When the city hosted the Miss USA pageant two years ago, it hung a giant banner promoting “Gary Style”-on the side of an abandoned hotel. Gary, city leaders say, has plans: for the lakefront, for the neighborhoods, for downtown.īut for all the progress, for all the talk of renaissance and rebirth, Gary still maintains an uncanny ability to go bizarre. It welcomed minor-league baseball, even building a $45 million stadium to show off the club. It landed a Continental Basketball Association team. ![]() It brought in casino boats, delivering gambling, jobs, and the faint halo of prosperity. It has placed its bets on low culture and diminished expectations. But Gary has gotten wise it has followed the trail of other Rust Belt reclamation projects. These are not the kind of things that stir the hearts of civic boosters. “The town God forgot” is what one local newspaper columnist calls it. ![]() This is a city, after all, where FedEx once refused to pick up packages after dark, a place where a popular T-shirt depicts a skull with a bullet hole below the words “Scary Gary.” It is a place where the police once put up billboards reminding people they were driving through the murder capital of the nation. Over the years, the people of Gary have gotten used to the regular presence of the menacing and the macabre. This story appeared in the October 2003 issue and is part of Indianapolis Monthly ’s celebration of longform journalism.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |