Requiem For the Music Man | Gary, Indiana

I was more familiar with Robert Preston in his final role as Centauri in The Last Starfighter but my mom and my wife will always sing the line “Gary, Indiana” from the movie “The Music Man” and while it might have tripped along softly on the tongue this way. The city of Gary today is a far cry from what it once was in the early 20th Century. This boom steel town has seen its highs and is now in its lows. I would have loved to include every building I explored in Gary in my “Between Darkness & Light” Series, the simple fact is that I didn’t get enough photos from a building to build a full entry for the series. So instead I decided to compile these buildings into a single entry!

Ambassador Apartments
Many abandoned apartments could be more exciting; these tall houses are filled with the same thing across any number of floors. Most of the time, they are stripped down to the bare walls. But the Ambassador Apartments are a beautiful example of Italianate residential architecture. Located on Monroe Street, this 1928 high-rise stands at eight storeys. Built during a population boom in Gary, US Steel needed quality and luxurious housing for their executives. The 68-unit high-rise apartment was, when completed, the tallest residential building in the city. Designed by William Stern at the core of the city and close to the US Steel Plant, construction started in 1927, and soon, the stunning piece of architecture was soaring above the downtown. With a steel super-structure clad in buff bricks with cream terracotta trimming, the terms lavish and swanky are often associated with the Ambassador. Even during the mid-century white flight, the Ambassador remained a whites-only building, and occupancy dropped sharply. The once high-value building would become low-income housing by 1970. It would be another decade and a half of deterioration in the face of lack of maintenance, and inspectors condemned the building in 1985. There were plans to revitalise the apartments in 1993; money became available, and plans were made. Even community members rallied around the idea of a mixed-use building, commercial on the first floor with affordable 1 and 2-bedroom units on the rest. There proved to be colossal community support for the building, but they could not get shovels on the ground. And by the turn of the century, the building was too far gone. It would take another fifteen years, but today, there’s nothing left but an empty lot.

Gary Public Schools Memorial Auditorium
Like many such memorial buildings completed in the aftermath of World War One, the Gary Public Schools Memorial Auditorium commemorates the members of Gary’s Public Schools who lost their lives fighting on the Western Front in the waning months of the First World War. Plans were set in motion in 1919, and local architect Joseph H Wildermuth contracted to design the auditorium with the main driver behind the building, US Steel’s land development company, Gary Land Company. The cornerstone was laid on 12 October 1927 in an entire half-day ceremony attended by upper-grade students at the ROTC of two schools providing an honour guard and music supplied by school bands. The Memorial Auditorium opened in 1928 with a final cost of five million ($90,180,409.36 in 2024) dollars. The main gym and auditorium had seating for 5,000 people and could host shows, graduations, sports events, concerts and more. One notable talent contest event included the Jackson Five (yes, that Jackson Five). The auditorium closed in 1972 with plans to renovate it into a sports hall of fame, local history museum, and performing arts centre. But before anything could get started, a fire in 1997 destroyed most of the building, leaving only the entrance standing. Due to the significant deterioration, the remains were de-listed from the Heritage Register in 2013 (first listed in 1994), and in 2019, the demolition of the ruins was approved. The building was knocked down in 2020.

Gary Screw & Bolt
Or as it was called by the local explorers, “Bolt & Screw,” this massive factory is one of my favourites from the city, a massive industrial factory with lots of big empty. Sadly, I only made it out of this spot once. That trip also saw an encounter with a police officer while I was leaving who was less concerned with the fact I had been trespassing but more concerned about any vandals. I had seen a group of kids wandering in while I was leaving, and the officer went in after them. The fact I had a tripod and a camera helped my case. The Gary Works were founded in 1911 by a group of executives from the Pittsburgh Screw & Bolt Corporation, and the plant began operations in 1912 with its first 100 workers. Production and workforce peaked during World War Two, with over 1,000 workers and 4,000 tons of fasteners produced monthly. Production nearly halted after a fire in 1947 destroyed the two main buildings. The company invested almost a million dollars to modernise and expand the plant and retained a workforce of 900. The work remained steady until 1986 when the whole plant shut down in December. The Gary Urban Enterprise Association purchased the shuttered factory in 2002 as a warehouse for donated textiles and clothing. The clothing was cut down into strips and shipped out in bulk to other countries. Despite being forgiven all back taxes and having a basic cleanup, GUEA soon came under the federal microscope. The problem is that the executive director had done this 655 times between 1998 and 2004, and in 2006, he was handed a six-year prison sentence for misuse of public funds, and the members of the GUEA board were also hit with corruption, fraud, theft and wrongdoing charges. Partial demolition occurred in 2021, although most plant still stand today.

