Downtown Lafayette in waning days of 2021: Tales of stress, hopefulness

LAFAYETTE, Ind. — A stroll through downtown Lafayette offered a neighborly moment to ask Hoosiers how this past year has treated them.

The key questions: Whether 2021 was better or worse than prior years, and what were a few things that they’re hoping to manifest in the new year.

In the last week of the year, Downtown Lafayette was blessed with rain and the occasional snowflake, which in turn left the streets relatively quiet.

As a way to counteract the rain, the Journal & Courier ended up going indoors, speaking with business owners, their employees and any patron willing to give a glimpse of their past year.

Macey Ropes

For anyone who may be a vinyl record or tie-dye enthusiast, you've probably encountered Macey Ropes at least once.

Ropes works at Black Wax Record on Main Street. She also runs a booth at the Lafayette Farmers Market for her tie-dye business, Rainbow Children Tie Dye.

For Ropes, 2021 was a formative year that gave her a chance to blossom one of her newfound hobbies into a small business.

“It was definitely a year that really shook me up. I would honestly consider it one of those years of new beginnings. Before I was in a routine that I didn’t really know how to get out of, and then all of a sudden, I went from that to having no idea of what was going on and it was just stressful. Not having a clear direction of life,” said Ropes.

Near the beginning of the pandemic, Ropes began to pick up new hobbies, such as tie-dying clothing, knitting and crocheting. This eventually led her to start a new business based on her hobbies.

“I started a tie-dye business and I sold my stuff down at the Lafayette Farmers Market. Prior to (the pandemic), I don’t think I would have had the courage to put myself out there like that.”

“I feel like it’s been a good year, and I don’t know if it’s been reflected everywhere or if it’s just my life. So I’m putting that out there because that’s the lens I see it through. But I feel like 2021 has been a lot more community-oriented compared to 2020, or even some of the previous years. People seem a lot more willing to help each other and maybe even more understanding of each other. But once again, that could have to do with getting involved with the farmers market and the tight-knit community that is downtown Lafayette.”

For 2022, Ropes is unsure what the future holds for her, but she’s excited, “because, with every year, there is always the potential for growth.”

Brian Thieme

For Brain Thieme, co-owner of Thieme & Wagner Brewery, 2021 was a year of recovery for his business. Like most restaurants in 2020, Thieme’s brewery essentially lost out on a year’s worth of business.

Although Thieme & Wagner Brewery reopened its door in May, folks didn’t start returning to the bar until late fall.

Since then, Thieme’s clientele has slowly started to resemble that of his pre-pandemic numbers.

As the skies above downtown grow gloomy, and the foot traffic in downtown drops to a crawl and as new variants of COVID-19 SURGE, Thieme is preparing for business to slow down once again.

“Downtown businesses don’t really thrive off of winter months, because a lot of people downtown walk and go from place to place. but when it’s cold out, they don’t do that. But for the most part, this year has been pretty good. We had a couple of setbacks with events getting canceled because of the rain and weather. But other than that, that’s about it,” said Thieme.

“If COVID could just settle down, I think things will be all right. Since it's still kind of creeping around and coming back, it scares people. I’d say about 30 percent of our clientele haven’t shown up yet, because we range in demographics, from college kids, middle-aged people to older people.”

Thieme’s biggest hope for the upcoming year is for downtown Lafayette to return to its pre-pandemic days.

“I’m really hoping for the events to happen again, and for people to get downtown again to start walking around and having fun again. I hope the weather also cooperates this summer and gives us some good days. For events not to get canceled, because the more stuff that happens downtown the better our business is.”

Lyle Janney

Lyle Janney was a patron at Thieme & Wagner Brewery on this late December day. He came into the restaurant to watch the University of Houston compete against Auburn University at the Birmingham Bowl.

Purely based on his demeanor, one could be fooled into thinking that 2021 was just another year for Janney.

After talking with him, that was far from the case.

If anything, 2021 was a year of healing for Janney and his family, because in early 2020, they almost lost their lives after a 13-year-old girl burnt down their home in West Lafayette.

She was later charged with arson and attempted murder and was sent to the Indiana Department of Corrections juvenile facility after her adjudication.

“We feel that the best outcome was obtained overall. Hopefully, this kid got the help that they needed. To this day I still feel pretty bad about what that kid’s parents had to go through. No parent wants to wake up one morning and find out that their kid just tried to murder somebody,” said Janney.

All of this happened before the pandemic even hit and threw everyone’s life for a loop. Luckily, Janney had a solid support system, his job was understanding of his situation and because of it, he was able to stay afloat during this period.

Unfortunately, with the combined stress of losing their home and of the uncertainty from the pandemic, Janney’s child started to fall behind in school.

“Kiddo tried the best they could in school, and later in the year, they were just starting their freshman year of high school and that did not go well. Thankful once they were able to get back in the schoolroom, they’ve been getting As and Bs ever since.”

They have since rebuilt a new home on the plot of land and are slowly trying to make it feel like home again.

“We’re still in the process of making this house feel like our home, but that’s coming along. We could never replace the two cats that we lost, but the two new cats that we have are definitely members of the family.”

Janney is grateful that he and his family are alive today.

In the upcoming year, Janney plans to give back to the community that helped him during his time of need.

Steve Clawson

The phones were ringing like crazy and guests were constantly escaping the rain by stumbling into Roth Florist to either admire the flowers that decorated the shop or to pick up an order.

Steve Clawson, the owner of Roth Florist, was trying his best to juggle the orders, hopping from the phone to a customer and then back to the phone.

It was pure luck and perfect timing that Clawson could spare a moment to speak with the Journal & Courier.

