We started off Ethan’s and my shared spring break with a much-needed trip out of town. We drove up to see friends in northwest Indiana, and trekked all over The Region shopping and eating and playing. For those who aren’t familiar with the area, The Region of Indiana is to Chicago as New Jersey is to Manhattan, a blue-collar, industrial area outside of the city, with rich suburban folks in their pre-fab mansions smacked up against the urban poor. After our trip to Chinatown in Chicago — what surprised me most was that this Chinatown is basically a Chicagoan tourist trap — we drove through Gary. I saw what Melissa described a couple of years ago, which is absolutely heartbeaking:
Starting with the 1960s trend of urban centers falling into disfavor, as suburbs began to expand, and exacerbated by the near-total collapse of NW Indiana’s steel industry, and then by crack, Gary fell slowly into a state of such bleak and crime-riddled disrepair that by the 1990s, it looked like a war zone. For many years, residents of Gary did not even have a grocery store within their city’s limits. No one, white, black, or otherwise, from my town, just a ten-minute drive away, ever went to Gary, and no one from Gary came to my town. Today, 37.9% of those under the age of 18 and 14.1% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line.
As we were driving down Broadway, neither of us could help but look at the decay of what were once beautiful buildings, now boarded up, half-burned, crumbling. Mr. S commented that the city looked as though it had had its heart ripped out.
My friend is a nurse at the Methodist hospital in Gary, and as you can imagine, sees some impossible shit in the course of a regular work day. She says the hospital she works for has the highest rate of penetrative wounds in the country, meaning shootings and stabbings and the like, and the people that she works with are unbearably poor. The buildings and homes around the hospital look like they’re straight out of a movie set, the faces of once beautiful buildings destroyed by fires and neglect, boarded up windows, some of them, the rest open to the elements, the stray cats running through the streets more populous than the people. It looked like a goddamned war zone, and effectively, between the lack of industry and resulting poverty, the drug problem and attendant War on (Some People Who Use) Drugs, the thriving gangs and outsider fear, it is.
The people of Gary are attempting an urban renewal project, which is certainly a good thing, but many of the buildings in the area look beyond repair. It’s particularly sad because so many of the homes and buildings were once so obviously beautiful. I don’t know who is expected to do and maintain the renewal project, unless we’re talking community outsiders, because the annual income is about $15,000 per household.
Directly outside of the mostly-black city is a collection of white ghettos, more burned-out homes and poverty-stricken trailer parks, the kinds of places I’m more used to seeing, having lived in the relatively rural portion of Indiana for the most of my life. I guess I’m just more familiar with the rural poor than the urban poor. I’m familiar with several of the dying towns outside of the Lafayette area, having worked in them a couple of years ago for a social services agency, but until yesterday I’d never seen so much, so dead, so many endless miles of lifeless city at once.
This is true of so many mid-sized American cities; as the American economy shifted from an industrial economy to a service-based one, tons of folks got screwed out of the kind of jobs that allowed them at least a tenuous foothold in the middle class.
Great post.
Word, Lauren.
Until a couple years ago, my step-father’s mother still owned her home in Gary. We used to visit when I was younger and I remember driving through the neighborhoods to get to her house. Almost every other house was burnt-out or otherwise abandoned. Remaining residents placed metal bars across their windows, put up fences, and installed tougher screen doors. I wasn’t allowed to play outside of the fenced yard.
I’m sure it was a beautiful neighborhood when first built.
Not to mention the fact that those who have been able to remain in their homes in this once great, but now nearly dead city are being pushed out by outrageous property taxes–some as high as $10,000–on houses that won’t sell for more than $70,000, if that. I work at the university in the city and am constantly frustrated at its lackluster effort to embrace and support the community. Thanks for the lovely post.
Urban renewal project? How’s that gonna work without jobs? I mean, living wage jobs, like the good union jobs that once existed there? With benefits, and a forty-hour week.
I’m not as familiar with Indiana, but take a drive through most mid-size Illinois cities south of I-80 and you’ll see the same thing, to a greater (East St. Louis, Cairo) or lesser (Danville, Centralia, Decatur) extent.
And it isn’t going to change without the return of decent paying jobs.
I hear you, Lubu.
They’ve laid off workers and expected outsiders to come in as investors without the community support to help. Even the Decatur/Danville area with which I’m really familiar hasn’t stepped up to help, much less downtown Gary. The only place that I can see that’s hopeful is the Railcats location, which is one of the places my friend reports that she sees a lot of her hospital clients from (bar fights) …
Yep. Gary - my childhood home. Aetna and Miller, to be specific.
I look at my family’s old place on E. 13th Avenue and am glad that at least the latino family that owns it has struggled mightily to maintain it as the rest of the neighborhood dies a step at a time.
My dad takes it much harder. I can drive him through Miller and he can dredge up 50 years of neighborhood history in moments just by looking at a house, a four way stoplight, a particular sand dune. It kills him to see where Miller is now, and it’s in far better shape than much of the rest of the city.
I sometimes think that most of the city should just be torn down, allowed to let nature take over, and become part of the Dunes National Lakeshore. But there are lives there, and histories, and where do those living there then go?
The area, pre-steel mills, was once a tourist spot for Chicagoans. Maybe that’s where it has to go next. Or perhaps we figure out a way to go after the sand without destroying the beautiful sand dunes in the process and start making solar panels? I dunno…so much lost.
“Gary, Indiana, not Louisiana, Paris, France or Rome, is the only place I’ll call home (Music Man). In my case the east Glen Park area. I wonder if there is any hope for the city anymore, and fear there is not. Wish it were otherwise.
For an appreciation of what the “Steel City” was in its heyday, permit me to call your attention to a web site which provides extensive information on the
Development
History
Politics
Government
Economics
Ethnic diversity
Past & Present People/Places/Events
of the “Steel City,” Gary, Indiana. Of course U.S. Steel is covered, particularly the “World’s Largest Plate Mill,” the 210 inch Plate Mill. The site gives a thorough and understandable explanation of how steel is made. It also details the tragic story of the 1981 murder of Gary Police Lt. George Yaros. The web site has many photos and does permits users to contibute/participate in a blog.
The web site is Dave’s Den
The web site url is http://GDYNets.WebNG.com
I also work for the University in Gary and agree that the school has not done a lot to embrace the community. It would be great if a member of the faculty or staff could organize the employees because I would definately want to be a part of helping Gary.
Oh, you are so right! It will take Railcat and other nameless fans to help build the Northside economy.