I’m going down to pig(skin) town

As some of you may have heard, they’re going to be playing a professional football game in my town in just under ten days, and preparations are afoot to outfit downtown to received what’s expected to be about 150,000 people. To say nothing of millions of people watching on TV. Friday starts a week of events leading up to the game, concentrated mostly on Georgia Street, an otherwise unobtrusive lane just south of Monument Circle whose claim to fame is that it connects the newly-renovated Indiana Convention Center with Bankers Life (the erstwhile Conseco) Fieldhouse. For the Super Bowl, the city revamped the formerly normal two-lane street into a generally pedestrian thoroughfare (though cars can still get through, of course). There was a move afoot to change the name to something stupid and convention-y, like “Hospitality Way”, but fortunately that was deep-sixed. Georgia is one of the oldest streets in the city, and it intersects at the Convention Center with Capitol Ave. (which has its own interesting history as a street name.)

Being the father of two girls who have politely but consistently refused to let me indoctrinate them into the wonders of America’s Favorite Sport, I wanted to shuffle a little bit through the preparations and take a couple of “behind the scenes” pictures.

I had a little time between lunch and picking the girls up, so I went and parked the car as close to the center of town as I could, which wasn’t very close. Driving downtown, I found you can try to paint yourself as a world-class city, but something will always peek through the cracks:

Because of the upcoming event, almost all street parking in “The Mile Square” has been taken away.¹ So I parked up on Mass Ave., and almost immediately came upon the intersection of New York and Massachusetts, very apropos for the game:

Reaching downtown, many of the streets have temporary honorary names: a block of Washington St. is now “Texans Terrace”:

Though some of the streets are more closely linked with teams; Pennsylvania Street has Eagles and Steelers signs.

On Monument Circle there’s a big “XLVI” on the south side of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, and huge signs draped over the sides of buildings.

It’s interesting that almost all of these signs simply reference the game and not sponsors. You would think that you’d see Budweiser or Coke billboards. But no, that’s how much power the NFL has over the marketing of its product. Even on non-sponsors:

Up and down Georgia St. there’s a little tent village. Things were still being assembled as I walked through (there was no security to speak of, which I found interesting). Crews were putting big stickers on the sides of buildings, and test out a huge zip line, which I assume is going to be part of the NFL Experience next week.

All in all, very interesting. With all of the outdoor events, it looks like, due to La Nina, there won’t be a huge snowstorm between now and the Sunday after next. For which the organizers will undoubtedly feel most grateful. As I’ve said before, most people think “Ew” when they hear they’re going to Indianapolis. But once here, they have a great time.

¹

The Mile Square constitutes the original boundaries of downtown Indianapolis, which are named North St., South St., East St., and West St. We Hoosiers are nothing if not pragmatic.