Hurray For The Riff Raff
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ARTIST PROFILE | Hurray For The Riff Riff
Alynda Segarra is 36, or a little less than halfway through the average American lifespan. In that comparatively brief time, though, the Hurray for the Riff Raff founder has been something of a modern Huck Finn, an itinerant traveler whose adventures prompt art that reminds us there are always other ways to live.
Born in the Bronx and of Puerto Rican heritage, Segarra was raised there by a blue-collar aunt and uncle, as their father navigated Vietnam trauma and their mother neglected them to work for the likes of Rudy Giuliani. They were radicalized before they were a teenager, baptized in the anti-war movement and galvanized in New York’s punk haunts and queer spaces. At 17, Segarra split, becoming the kid in a communal squat before shuttling to California, where they began crisscrossing the country by hopping trains. They eventually found home—spiritual, emotional, physical—in New Orleans, forming a hobo band and realizing that music was not only a way to share what they’d learned and seen but to learn and see more. Hurray for the Riff Raff steadily rose from house shows to a major label, where Segarra became a pan-everything fixture of the modern folk movement. But that yoke became a burden, prompting Segarra to make the probing and poignant electronic opus, 2022’s Life on Earth, their Nonesuch debut. Catch your breath, OK? We’re back to 36, back to now.
During the last dozen years, these manifold tales of Segarra’s voyages have shaped an oral folklore of sorts, with the teenage vagabonding or subsequent trainhopping becoming what some may hear about Hurray for the Riff Raff before hearing the music itself. Segarra has dropped tidbits in songs, too, but they always worried that their experiences were too radical, that memories of dumpster diving or riding through New Orleans with a dildo dangling on an antenna were too much. But on The Past Is Still Alive, Segarra finally tells the story themselves, speckling stirring reflections on love, loss, and the end or evolution of the United States with foundational scenes from their own life. “It felt like a trust fall, or a letting go of this idea of proving something to the music industry—how I can be more digestible, modifiable, sellable,” Segarra says. “I feel like I’m closer to what I actually have to share.”
There is, for instance, sex and communal musicmaking on an island of San Francisco trash during “Snake Plant (The Past Is Still Alive),” a charged attempt to reckon the erosion of our childhood innocence with a belief that a worthwhile future is still possible. Or there are the cops and the trains and the long walks down empty Nebraska highways to escape said cops during “Ogalla,” the cathartic closer that tries to maintain the spirit of the past while actually surviving in the now. The Past Is Still Alive is the record of Segarra’s life so far, not only because it chronicles the past to understand the present but also because it is the most singular and magnetic thing Hurray for the Riff Raff have yet made. A master work of modern folk-rock, The Past Is Still Alive resets the terms of that tired term.
In March 2023, when Segarra returned to the North Carolina studio of producer Brad Cook to cut The Past Is Still Alive, they weren’t so sure about the session, if they could even handle it. Only a month before, their father, Jose Enrico (Quico) Segarra, had died. A musician himself, he had long been fundamental to Segarra’s songs, a point of inspiration and encouragement. What’s more, Segarra had made Life on Earth with Cook, and drummer Yan Westerlund had long toured in Hurray for the Riff Raff. But much of the band they’d assembled for these sessions—guitarist Meg Duffy, fiddler Libby Rodenbough, saxophonist Matt Douglas, multi-instrumentalist Phil Cook—were unknown quantities. At the edge of catastrophe and in the headlock of grief, could Segarra share these bone-deep songs among strangers? “The songwriting is what drove me. I didn’t feel the need to try to transform,” Segarra reckons. “It felt like the truth of where I was at in my life—very vulnerable, very fair, very raw.”
Segarra simply let those complex feelings lead the way, hurling themselves into these excavations of memory and blueprints for what’s to come. Witness, for instance, the tensile resolve in opener “Alibi,” a yearning reflection on addicted childhood friends that pleads with them to join the land of the living while they still can. As the pedal steel moans beneath the snappy country shuffle, their voice frays, a testament to the way they’re bearing difficult witness. That call to survival returns in “Snake Plant,” a song so stuffed with specific childhood memories—scenes from family road trips to Florida, snapshots from discovering oneself on the edge of the world—that Segarra feels like an actual tour guide. “Test your drugs/remember Narcan,” they sing toward the end. “There’s a war on the people/What don’t you understand?” The demand is graceful and winning, not pedantic, lived-in advice from someone who has managed to live when so many friends have not.
