Photo provided Ethan Crough will lead a Landmark Columbus Foundation Local Social Design Tour Tuesday.
Local Social Design Trips, a new Landmark Columbus Foundation series, continues at 5:45 p.m. Tuesday with local resident Ethan Crough, beginning at the Landmark Columbus Foundation office, 408 Sixth St. downtown.
The series is part of a larger effort known as the All or Nothing Series.
The trips take about an hour and are then followed by refreshments and conversation about the sights and more. Crough, a seventh-grade Central Middle School geography teacher, first began doing architectural tours with area third-graders eight years ago.
This event is supported through a grant from Indiana Humanities, and presented by Upland Columbus Pump House. Last month, Paulette Roberts, a retired teacher and a passionate educator about Black history, led one of the design trips. Landscape architect Randy Royer led another in September.
As a former tour guide in New York City and a community leader, organizers said Crough “will offer a unique perspective and personal connection to the histories and meanings of various significant cultural sites in and around downtown Columbus.” He will use a framework from the Disability History Museum with a reading “Stereotypes About People With Disabilities.”
He is asking those planning to go on the tour to take a moment to read that article posted at disabilitymuseum.org/dhm/edu/essay.html?id=24.
He will link those six stereotypes with people’s possible preconceived ideas about the six buildings to be included on the tour. He pointed out that, once a person leaves a building, he or she usually must alter perceptions and thoughts about the structure much the way people must adjust after meeting a new person.
Crough is a former national officer for Little People of America and has regularly shared presentations on his life with dwarfism. In 2020, he presented a Ted Talk in Bloomington on diversity, and acceptance of differences such as dwarfism.
And he is clear about one big element about the disability issue for the sake of transparency and to put people at ease.
“We’re all at some point guilty of stereotypes ourselves,” he said.
Crough figures he could use a similar tour for other groups perhaps in the spring during March and Disabilities Awareness Month if interest warrants.
In relation to the overall series, two “Do Nothing” events are upcoming. They are:
- Do Nothing in front of Chaos I – 6 p.m. Nov. 22. Information: https://DoNothingChaos.eventbrite.com
- Do Nothing inside the Bartholomew County Courthouse – 5 p.m. Dec. 14. Information and sign-up: https://DoNothingCourt.eventbrite.com
“These are experiments of ours, to unplug and be contemplative in meaningful place,” said Richard McCoy, the foundation’s executive director.