When it came to his experience of 2020 and 2021, Clawson didn’t have much to say about the topic. Most of his anxiety came from what 2022 has in store for his business and industry.

“This past year, there have been a few price increases that we were able to stave off, but it looks like they’re going to be a little bit more next year. I don’t know how it’s going to affect our business, we’ll just have to wait and see. It’s mainly with roses,” said Clawson.

“For Valentine’s Day, our roses have been $85 a dozen, and they were $65 year round. It looks like they’re going to be $95 this year for Valentine’s Day. There’s no real answer on why.”

Clawson figured that the supply chain issues play a big role in the price increase. Almost all of the roses that Clawson sells are imported from South America, he said, which is then driven to Indianapolis from Miami. And with the increase in fuel and cost of labor, that cost then falls onto the consumer.

Clawson hasn’t noticed a similar trend with other popular flowers, such as daisies and carnations. For him, he’d rather keep it that way because, besides the roses, these two other flowers are popular choices.

Alexander Block

With the new year marching ever so closely, many students are still at home visiting their families for the holidays.

There were still a few students lingering around Lafayette and West Lafayette in the last week of December 2021, either opting out of traveling this year or unable to justify the cost of heading home.

Alexander Block was one of those students.

Block is a Ph.D. student in Purdue University’s Computer Science Department, completing the final year of his program.

For Block, 2021 was an overall OK year, to say the least. Luckily, due to the nature of his research, which is all theoretical, Block didn’t need to visit the campus as much as some of his other colleagues – a major stress relief on his end.

Block did tell the Journal & Courier how much he missed being able to travel, whether to a conference, visit friends in a different state, or just the opportunity to return home to see his family.

“I would fly back home to California, maybe once every couple months because I was able to find cheap flights. Sometimes friends would invite me to things, and I would be able to go because of cheap flights. Tickets aren’t that cheap anymore,” said Block.

“That being said, I was able to travel this year. I went to Seattle twice and I went back to California once, but definitely not as much as before.”

Since this is Block’s final year in his program, he’s excited for what the new year has in store for him. As of now, Block has been offered a few post-doctoral programs around the country.

“I’m excited because I will be graduating and I will be moving on from Purdue to a post-doc job, somewhere. It’s pretty likely that it’ll be in the Washington, D.C., area, so I’m very excited about that.”

Raine Castle & Troy Brooks

A common story that many businesses share regarding the pandemic was how it brought on a year of hardship for many owners.

For Raine Castle, owner of Castle-Brook Spiritual Supply, that wasn’t the case.

If anything, the past two years have revitalized her business. Prior to 2020, Castle’s business was barely staying afloat. It brought in enough money to cover the cost of the business, but not much extra.

Castle and her business partner, Troy Brooks, were both working two jobs just to make ends meet. Brooks was working at Target and Castle was working at Von's in West Lafayette.

Once people were forced into their homes, and with the growing stress caused by the pandemic, many began to search for spiritual alternatives that would help them cope with the stress.

“Whatever their path was, we carried a lot of different stuff to make sure to serve them. We don’t propose any right way or wrong way of finding spirituality. Our mission statement is that we serve a spiritually diverse group,” said Castle.

Castle-Brook Spiritual Supply carries a range of items, from incense, tarot cards, essential oil and the surprise hit over the past two years, crystals.

“I think Tik Tok had a lot to do with the interest of crystals. They would tell their followers, 'Oh, you need this crystal, or you need that crystal.' People would be running in trying to find the specific crystal that they needed,” said Castle.

Both Castle and Brook mentioned that if wasn’t for the City of Lafayette’s push to urge folks to shop locally and downtown, they don’t know if they’d be as successful.

Sean & Carrie McGill

For Sean and Carrie McGill, the past two years have been extraordinarily successful for their tattoo shop, DragonsBane Tattoo & Body Piercing.

Since the McGills were able to reopen back in May of 2020, the shop has been busier than ever before. They have had only had a few weeks they would consider slow, “a slow week could probably be three or four tattoos and about 10 piercings,” said Sean McGill.

The McGills believe that this newfound success could be contributed to a multitude of factors, such as an increase in income, more free time on people's hands and a desire for a sense of control.

“I think since people weren’t able to do more traditional pastimes that require gatherings, people had a lot of free time on their hands and they had a lot of each money on their hands' thanks to the stimulus money that people got,” said Carrie.

“With the different fears of lockdowns, shutdowns and different things, people are turning to things more like this, things that are more permanent over something that they may buy and break,” said Sean.

As the new year rolls around, Carrie has big plans for the piercing half of the business. They’ve always carried a wide variety of earrings, but nothing that would be considered expensive or fancy. With their newfound success and interest in piercings, Carrie wants to start carrying those high-end items in the new year.

Although, the one thing that has been a pain in the side of the McGills was determining how to react to the ever-evolving pandemic that we’re in.

“I think COVID has been the biggest challenge, is trying to adapt to everything evolving, like what do we do now? And knowing every decision you make along the way will alienate someone. Do we all wear masks? Well, if you go to all masks, then you’re going to have a whole group upset that they have to wear a mask. But if you don’t enforce masks, then you have another group that feels uncomfortable because people aren’t in masks. At times, it’s a no-win situation, and it’s very difficult to navigate the risk,” said Carrie.

“I’m hopeful that we could get COVID completely under wrap, but we’ll see. It’s an evolving virus,” said Sean.

Noe Padilla is a reporter for the Journal & Courier. Email him at Npadilla@jconline.com and follow him on Twitter at 1NoePadilla.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Lafayette in waning days of 2021: Tales of stress, hopefulness