The 812

Our topic today is Kirkwood Avenue, specifically the five blocks of East Kirkwood between the Courthouse Square and the Sample Gates, which many people consider to be the heart of Bloomington.

Since 2…

Cicada Cinema is a volunteer-run organization which calls itself a "pop-up movie theatre". Since 2016 they've been showing around Bloomington underrepresented and what they call "underseen" films, pr…

In September we interviewed the director of the Sycamore Land Trust, John Lawrence, about the idea of a land trust -- a nonprofit that preserves land from development and maintains landscape in its n…

One of the most high-profile developers in the area is Habitat for Humanity of Monroe County, famously builders of affordable housing (and formerly headed by current Mayor Kerry Thomson, who was a gu…

Today's local-media guest is visual journalist Jeremy Hogan, the co-owner and editor of The Bloomingtonian, the local independent hard-news website which he founded five years ago after being laid of…

Bloomington is rightly proud of its namesake greenery and its long-standing status as a Tree City. But the growth of the city's built environment over the past several decades has cut its tree popula…

There's a reason that the city's Parks & Recreation Department is a two-time winner of the National Recreation and Park Association's prestigious Gold Medal. Their Program Guide is proof of it: 40 pa…

Our guests today are from the Arts Alliance of Greater Bloomington. It serves as sort of an arts chamber of commerce, representing six types of arts genres --  visual, literary, music, dance, theatre…

Hopi Stosberg returns to The 812 a year later, as the new president of the council in only her sophomore year. We talk about some of her priorities for her leadership year, including changes to the U…

If you mix together your grade school math class, entrepreneurship, financial literacy, and life skills into a blender, add lemon, and press "liquefy"...you get Lemonade Day, which encourages kids ac…

Are you fighting with someone -- a spouse, the city, a landlord, a tenant, even a family member -- and you just can't reconcile with them? At least here in Bloomington, there's a nonprofit devoted ex…

Instead of a guest from a city or county board or commission, which we do frequently, today's show is about ALL the city's boards and commissions, and how they get managed. Which, until now, has been…

This week we're inviting back some of our favorite guests with updates from their corners. Today we welcome back Holly McLauchlin to talk about the latest at City of Bloomington Utilities, where she'…

We welcome back to the show one of our favorite raconteurs, Christopher Emge from the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce, who appeared a year ago when the show was first starting. We discuss cur…

Diverting waste from the environment is a value held dear by most Monroe Countians. There's a local government agency independent of Monroe County or its settlements that oversees the management of s…

We've had a number of guests who represent city commissions on this show. Today, our subject is the Commission on the Status of Black Males, a very busy board that hosts events at least six times a y…

Our first guest of the new year and the third season of The 812 is Carrie Albright, chair of the Bloomington Environmental Commission, one of the city's oldest. She talks about the work they do advoc…

The 812 is back with a new season of interviews with the people that make your community go 'round! New episodes drop beginning Monday, January 20. We're looking forward to an interesting crop of new…

Shelli Yoder is the dynamic state senator from District 40, representing Bloomington. She explains the statehouse for us, then talks about 2025 and what treats the statehouse might have in store: the…

It's our penultimate show of our season 2, which began in August, and of the year 2024. Today we meet Lilliana Young, a member of the Bloomington/Monroe County Human Rights Commission, to talk about …