This quest to live in spite of outside attempts to kill us off animates “Colossus of Roads,” at once the most devastating and uplifting entry in the entire Hurray for the Riff Raff catalogue. Written like an urgent dispatch after the Club Q shooting in Colorado, it is a paean to the outsiders, a love song for the vulnerable—the queer, the homeless, the radical. Their voice taut as a piece of barbed wire, Segarra deploys poet Eileen Myles and boxcar artist BuZ blurr (the Colossus of Roads himself) to suggest a sanctuary of solidarity for the dispossessed. The United States as we know it can and probably should dissolve, they seethe; as it all comes down, though, Segarra asks to “wrap you up in the bomb shelter of my feather bed.” Brilliantly written and rendered, it is an anthem for a dawning age of collective liberation. “I’ve only had this experience a couple of times, where a song falls on me—it’s all there, and I don’t do anything,” Segarra admits. “It felt like creating a space where all us outsiders can be safe together. That doesn’t exist, but it exists in our minds, and it exists in this song.”
Throughout The Past Is Still Alive, Segarra suggests the profound ability to navigate all this pain, chaos, and trauma, or at least to meet it with senses of wonder and want. To wit, the delightful “Buffalo” uses the iconic American mammal that Americans almost drove to extinction as a metaphor for a new love; can it survive the pressures of society? A duet with Conor Oberst, “The World Is Dangerous” is a heartbroken waltz that still offers to hold someone close, if and when they’re ready.
And even as Segarra tells the tale of the first trans women they ever met, Miss Jonathan in New Orleans, and the beatings they took during “Hawkmoon,” they seem to beam, advocating for a better world yet to come. “I’m becoming the kind of girl that they warned me about,” Segarra sings at the end with devilish aplomb, proud to be carrying on Miss Jonathan’s work of upending norms, whether by sharing Miss Jonathan’s story or simply taking up space for themselves and their own multitudes.
It is especially fraught these days to speak of art in terms of national identity, to flirt with a jingoism that has led to new autocrats and rekindled old wars. But in the best ways possible, The Past Is Still Alive is a distinctly American record, built on twin pillars of peril and promise that have forever been foundational to this country.
The wanderlust that leads to piñon fires near the pueblos of New Mexico’s high desert and all-night escapades in New Orleans. The independence that shapes communities of like-minded outcasts, looking after one another. The inequality that makes such enclaves essential, that makes one of us eat out of garbage and the other with a silver spoon: It is all tragically and beautifully bound inside The Past Is Still Alive. Just as Louise Erdrich has done of late with Native Americans, Lonnie Holley with African-Americans, and Julie Otsuka with Asian-Americans, Segarra expands the scope of American stories here, stretching a long-safeguarded circle to encompass outsiders forever on the fringes. “The past is still alive/The root of me lives in the ballast by the mainline,” Segarra sings at one point, sweeping their days of riding rails directly into whatever success they have found now. Hurray for the riff raff, indeed.
READ MORE >>Supporting Acts
SHOW BY SIMILAR ARTISTS
About HI-FI | Indianapolis, IN
HI-FI is located inside the historic Murphy Arts Center in the heart of Fountain Square. HI-FI shows virtually every night of the week and is known for finding new artists on the rise. The venue is acoustically one of the best sounding venues in the Midwest. The entrance is located at the front of the building on Virginia Ave and the Indianapolis Cultural Trail.
Getting Around the Venue
Frequently Asked Questions About HI-FI | Indianapolis, IN
What are the age restrictions at this venue?
Most of our gigs are open to those 18 years and older, though there are a few exceptions. We’re also rolling out more all-ages shows to accommodate younger fans, but double-check our website for specific age requirements before getting your tickets. We’ve made it super easy to spot the age restrictions on each event listing.
If you are going to indulge in a seating upgrade in our VIP area, all guests must be 21 years of age or older.
HI-FI requires a valid ID for admission. For guests who will be consuming alcoholic beverages, a valid state or government issues ID is required. Everyone will be carded during check-in. Expired and temporary ID’s are not accepted.
Can I upgrade my to VIP seating?