United States Post Office – Gary, IN
You may remember a save-the-date tag floating around the Internet; this is where the tag was located initially. The size and style of this post office show the status of Gary, IN, during the early 20th Century. Multistory construction, massive operations floor and a stylish lobby all clad in white stucco on a black granite base. The main post office opened in 1936 as a part of the “New Deal”, a series of public works designed to kickstart the US economy during the Great Depression and instil confidence in the government and its services. Designed by Howard L. Cheney in the Art Moderne style, it fits into the architectural style of US government buildings of the period. The exact point where the building closed is unknown, and no records exist; we only know that it was added to the Historic Register in 1994. This is another spot I only visited once and one where I shot a lot of film, even in large format, compared to most others on the list. Like other places, the Post Office was empty, but it was well worth the effort to see the grandeur of what people saw in the postal service. I was also saddened to see how far the place had gone downhill. I also ran into another photographer who told me about the new program. Where you could buy a permit to visit the city’s abandoned buildings. And, oh yes, the Post Office is still standing as of 2023.

Universal Atlas Cement (Buffington Harbor)
In this piece’s writing, I discovered what this abandoned cement factory was even called. Honestly, I had not even thought about this place for a long time, but I needed one extra spot, and when I searched for “Gary” on my Flickr stream, this place popped up. So I searched for “abandoned cement factory Gary in”, and this spot popped up on Abandoned Online. In 1903, the Illinois Steel Corporation began to construct its first cement mill at Buffington Harbor; the production of Portland Cement utilised slag, limestone, and gypsum and with the growing steel industry in the area, especially with US Steel starting to construct what would become the Gary Works nearby. Cement from Buffington Harbor went into the construction of Gary, Indiana and the Panama Canal. The Buffington Harbor mills were soon taken over by Universal Portland Cement Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of US Steel, in 1906. Starting in 1925, US Steel began constructing a new deep water port on Lake Michigan named Buffington Harbor upon its opening in 1927. The port allowed for the rapid movement of raw materials at six tons per minute. Universal Atlas Cement was formed in 1930 after Universal Portland acquired Atlas Portland’s assets. The construction of the Interstate Highway system was a significant boost, with Universal Atlas constructing more and more cement mills to meet the demand for 113.1 million barrels of cement. The Buffington Harbor mills could, by 1960, ship out 10 million barrels per year with a workforce of 500. Although the success would be short-lived, a closure was announced in 1979 for the following year. But it was not only Buffington but two other Universal Atlas cement plants on the chopping block. A plan to sell the assets to Lehigh Cement came to the forefront in February 1980 and, despite legal actions by the FTC, went through in September. The reason for the action by the FTC was that the sale would lower competition in the midwest markets, and Lehigh and the FTC would reach a settlement. Operations continued at Buffington as only one of two locations could supply the calcium aluminate cement needed to produce refractory bricks used in blast furnaces. The factory would eventually close in 1999. The one thing that struck me about this spot is how long it was; now, I’m sure I only saw a small portion of the surviving facility as some of the property had been converted to a hotel to service a gambling boat that opened in 1996. My skin did crawl a little, having to park in the casino parking structure, but it is the safest spot for a car from out of state, and then climb through some mud and dust to get to the massive plant. While the insides were filled with machinery, the views along the structure were the real treat. I even bought a second camera to get one of my favourite self-portraits which I still use on my main site (I really should replace it).

Union Station
Almost every major city has a union station; the name implies that two (or more) railways operate out of the station. But when you think of a Union Station, you often think of a grand station in a city’s downtown core. Yet, in Gary, the Union Station is relatively small and hidden between the high-level tracks of Lake Shore and Michigan Southern and Baltimore & Ohio Railways. Located near the US Steel plant, the original station supplied by New York Central was a boxcar sitting on the tracks put there in 1906. The Union Station would arrive in 1910, built using the Beaux Arts style from steel-reenforced concrete that, at a quick glance, appears made of limestone and designed by M.A. Lang; the simple but elegant station proved a gem for Gary. Despite looking tiny, the main station building stood at almost 7,000 square feet with a 4,000 square foot freight building to the rear. Passengers would need to climb stairs to access track-level platforms on the exterior. As passenger travel waned across the United States and the big railway firms were nationalised, Gary’s fortunes declined, and the station closed to services in 1971. Thankfully, the construction has allowed the station to remain in excellent condition. In 2016 a local group began to lobby to preserve the historic station. In 2023, Digital Equity LLC aimed to repurpose the building as a tech hub.

The last time I came close to Gary, IN, was in 2019, heading to Chicago for the first time in several years to show my wonderful wife one of my favourite cities. We did not stop in Gary; driving through it on the I-90 toll road, I made a point to look left and right. Many buildings were standing, and the massive US Steel plant still dominated the skyline. These days, as cool as it would be to go and see and photograph Gary again, especially along Broadway and getting images of the building’s exteriors, I would not step foot in the city. Since the last time I was in Gary, things have been slightly better but also worse. But if you are looking for a peak into what the late 20th Century did to the Rust Belt and a city still struggling, Gary is the place to visit.