World Trip 2002 - Gary

Day 10

Gary Indiana is about the closest thing I have ever seen to an abandoned city. It is becoming a modern day Mayan city, buildings remaining but people getting out.

Just across the border from Chicago, Gary is a city that has fallen on bad times. I heard a lot of things about Gary before coming there. It was supposed to have a high crime rate, white people had been warned to stay out of town. But David from Forgotten Detroit assured me it was safe to explore. Sure enough we had no problems when we were there. No one bothered us or gave us a second look. I didn't feel unsafe at any time. It was an okay place to explore. Even though whole city blocks had been abandoned and bulldozed it looked okay.

David drove around, looking at an old high school that was being boarded up. He explained that out here there was actually companies that all they did was board up buildings. The high school was being worked on, it would be too risky to explore it. Besides, there was more to see down town. We drove down the main street, whole blocks of it missing. These blocks had been torn down only a few years before, and remained behind as flat dusty areas devoid of the vitality of a town that has hope and a future. Sure the grass growing on them was life, but it could have been concrete as these blocks were lifeless.

You don't expect the really good abandoned buildings to be in the swanky part of town though.

David has great knowledge of this area. He pointed out an abandoned theater, the Palace, which we entered without much trouble. He had explored this building before, and had to exit it via a rickety fire escape when some one else had entered it. The front of the theater had all of it's windows boarded up, but they had been painted over with scenes such as a ticket seller in the box office and plants in the upper floor windows. Somewhat unusual. The upcoming attractions sign read "Jackson five tonite'. David wasn't sure if that was original or if it had been done when the place was boarded up.

We entered the building, explored a bit, then returned to the car to swap my camera for my video camera. I should have just carried both. The place still had intact balconies, a grand piano in the front of the theater and the projection room. It was also unusual in that it had apartments adjoining the theater The builders were never sure that the theater would make money, so they hedged their bets by adding the apartments to guarantee it would generate an income. I guess that eventually the place lost out, even with the apartments.

Less than a block away from the theater was the Gary Public Schools Memorial Auditorium, dating from 1927. I walked in here with just my camera and by the time I was on the upper floor I was kicking myself for not taking the video camera. It was like one moment we were walking up some stairs and the next moment we emerged into the ruined garden on the top floor of the building. I was glad the floor was concrete. That stuff stays solid even with a thick mat of trees growing on it. This was in sharp contrast to the roof of the building, probably wooden framed, which had burnt away a long time ago. The building was great to explore. Not very large, because it was only the front portion of the building, the rest was demolished years ago.

As we drove from the auditorium to the Lake Shore and B&O depot we passed a big hotel, right by the entrance to the highway. The building had a huge sign on it's side, advertising a Miss Universe competition that was held in Gary years ago. It had 'Gary Style' written on it in huge letters. David pointed out that this was ironic because the hotel it was on was already abandoned when the Miss Universe competition was held.

The rail depot was great. It had the dodgy staircase from hell in it. No hand rails, missing stairs and some stairs replaced by boards. On the upper level the floor boards looked rotted away. Luckily they had been laid into a concrete floor or I never would have walked up there. I got some neat pictures looking over the edge of the balcony, no hand rails there either. In fact it all was quite dodgy. Looked like it was going to fall apart any day.

From Gary, David drove me east to Detroit.

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