HI-FI proudly offers our VIP Deck, situated at the rear of the venue. This elevated section features table seating and provides convenient access to the bar. Please be advised that all guests in this area must be 21 years of age or older. For seating upgrade inquiries, please contact the box office at boxoffice@hifiindy.com
What items are permitted or prohibited at this venue?
At our venues, we strive to ensure a safe and enjoyable experience for all guests. While specific rules may vary slightly depending on the event location, the following list generally applies across all venues.
Any illegal items found will be confiscated immediately. Guests discovered with prohibited items inside the venue may face ejection, and those attempting to enter with such items may be denied entry.
We appreciate your cooperation in adhering to these guidelines to ensure everyone’s safety and enjoyment during our events.
Permitted Items Include:
- All bags and possessions are subject to search and may be subject to metal detection. No backpacks are permitted at any of our venues.
- Clear tote or bag made from plastic, vinyl or PVC that does not exceed 14” x 14” in size.
- Personal purse, fanny pack or handbag so long as it does not exceed 14” x 14” in size
- A warm heart and smiles
Prohibited items include:
- Weapons of any kind: Firearms (with or without permit), knives (any size), multi-tools
- Pepper Spray or Mace
- Flares or Fireworks
- Oversized bags (Bag larger than 12” x 12”, including all backpacks, briefcases, luggage, or duffle bags)
- Illegal Substances
- Outside Beverages
- Laser Pointers
- Removable lens cameras or flash photography, tripods, monopods, selfie-sticks (unless pre-approved by Event Manager)
- Audio or Video recording devices (unless pre-approved by Event Manager)
- Signs larger than 11” x 17” or any sign attached to a stick or pole
- Skateboards, hoverboards, rollerblades, scooters, or bicycles
- Hula hoops, spray paint, silly string
- Noise Making devices (i.e. Air Horns, drums, whistles)
- Coolers or Ice Chests
- Animals/Pets (Except Service Animals)
HI-FI reserves the right to prohibit any item, including items not listed above, from entering the premises if deemed hazardous or disruptive to the event.
Can I bring a bag into the show?
Yes! You’re welcome to bring personal purse, fanny pack or handbag so long as it does not exceed 14” x 14” in size. No backpacks are permitted at any time.
What’s the parking situation like?
Depending on the day and time, finding a spot can be tricky. On busy show days we advise arriving early to ensure you get a good spot.
Parking is free on all of the surrounding streets in Fountain Square and most parking lots.
The LAZ pay lot directly across from the Murphy Arts Building (on Prospect St) offers paid parking by the hour and is the closest public parking to the venue.
We advise against traveling down St. Patrick St on show days, as it can become congested one-way with traffic coming from both directions.
Bike parking is available at any of the bike racks on Virginia Ave in front of HI-FI.
What is the camera/photo policy for this venue?
Our photo policy varies for each event and is at the discretion of the artist performing that night. This policy can change from night to night.
As a general guideline, we typically do not permit professional photography unless it has been pre-approved by either HI-FI or the Artist Management.
For approved photographers, you’re welcome to snap photos during the first three songs of the performance. However, please refrain from using flash.
Media personnel and professional photographers interested in covering our events can reach out to us at marketing@hifiindy.com to request media credentials.
Is there food and drink at this venue?
Absolutely! We’ve got you covered for some tasty bites to fuel your night.
Our very own Easy Rider Diner is your go-to spot on most show nights, serving up mouthwatering dishes right next door to HI-FI. With a convenient connection door open for most shows, you can easily hop back and forth without missing a beat. We highly recommend making a reservation in advance, as show nights tend to get busy. Please note that Easy Rider is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, but fear not – you can still grab some chips, candy, or snacks at HI-FI’s bar.
View seating maps for this venue
Check your show listing for information on the show’s seating configuration. The majority of HI-FI shows are general admission, standing-room-only. Depending on the show, there are a handful of tables available to those who arrive early. There is a limited amount of seating upgrades available on the VIP deck. Contact the box office to secure a seating upgrade for your show at boxoffice@hifiindy.com. Shows that are reserved or partially reserved seating configurations will have information or purchase options directly on the event listing.
Can I leave and re-enter the venue?
Re-entry is allowed for HI-FI shows once you’ve been stamped or wristbanded by a member of our staff.
