Blogger was bunged up last night, so this is the Sept 2 entry.

Broad Ripple Blog.

Overall, it was a tiring day. But the foundation work for a three- or four-page article in the first issue of Real Estate Mid-America has been done, and it will be an interesting one, too. More on that later (if I remember to write about it).

Last Tuesday, after a long and occasionally tedious day of meetings in various Indianapolis office locales, I was charged with finding a place to have dinner. Actually, Gail exhaustedly said, anywhere you pick is fine with me. A mid-level sort of place, something interesting but not so expensive that it would set the company CFO a-wondering.

So the stage was set to discover someplace new. I hadn't been giving Indianapolis much credit, at least in terms of offering the curious visitor -- me -- something to pique my curiosity. I did note something odd that morning, however, when I was reading in a report about the Indy retail market. The report noted an assortment of retail submarkets, most of which I knew, ones that revolved around one mall or another. But I also saw one called Broad Ripple. Funny name. No explanation.

I looked over an Indy guidebook that evening before dinner, and started to notice a clustering of restaurants, and some other points of interest, in an area called Broad Ripple. Of course, I remembered that peculiar name. It seemed to be a district in the mid-north side, somewhat east of the zero-street Meridian, near a bend in the river that runs through town, the White River. The guidebook really didn't offer much detail about Broad Ripple, which, as it turned out, seems like a serious omission. If I were its editor, I would have created a special boxed article about Broad Ripple for the book.

I picked a safe-looking place: Mezzaluna, presumably Italian, right in the heart of this mysterious district. (Gail, bless her heart, isn't adventuresome about food. I sometimes would tease her by pointing out a sushi place, and suggested that for lunch or dinner.) And off we went. To be continued.