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New documentary film “Haughville USA” is designed to show the Indianapolis neighborhood as being significantly more than the shorthand description used by a TV news anchor in the film: “A neighborhood synonymous with crime.”
Haughville is made up of a long-running Slovenian community center, the 5-year-old Fonseca Theatre Co., the youth services provided at Christamore House for more than a century and the revived Belmont Beach—once one of the city’s only swimming destinations accessible to Black residents.
Ben Rose, director of “Haughville USA,” said the neighborhood’s 16,000 residents aren’t necessarily inclined to recognize the positives within the borders of the White River to the east, Tibbs Avenue to the west, 16th Street to the north and Michigan Street to the south.
“One of the goals of this documentary is to get everybody together to watch and celebrate within their own communities and across their cultural and ethnic boundaries,” Rose said. “Be able to say, ‘We’re all Haughville.’ See the history of that, because it’s not just that it’s happening now. It’s always been that way.”
“Haughville USA” is scheduled to premiere 7 p.m. Friday at Kan-Kan Cinema, 1258 Windsor St. For ticket information, visit kankanindy.com.
Haughville’s history dates to ironworks entrepreneur Benjamin Haugh and the foundry he built in 1880. Within three years, the community of Haughville was established.
Immigrants from Slovenia, a country that was part of Yugoslavia from 1945 to 1991, were Haughville’s first residents. Their legacy continues with Slovenian National Home, 2717 W. 10th St.
After World War II, Black residents became the majority in Haughville. In recent years, Latino population has surged in the neighborhood.
Today, gentrification is viewed as the newcomer. Rose mentions the West Michigan Street Road Diet and the B&O recreational trail as changes likely to push property values and accompanying taxes higher.
“How are we going to retain this culture? How are we going to retain the property owners who are 70 and 80 years old, who are one furnace away from having to call We Buy Homes for Cash,” Rose asked. “They will sell, and they will get $120,000 in their pocket. But you can’t buy a home for $120,000 anywhere.”
“Haughville USA” doesn’t downplay the neighborhood’s hardships. One voice in the film cites a litany of gun-violence trauma, mass incarceration, absentee parents and drugs.
Rose, the founder of Indy Filmmakers Bootcamp and the founding artistic director of Indianapolis Black Theatre Co., said the “human side of Haughville” deserves to be documented.
“There are families who have lived here for three generations,” he said. “Musicians and athletes and politicians have lived here.”
City-County Council President Vop Osili grew up in Haughville. In the film, he talks about the way things used to be. Osili said he would like to see the return of a community philosophy: “This is ours. I know you, and I’m going to look after your property and you’re going to look after mine.”
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Someone should focus on all of the successful people who have come out of Haughville.
Many of the team members from the 1965 and 1969 Indiana State High School Champion Washington Continentals came from Haughville.