Do you offer ADA, handicap or special needs options?
There are 2 handicapped parking spots in the lot located across Prospect St. closest to El Arado Mexican Grill. The box office handles any special needs or ADA seating requests at boxoffice@hifiindy.com.
Where is the box office located?
Getting tickets to our shows is super easy! You have a few options, depending on how you like to roll:
Online: Grab your tickets in advance from our official websites, hifiindy.com and mokbpresents.com, or through our trusted ticketing partners tixr.com and seetickets.us.
In Person: Swing by one of our convenient box office locations around the Murphy Arts Center building and grab tickets with no service fees:
Main Box Office at Virginia Ave Mercantile: Located at 1043 Virginia Ave Suite 2 (between Easy Rider and La Margarita). Open Monday through Friday from 10 am to 6 pm and Saturdays from 9 am to 5 pm.
HI-FI Box Office: Found at 1043 Virginia Ave Suite 4 (at the main entrance to HI-FI). Open only on show nights, starting 1 hour before published show times until 10 pm.
I lost something at the show. Who do I contact?
Have you misplaced something during one of our events? Don’t worry, we’re here to help reunite you with your belongings! While we can’t take responsibility for lost or stolen items, we’re committed to assisting you in any way we can.
Found items are securely stored at our Virginia Ave Mercantile & Box Office until they’re claimed. Please note that items lost during late-night events might take until the next morning to reach our lost and found. We know you might be eager to retrieve your belongings (like that phone you’re pinging outside our door at 6 am), but our team typically wraps up late-night events and may not be available until later in the morning.
For lost items, please follow the outlined process rather than popping into Easy Rider in the early hours. They’re open early, but our restaurant team is busy during weekends and can’t assist with lost items during busy service hours.
To inquire about lost items, shoot us an email at boxoffice@hifiindy.com. Mercantile hours are Monday through Friday, 10 am to 6 pm, and Saturdays from 9 am to 5 pm.
Let’s work together to get your goods back to you as quickly as possible!
What is your refund policy?
What’s Your Refund Policy for Postponed Shows?
If a show gets postponed, don’t sweat it! We’ll shoot you an email to let you know about the change, and if you’re cool with the new date, no further action is needed on your part.We’ll be working diligently to find a new date for the show, and we’ll keep you updated every step of the way. But if you can’t make it to the rescheduled gig, we’ve got your back. You’ll have a generous 30-day window following the announcement of the new date to request a refund.
For those who paid with cash at our box office, just drop us a line at boxoffice@hifiindy.com for further instructions on processing your refund.
Please bear with us as we explore rescheduling options with the tour. Your patience is much appreciated as we work to present the best possible show experience for you.
What’s the Refund Policy for Canceled Shows?
In the unfortunate event of a canceled show, don’t fret! If you purchased your tickets online, your refund will be processed automatically. Just sit tight and allow 3-5 business days for the refund to appear in your bank account.
No need to lift a finger! However, there are a few scenarios where you might need to reach out to our box office:
- If you paid cash at our box office.
- If you’ve received a new or different card since your original purchase.
- If you haven’t seen the refund in your account after 5 business days.
What Happens if a Show Gets Rescheduled?
No worries! If a show you’ve already grabbed tickets for gets rescheduled, your tickets will still be valid for the new date. We’ll shoot you an email to let you know about the change, and if you’re good to go for the new date, no further action is needed on your part.
However, if you can’t make it to the rescheduled gig, we’ve got you covered. You’ll have a generous 30 days from the announcement of the new date to request a refund. Just reach out directly to our box office to kickstart the process.
Beware of counterfeit tickets. How do I tell if my ticket is valid?
It’s crucial for all buyers to exercise caution when purchasing tickets from unauthorized sites and ticket resellers. Tixr and SeeTickets are the only two ticket vendors supported at our venues. Unfortunately, this is a widespread issue affecting venues nationwide, and true fans often find themselves at a loss. Regrettably, there’s little we can do in such situations. Since the original transaction didn’t occur through our authorized ticketing partners, we lack the necessary information to assist. It’s disheartening to witness fans being taken advantage of, especially on platforms like Craigslist, Facebook, StubHub, VividSeats, SeatGeek, and others. We are only obligated to honor valid tickets purchased through our approved channels.
Can I purchase tickets in person without fees?
