I will make a thread later for my urban exploration pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

nice job.

 

looks like this one had neighbors at one time?  :|

i counted fewer than ten people in this thread

These are the nicest photos I've seen of Gary. 

Nice photos, some great buildings there!

Oh please. Someone take me up there and drop me off for a week. I'd be in heaven.

Wow.

Oh please. Someone take me up there and drop me off for a week. I'd be in heaven.

 

Or dead

It's a sure sign of a dead downtown when even the wig store has bars on the windows and looks like it's been out of business for at least a decade!  And they weren't just sellin' no ordinary wigs either, they were "California Wigs".

^ LOL

Mmm...Flinty.

Gary is a sad case of urban deteration.

The architecture in Gary is beautiful, and I would love to see it restored,

but its hard to save the economy of a steel plant city.

Oh please. Someone take me up there and drop me off for a week. I'd be in heaven.

 

If you go (and make it back alive), I'd like to see views of the shell of the old New York Central station that stands across the South Shore tracks. It looks like a masonry Beaux Arts building, but it's actually poured, reinforced concrete scored to look like stone. It's been fire-gutted, and for a time served as an auto junkyard, but I've heard it's structurally solid and could be rebuilt if there were an economically viable use for it.

I'm pretty sure that every time I've driven through Gary (on my way to Chicago) the sun has quit shining for that time and an overall sense of death has filled the air.  :cry:

It's interesting you mention that, because I can't recall the last time I drove through Gary and saw sun.  Yet, I get to Chicago and it's beautiful.  Maybe that's why I was really impressed by Zach's photos.  The weather looks great.

Gary. Come for the cloud cover. Stay for the mercury poisoning.

Gary looks much better in the photos than in my memories.  It was probably the ugliest town I had ever seen as a kid.  I especially remember the City Hall with lots of slimey goop on the walls (looks like that has been cleaned off) and thinking even then "who the hell would live here?" But people live where the jobs are and it was prosperous if unattractive. 

I was born and raised in Hammond, IN - which is right next to Gary and East Chicago.  And all I have to say is - whenever somebody complains about how dangerous Dayton is, I laugh.  Gary is THE most dangerous and depressed city in the midwest.  The only thing saving it is riverboat gambling, brought to town by none other than Donald Trump.  But I think that is separated from the rest of the city. 

 

Interesting pics though...

Ink is probably right about Youngstown.  I really dont see much of a comparison.  While Ytown lost its steel mills there are still some nice areas within the city limits, moreso north of downtown.  And I think there are still some office uses left downtown.  And it does have that big state U.

 

Gary didn't really lose it steel mills as US Steel Gary Works is still in operation.  But there are nearly no good neighborhoods left...maybe Miller, on the lake to the east of the mills (and there is a move afoot to secede from Gary).  And the downtown is nearly totally moribund having lost most office uses to the suburbs to the south of the city.

 

The Casino operations in Gary that Billy mentions are on the west side of town at Buffington Harbor, which was a disused US Steel harbor.  This is really right next to Hammond/East Chicago.

 

I think the station Rob mentions was used as a set for that blaxploitation satire "Im Gonna Get You Sucka!", as the HQ of one of the rival gains (the other was HQed in an abandoned blast furnace!)

 

Anyway, Gary is a pretty good example of what wholesale disinvestment and massive white flight gets you.  Theres' a pretty good book on this (it covers the period before 1980 too):

 

Author       Catlin, Robert A

Title       Racial politics and urban planning : Gary, Indiana, 1980-1989                                        Publish info  Lexington : University Press of Kentucky, c1993

 

For the environmental aspect:

 

Author Hurley, Andrew, 1961-

Title Environmental inequalities : class, race, and industrial pollution in Gary, Indiana, 1945-1980

Publish info Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, c1995

 

Then there are these two historical works:

 

Industrial city : a history of Gary, Indiana to 1929

Quillen, Isaac James, 1909-

New York : Garland Pub., 1986

 

 

Steel city : urban and ethnic patterns in Gary, Indiana, 1906-1950

Mohl, Raymond A

New York : Holmes & Meier, 1986

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hmm, isn't the timing on this article ironic....

__________________________________________________________________

Divorcing Gary is hard to do

Residents of the Indiana city's lakefront region are divided about legal secession

Source: Chicago Tribune, Aug 27, 2007 Link

 

Citing the city's poor economic stature, residents of a section of Gary, Indiana, are proposing that they split from the city. Some say race and class differences are the undercurrents spurring the idea.

 

"In recent weeks, a heated, sometimes passionate conversation has unfolded over whether Miller should legally divorce Gary. The idea has been batted around before, but in more abstract ways. This time, some residents are working on a formal plan, circulating fliers and researching how much time and money it would take to break away."

 

"The discussion illustrates how frustrated some taxpayers and homeowners are with Gary government and an image of struggling schools, corruption and high crime. Crime statistics still rank the city as one of the nation's most violent. Test scores in public schools are below the national average, and recently the state ordered city leaders to cut $11 million from the budget."

 

"'The city of Gary is in terrible financial shape, and it's not due to the amount of money they collect,' said Nat McKnight, who's trying to gauge interest in the idea of breaking away. 'They are not willing to economize and protect the tax base. That's what disannexation is all about. It might be better for Gary and Miller if this comes to pass.'"

 

"Still, the discussion has unleashed strong emotions in this laid-back region. Those in favor of splitting say that they are not rich, but the idea of formal separation looks to some like the wealthy removing themselves from the poor. And in a polarized city, some can't help but see racial undertones to the idea, true or not. The city is majority African-American, and many of those leading the discussion about separating are white."

 

^ Well, isn't that why most of the communities in NW Indiana exist?  To not be Gary?

 

In the past I have inquired with other people and discussion groups about driving in Gary, downtown to be specific.  It is my understanding that it is right off of I-90, which feeds into the Chicago Skyway, at Exit 14B/IN 53.  My folks are against me doing it, but I have been told by someone closer to the area that if you stick to the main highways (state roads like SR 53, as well as US 12/20) and keep your doors locked you should be OK.  (No, I haven't driven these Gary streets ... yet.)

 

I remember stopping at a Speedway gas station down in Merrillville (which is to Gary what Huber Heights is to Dayton) on 73rd Avenue/old Lincoln Highway at State Road 53/Broadway, and there were vertical metal bars on the windows.  That gave me some cause for concern.  Does that part of Merrillville have a crime problem?  This was April 2006.

 

One thing I picked up is that I-65 tends to be the dividing line between the safe and questionable areas of the Calumet region.  Last year I stayed at two motels, one in Merrillville on US 30 east of I-65 (heading towards Valparaiso) and the other in Portage.  Both were on the east side of I-65.

I never thought much of crime around Merrillville.  I used to fill up there on US-30 before hitting full-blown Chicagoland (though one could argue that that occurs around Crown Point).

 

I have also never ventured into Gary, but entering Chicago via the Indiana Toll Road and the Skyway is a MUCH better way to get a feel for what Chicago's all about then taking 80-94 to the Dan Ryan.  Though I tend to not be turned off by industrial grit--others may feel differently.

 

That's the thing about Gary - as long as you stay on the main expressways/highways you're ok.  It is when you get into the neighborhoods  that it gets pretty rough.  And just like any city - there are parts that are bad and parts that aren't so bad.