A discussion on Facebook prompted me to share one of the images sets from my book, Spot the Difference in Fishers, Indiana: City Parks Edition.
The discussion was on the changes to downtown. A couple of old buildings are still standing and are expected to be maintained even though everything around them has been removed or replaced. This includes the old Nickel Plate diner and what was most recently a State Farm Insurance office.
People talk about the removed buildings. This includes the removal of the train station that occurred a few years ago and the tracks that were recently pulled up. Also gone is the silo that stood above everything else for a while in downtown Fishers.
The one thing that I might be one of the few to notice being gone is one of Fishers’ pocket parks, ironically called Pocket Park. A pocket park is a tiny park that generally fills a tiny piece of land. Fishers had Pocket Park and a block from it was the Rotary Park. Both are – or were – next to 116th Street in downtown.
Pocket Park was used by a lot of people who might not have know its name of that it even was an official park. It was located near Handles, so people would go sit on the Pocket Park stage or benches after buying ice cream. There was also a spot to park your bikes. Recently the city had updated it and added some art to the fence. Ironically, it wasn’t long after that last renovation that they ripped it out and basically plowed it under.
If you buy my book, you’ll have an historical record of the park. I’ve included the main picture from my book here:
I considered taking a picture of the location as it looks today and asking you to Spot the Differences of it now with the picture from my book. I won’t do that because it is kind of sad. Instead, I’ll give you a sampling of what my book is about by posting the ‘changed’ picture here:
My book is all about finding the differences between two pictures from a park within Fishers. In this case, there are 9 differences between these two picture of Pocket Park. Can you spot them?
Of course, the differences I made to the park in my pictures were minor. What the city did, was a bit more devastating. Rest in peace Fishers Pocket Park. You will be missed by some of us!
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