added their ideas to what they saw.\u00a0 I say, ‘e<\/span>njoy Indy it\u2019s\u00a0been a tremendous pleasure to\u00a0have been a part of its once again now being seen as one of America’s truly great cities!’.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Ray Irvin<\/strong>, Mr Greenway, profiled HERE<\/a><\/strong> –\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n![\"photo-8\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bikeroute.com\/NationalBicycleGreenwayNews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/photo-8.jpg?resize=285%2C285\")
Sasaki and Assoc. from Boston MA, worked on the design\u00a0of the original master plan for White River and the Old Canal Channel downtown. Ray R Irvin and Assoc. is listed on the\u00a0master plan as part of that team.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>We had countless meetings, presented designs and displayed our design work to the public at every opportunity. The Old Canal downtown was a semi-dry ditch full of trash and blown in waste. I also worked with then Mayor, Bill Hudnut, and Jim Ridenour, who was chairman of the White River State Park (WRSP) planning commission. Ridenour had been the National Parks Director and founder of the Eppley School at Indiana University. <\/span><\/p>\n ![\"IMG_7804\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bikeroute.com\/NationalBicycleGreenwayNews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/IMG_7804.jpg?w=730&h=547&ssl=1\" "\\"IMG_7804\\"")
<\/a> <\/div> <\/div> ![\"IMG_7802\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bikeroute.com\/NationalBicycleGreenwayNews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/IMG_7802.jpg?w=362&h=272&ssl=1\" "\\"IMG_7802\\"")
<\/a> <\/div> ![\"IMG_7803\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bikeroute.com\/NationalBicycleGreenwayNews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/IMG_7803.jpg?w=362&h=271&ssl=1\" "\\"IMG_7803\\"")
<\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n![\"Indiana](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bikeroute.com\/NationalBicycleGreenwayNews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Indiana-State-Seal.png?resize=225%2C225\")
<\/span><\/p>\n![\"Dig-Indy-Logo\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bikeroute.com\/NationalBicycleGreenwayNews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Dig-Indy-Logo.png?resize=363%2C98\"){kind=logo}
But you must try and see beyond the negatives and look at the possibilities.\u00a0Out of this, we created the Greenways system, the Indianapolis\u00a0Zoo, White River State Park, Central Canal trails, the Indy Canal and embraced our mistreated remaining natural resource, the White River. Soon, because of the massive Dig Indy project<\/strong><\/a> large rainfall will no longer cause excess runoff to drain into the White River.<\/span><\/p>\n
![\"cropped_white-river-state-park-smaller_web_1503588781\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bikeroute.com\/NationalBicycleGreenwayNews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/cropped_white-river-state-park-smaller_web_1503588781.jpg?resize=1100%2C688\")
<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"