ABSTRACT
A superimposed grid and radial system like Indianapolis would usually result in awkward building lots and urban spaces and streets. This was avoided in Indianapolis to some extent because, as historian John Reps notes, “Ralston had the good sense not to bring the diagonals together at the center but to terminate them some distance apart” (Reps 1965: 272). This “good sense” allowed the circle to have only four streets, the east-west Market Street and the north-south Meridian Street, rather than eight streets focused on the square. This allowed more building mass to form the square’s walls and to give the circle a stronger sense of enclosure. Today, office buildings with retail at their base, a theater and the Christ Church Cathedral surround the circle (Davidson-Powers 1987: 34-39).