Yes. HI-FI box office is located at the main entrance off of Virginia Avenue. The box office is open 1 hour prior to the published door time. Additionally, our new and primary box office is located two doors down from HI-FI in Suite 2. This box office is open Monday through Friday 10 am to 6 pm and Saturdays from 9 am to 5 pm for fee-free ticket purchases. HI-FI accepts cash as well as all major credit cards for ticket purchases.
Do you have free WI-FI?
Yes. HI-FI offers free WI-FI during all shows. Simply select the HI-FI Free WI-FI network and you are all set!
Hurray For The Riff Raff
Start Time: 8:00 pm
Hurray for the Riff Raff has partnered with PLUS1 so that $1 per ticket goes to supporting This Must Be the Place and their work to distribute Naloxone - the lifesaving medicine that reverses an overdose – at events across the nation.
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ARTIST PROFILE | Hurray For The Riff Riff
Alynda Segarra is 36, or a little less than halfway through the average American lifespan. In that comparatively brief time, though, the Hurray for the Riff Raff founder has been something of a modern Huck Finn, an itinerant traveler whose adventures prompt art that reminds us there are always other ways to live.
Born in the Bronx and of Puerto Rican heritage, Segarra was raised there by a blue-collar aunt and uncle, as their father navigated Vietnam trauma and their mother neglected them to work for the likes of Rudy Giuliani. They were radicalized before they were a teenager, baptized in the anti-war movement and galvanized in New York’s punk haunts and queer spaces. At 17, Segarra split, becoming the kid in a communal squat before shuttling to California, where they began crisscrossing the country by hopping trains. They eventually found home—spiritual, emotional, physical—in New Orleans, forming a hobo band and realizing that music was not only a way to share what they’d learned and seen but to learn and see more. Hurray for the Riff Raff steadily rose from house shows to a major label, where Segarra became a pan-everything fixture of the modern folk movement. But that yoke became a burden, prompting Segarra to make the probing and poignant electronic opus, 2022’s Life on Earth, their Nonesuch debut. Catch your breath, OK? We’re back to 36, back to now.
During the last dozen years, these manifold tales of Segarra’s voyages have shaped an oral folklore of sorts, with the teenage vagabonding or subsequent trainhopping becoming what some may hear about Hurray for the Riff Raff before hearing the music itself. Segarra has dropped tidbits in songs, too, but they always worried that their experiences were too radical, that memories of dumpster diving or riding through New Orleans with a dildo dangling on an antenna were too much. But on The Past Is Still Alive, Segarra finally tells the story themselves, speckling stirring reflections on love, loss, and the end or evolution of the United States with foundational scenes from their own life. “It felt like a trust fall, or a letting go of this idea of proving something to the music industry—how I can be more digestible, modifiable, sellable,” Segarra says. “I feel like I’m closer to what I actually have to share.”
There is, for instance, sex and communal musicmaking on an island of San Francisco trash during “Snake Plant (The Past Is Still Alive),” a charged attempt to reckon the erosion of our childhood innocence with a belief that a worthwhile future is still possible. Or there are the cops and the trains and the long walks down empty Nebraska highways to escape said cops during “Ogalla,” the cathartic closer that tries to maintain the spirit of the past while actually surviving in the now. The Past Is Still Alive is the record of Segarra’s life so far, not only because it chronicles the past to understand the present but also because it is the most singular and magnetic thing Hurray for the Riff Raff have yet made. A master work of modern folk-rock, The Past Is Still Alive resets the terms of that tired term.
In March 2023, when Segarra returned to the North Carolina studio of producer Brad Cook to cut The Past Is Still Alive, they weren’t so sure about the session, if they could even handle it. Only a month before, their father, Jose Enrico (Quico) Segarra, had died. A musician himself, he had long been fundamental to Segarra’s songs, a point of inspiration and encouragement. What’s more, Segarra had made Life on Earth with Cook, and drummer Yan Westerlund had long toured in Hurray for the Riff Raff. But much of the band they’d assembled for these sessions—guitarist Meg Duffy, fiddler Libby Rodenbough, saxophonist Matt Douglas, multi-instrumentalist Phil Cook—were unknown quantities. At the edge of catastrophe and in the headlock of grief, could Segarra share these bone-deep songs among strangers? “The songwriting is what drove me. I didn’t feel the need to try to transform,” Segarra reckons. “It felt like the truth of where I was at in my life—very vulnerable, very fair, very raw.”
