$6M Project Planned At President Harrison Home
Courtesy of Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) A $6 million upgrade is starting at the Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site in Indianapolis that leaders say is aimed at increasing its visibility and connections with the surrounding neighborhood.
The project’s plans include a new plaza and outdoor commons area for visitors to the home of the only Indiana resident elected president of the United States.
New signs will be installed to highlight the site to those driving through the Old Northside and an 89-foot-tall flagpole visible from nearby Interstate 65/70 will fly both the U.S. and presidential flags. Interior work on the house built in 1874-75 will include updated display cases and a new research library on the third floor.
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The Harrison Center is now an art playground. Named Convertible, the project takes a building that already brims with fine art and adds creative elements that will have visitors singing in a karaoke elevator and whipping a tetherball on the roof.
The goal is to change the way people interact with art and to welcome those who might not have spent much time around galleries to the center s artist studios and display spaces.
The concept was officially born in 2018 when the Harrison Center, at 1505 N. Delaware St., received more than $2.1 million from the Lilly Endowment to transform its longtime home. But a seed for the project actually appeared much earlier in the form of the large wooden table that resides in the Harrison Gallery ceiling. It descends for events like Art Dish, a monthly dinner series that s centered around a particular artist and their work.