The Central Court Historic District is a historic district and neighborhood of the city of Indianapolis in northern Center Township, Marion County,

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. Built around Central Court near the intersection of 36th Street and Central Avenue,Indiana Historic Sites and Structures Inventory. ''Center Township, Marion County Interim Report.'' Indianapolis:

Indiana Landmarks Indiana Landmarks is America's largest private statewide historic preservation organization. Founded in 1960 as Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana by a volunteer group of civic and business leaders led by Indianapolis pharmaceutical execu ...

, 1991. the neighborhood consists of seventy-five buildings over an area of . Central Court was

plat In the United States, a plat ( or ) (plan) is a cadastral map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. United States General Land Office surveyors drafted township plats of Public Lands Surveys to show the distance and bea ...

ted in 1916 by Oscar A. Jose and Peter J. Balz, local

real estate developers Real estate development, or property development, is a business process, encompassing activities that range from the renovation and re-lease of existing buildings to the purchase of raw land and the sale of developed land or parcels to others. R ...

who also created such neighborhoods as Meridian Park to the southwest and the neighborhood lining Fall Creek Parkway between Thirty-eighth and Thirtieth Streets. They employed a range of

architectural style An architectural style is a set of characteristics and features that make a building or other structure notable or historically identifiable. It is a sub-class of style in the visual arts generally, and most styles in architecture relate closely ...

s for the houses in the neighborhood, including American Craftsman,

Colonial Revival The Colonial Revival architectural style seeks to revive elements of American colonial architecture. The beginnings of the Colonial Revival style are often attributed to the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, which reawakened Americans to the archit ...

Dutch Colonial Revival Dutch Colonial is a style of domestic architecture, primarily characterized by gambrel roofs having curved eaves along the length of the house. Modern versions built in the early 20th century are more accurately referred to as "Dutch Colonial Rev ...

, and Prairie School. Many designs were used multiple times in the neighborhood, which has been recognized as one of the area's better examples of early twentieth-century residential architecture. They built forty-seven houses around the U-shaped Central Court and along Thirty-sixth Street and Central Avenue; seven face Central Avenue, ten face Thirty-sixth Street, and thirty face Central Court. In 2004, Central Court was designated a historic district and listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

. It is by far the smallest historic district in its portion of the city, being dwarfed by areas such as Meridian Park a short distance to the southwest.

References

Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Indiana Colonial Revival architecture in Indiana Bungalow architecture in Indiana Historic districts in Indianapolis National Register of Historic Places in Indianapolis {{Indianapolis-stub