Bygone Muncie: Imagining refuge from marshmallow Armageddon in downtown architecture

In anticipation of Halloween, I spend many October evenings watching my favorite scary movies. Without fail, I always screen the classic 1984 film "Ghostbusters." The movie blends humor with a supernatural eeriness that I’ve loved since childhood.

If you haven’t seen it, "Ghostbusters" is a story of four guys who start a ghost extermination business in New York City. We learn in the movie that the outbreak of hauntings is due to the imminent arrival of a malevolent Sumerian deity named Gozer the Gozerian. In the climatic scene, Gozer enters our earthly realm on top of a building especially designed by a cult to welcome the demon. After some small talk, Gozer unleashes a giant marshmallow man to terrorize the city.

As a kid, I was fascinated by the idea of a secret cult conjuring nasty spirits in strange buildings. To my mind, such notions provided an explanation for Muncie’s brutal modernist architecture. Surely the only justification for such fiercely stark structures, so I thought, was as a conduit for monstrous forces.

I was reminded of my childhood "theory" this spring after shooting video of the Boyce Block; one of Muncie’s most beautiful buildings. To get the angle I wanted, I had to back up onto the sidewalk catty-corner from Carnegie Library. When I finished, I turned and found myself veiled in the shadow of the immense AT&T Building. In all my 41 years in Muncie, I’d never stood in front of this towering edifice.

The building is just ... odd. I have no idea what it is, let alone what goes on in there. Why doesn’t it have windows? Do people actually work inside or is it just bundled wires and blinking routers? And what’s with that weird flat thing on top? After several months of deep, thoughtful, and totally serious consideration, I’ve concluded that it must be a platform to welcome Gozer the Gozerian to the Magic City.

Since that fateful day, I now see the tower everywhere when driving about downtown, catching glimpses of its luminous blue eyes as they survey Muncie’s landscape. When the leaves are down, the tower is also visible at certain spots along the Greenways, rising above the skyline as an inviting dais for a vengeful deity.

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Sadly, the building’s history doesn’t suggest any indication of occult activity. The first iteration of the AT&T Building was completed in 1939 by Indiana Bell Telephone Company to house their new automatic switching system. In 1947, the company finished a $325,000 addition to lodge their administrative staff offices. Then in the early 1970s, Indiana Bell spent $1.9 million for a complete modernist makeover. They added two new floors and the giant tower, giving the building the form we know today.

I asked several people who are knowledgeable about such things as to the AT&T Building’s architectural style. It’s certainly post-war modernism, but as to the specific aesthetic, some said international style, but most labeled it brutalist.

Brutalist architecture was popular from the 1950s to the early 1970s. As a minimalist aesthetic, brutalism features rigid geometric features, blocky masses, tons of cheerless concrete, and a lack of ornamentation. The First Merchants Building downtown is Muncie’s best example of brutalist architecture. Other buildings with similar tendencies include the Delaware Building and Ivy Tech’s Fisher Building. More exist depending on whom you ask.

I’d also label our 1969 Delaware County Building as brutalist. It of course replaced our much beloved 1887 beaux-arts courthouse, the county’s third palace of justice. There’s unfortunately a lot of unfair criticism of the current county building, given how its violent minimalism contrasts with the ornate design of the previous structure. But by the 1960s, the sandstone courthouse was in bad shape and we were unwilling to invest the money to save it. Our 1960s forebears chose a functionalist style probably for the same reasons their 1880s counterparts chose sandstone; it was popular and affordable at the time.

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Personally, I’ve come to love our County Building. For me, it’s the most sacred place in Delaware County to vote; a secular temple dedicated to American democracy. That alone makes the building beautiful. Sometimes before casting my ballot, I enjoy a Diet Pepsi on a park bench under that weird cantilever thing. Downtown Muncie is lovely in November mornings under several tons of concrete.

Despite my newfound appreciation for the courthouse, I have trouble interpreting certain design aspects. Why such narrow windows? Are they to provide defilade for riflemen? What about the reinforced wall that surrounds the north and west sides? Is it meant to block Soviet tanks or ‘60s radicals? Maybe they’re designed to hinder invasion from Madison County, just in case Anderson’s dark armies come seeking lebensraum upriver. Perhaps the designers foresaw some malevolent threat yet unknown to us, its true functionalism obscured until just the right moment.

I’m joking, of course. But regardless of how we may think of our brutalist buildings, they’ve become distinctive and, let’s be honest, permanent features of Muncie. I now see them as colossal concrete fists punching out of the earth to proclaim, “Rust Belt be damned! Muncie stands the test of time and our buildings prove it.” I can’t even imagine our city without them, and frankly, any architectural style that arouses controversy over a half-century must possess some kind of brilliance.

I could be wrong. However, I’m confident of this: when some moldy Sumerian god drops on top of the AT&T Building to tear up Muncie, I know the Delaware County Building is the safest place to go. As Gozer unleashes marshmallow Armageddon, I’ll be shrouded in democracy’s spirit and protected by several feet of solid concrete.

Chris Flook is a board member of the Delaware County Historical Society and is the author of  "Lost Towns of Delaware County, Indiana" and "Native Americans of East-Central Indiana." For more information about the Delaware County Historical Society, visit delawarecountyhistory.org.