There are still those of you who remember this one: Traction Terminal. Got any stories or memories to share of travels through here? (Capitol and Market Streets).
IndyView Revisited: Traction Terminal Shed and Capitol
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Back in the 1950s I lived in Ben Davis and my girlfriend would ride the airport bus downtown so that we could walk to the library to read. Back then, if you lived outside the city limits, you couldn’t take books out. I loved that old Terminal – Fendrick’s Restaurant was THE place to get a Coke and talk to my girlfriend as we waited for the bus to go home. There was also “Fendrick’s on the Corner” which may have been a drug store – can’t remember too well because I didn’t go in there much. I know they sold lots of tobacco products! Both of those places had a door into the Terminal’s waiting room. The ladies room in the basement was a great “hiding place” to wait for a bus if I was alone! If I waited upstairs I would get a lot of what is known today as “sexual harassment” but back then was something to be put up with. The last time I was in the Terminal was Easter Sunday 1961. My husband and I were going to take a bus to Ben Davis (we lived at 18th & N Alabama St at the time) so that we could attend church services at Mt Olive Methodist Church. But we missed our connection and didn’t make it. I was quite upset, but I tended to be emotional then anyway because I was 8 months pregnant! 😀
Remembered using this former interurban terminal for long distance bus service a number of times, and liked this location. However, I recognize the concept of a multimodal transportation center and Union Station is a “no brainer” location for one!
My father, David Duthie, an avid rail fan, loved to travel, much of it of the armchair variety. And he loved transportation of all types, eventually securing his dream job as a telegrapher for the New York Central Railroad (even though telegraphs were no longer used). As a young child, I would sometimes be invited to join my dad on a trip downtown from our near- east side home as he made his monthly rounds of Union Station (rail) & the Greyhound Bus Station (traction terminal), where he would collect the past month’s outdated timetables. (They would join w/the Rand McNally atlas kept in the bathroom where he would plot trips mostly never taken.) He knew many of the workers in both places and he would exchange pleasantries with them all. My favorite was the gentleman (Red Cap?) who rented the pillows w/the crisp white covers at the bus station. For a special treat, my dad would sometimes splurge for a Coke as we sat in a dark-wood booth of Fendrick’s.
My last memory of the traction terminal was in September of 1964 when as a nervous 16-yr. old I boarded an 11:00 p.m. bus for an overnight trip to Cadillac, MI where I’d spend a last-gasp-of-summer holiday w/friends. It happened to be the night that the Beatles appeared at the Indiana State Fair and I remember the bus driver asking me if I’d attended. Sadly, no…