John Ruberry describes the former "city of the century" in the first paragraph of his recent post:
In November 2017, when Ruberry returned from Motown - for those of you who don't know Detroit, Michigan - he made a stop in Gary. This post takes a look at the old commercial buildings along Broadway in Gary. One of his pics shows the Palace Theater which are one of the buildings on Broadway that Ruberry documents:
As I've said Gary could be a very wonderful opportunity for someone with deep pockets and a good plan. If I was such a person my first concern would be issues with bad gov't. For example, would I get heavily taxed for my real estate or would someone come out the woodworks and say I must hire from within Gary. I'm sure there are other roadblocks so to speak that could be contrived by a politician or an uscrupulous activist. Bottom line is Gary is a blank slate waiting for investment.
The future investment of Gary, Indiana could begin not only with the revitalization of Broadway it could certainly begin with capitalizing on it's connect with the Michael Jackson and the Jackson family. Of course in light of the "King of Pop" untimely demise this was the plan though it's hard to say what has come of those plans since then.
A few days ago I posted a documentary about Gary from 2013, if you're curious about what happened with Gary give it a watch. Certainly go read Ruberry's post about Gary's Broadway.
Gary is Indiana's reply to Detroit. After its population peaked at 175,000 in 1960, now only about 75,000 people live in what was once the Hoosier State's second largest city.
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| Palace Theater, Gary, IN |
Probably every town in America in the 1920s with 50,000 or more residents had a movie palace that doubled as a vaudeville theater. Gary's showplace was the Palace Theater, which opened in 1925. It closed in 1972. To be fair, many, perhaps most of these theaters went dark after television sets became the focal point of most living rooms, so Gary shouldn't be clobbered over the demise of the Palace.I didn't know about our current President's forays into Gary in the early 2000s. He even tried to dress up Gary for one of his pageants.
But hang in there, I'll start slapping Gary around soon.
Donald Trump, when he was a real estate mogul, also owned the Miss USA pageant, which amazingly was held in Gary at the Genesis Convention Center in 2001 and 2002. For the latter beauty display, the future president fixed up the front of the Palace and placed "Jackson Five Tonite" on the marquee. The Jacksons of course were from Gary but moved away shortly after signing with Motown in the late 1960s. After Michael Jackson's death in 2009, according to Wikipedia, new placards declaring "Jackson Five Forever" were placed on the marquee. As you can see none of those signs remain.
As I've said Gary could be a very wonderful opportunity for someone with deep pockets and a good plan. If I was such a person my first concern would be issues with bad gov't. For example, would I get heavily taxed for my real estate or would someone come out the woodworks and say I must hire from within Gary. I'm sure there are other roadblocks so to speak that could be contrived by a politician or an uscrupulous activist. Bottom line is Gary is a blank slate waiting for investment.
The future investment of Gary, Indiana could begin not only with the revitalization of Broadway it could certainly begin with capitalizing on it's connect with the Michael Jackson and the Jackson family. Of course in light of the "King of Pop" untimely demise this was the plan though it's hard to say what has come of those plans since then.
A few days ago I posted a documentary about Gary from 2013, if you're curious about what happened with Gary give it a watch. Certainly go read Ruberry's post about Gary's Broadway.
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