Segarra simply let those complex feelings lead the way, hurling themselves into these excavations of memory and blueprints for what’s to come. Witness, for instance, the tensile resolve in opener “Alibi,” a yearning reflection on addicted childhood friends that pleads with them to join the land of the living while they still can. As the pedal steel moans beneath the snappy country shuffle, their voice frays, a testament to the way they’re bearing difficult witness. That call to survival returns in “Snake Plant,” a song so stuffed with specific childhood memories—scenes from family road trips to Florida, snapshots from discovering oneself on the edge of the world—that Segarra feels like an actual tour guide. “Test your drugs/remember Narcan,” they sing toward the end. “There’s a war on the people/What don’t you understand?” The demand is graceful and winning, not pedantic, lived-in advice from someone who has managed to live when so many friends have not.
This quest to live in spite of outside attempts to kill us off animates “Colossus of Roads,” at once the most devastating and uplifting entry in the entire Hurray for the Riff Raff catalogue. Written like an urgent dispatch after the Club Q shooting in Colorado, it is a paean to the outsiders, a love song for the vulnerable—the queer, the homeless, the radical. Their voice taut as a piece of barbed wire, Segarra deploys poet Eileen Myles and boxcar artist BuZ blurr (the Colossus of Roads himself) to suggest a sanctuary of solidarity for the dispossessed. The United States as we know it can and probably should dissolve, they seethe; as it all comes down, though, Segarra asks to “wrap you up in the bomb shelter of my feather bed.” Brilliantly written and rendered, it is an anthem for a dawning age of collective liberation. “I’ve only had this experience a couple of times, where a song falls on me—it’s all there, and I don’t do anything,” Segarra admits. “It felt like creating a space where all us outsiders can be safe together. That doesn’t exist, but it exists in our minds, and it exists in this song.”
Throughout The Past Is Still Alive, Segarra suggests the profound ability to navigate all this pain, chaos, and trauma, or at least to meet it with senses of wonder and want. To wit, the delightful “Buffalo” uses the iconic American mammal that Americans almost drove to extinction as a metaphor for a new love; can it survive the pressures of society? A duet with Conor Oberst, “The World Is Dangerous” is a heartbroken waltz that still offers to hold someone close, if and when they’re ready.
And even as Segarra tells the tale of the first trans women they ever met, Miss Jonathan in New Orleans, and the beatings they took during “Hawkmoon,” they seem to beam, advocating for a better world yet to come. “I’m becoming the kind of girl that they warned me about,” Segarra sings at the end with devilish aplomb, proud to be carrying on Miss Jonathan’s work of upending norms, whether by sharing Miss Jonathan’s story or simply taking up space for themselves and their own multitudes.
It is especially fraught these days to speak of art in terms of national identity, to flirt with a jingoism that has led to new autocrats and rekindled old wars. But in the best ways possible, The Past Is Still Alive is a distinctly American record, built on twin pillars of peril and promise that have forever been foundational to this country.
The wanderlust that leads to piñon fires near the pueblos of New Mexico’s high desert and all-night escapades in New Orleans. The independence that shapes communities of like-minded outcasts, looking after one another. The inequality that makes such enclaves essential, that makes one of us eat out of garbage and the other with a silver spoon: It is all tragically and beautifully bound inside The Past Is Still Alive. Just as Louise Erdrich has done of late with Native Americans, Lonnie Holley with African-Americans, and Julie Otsuka with Asian-Americans, Segarra expands the scope of American stories here, stretching a long-safeguarded circle to encompass outsiders forever on the fringes. “The past is still alive/The root of me lives in the ballast by the mainline,” Segarra sings at one point, sweeping their days of riding rails directly into whatever success they have found now. Hurray for the riff raff, indeed.
READ MORE >>Supporting Acts
About the Venue
Upgrades: A limited amount of VIP seating upgrades (21+) are available for select shows. Contact the box office to purchase or check availability: boxoffice@hifiindy.com.
Ticket Support: Box Office opens 1 hour before published door time. For ticket related questions please email boxoffice@hifiindy.com.
Parking: Street Parking, Bike Parking
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