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The last stop on me and my mate's epicly mad sleepless weekender was Gary in Indiana, and by the time we arrived in Gary just before lunchtime on Sunday I had been awake since 5am Friday morning. We would have had more time had I come very very close to losing my bag in Chicago Midway Airport, which resulted in us missing the train that was going to take us to Gary, which only ran every two hours on a Sunday. So we popped into downtown Chicago for a bit and found a very nice diner to have some much needed breakfast in and hopped on the next train.
In the grand scheme of things, the two most well known, infamous rust-belt cities in America are Detroit and Gary. Both suffered the same sort of downfall from the 1980s onwards, and both have a similar percentage of abandoned structures for their size. This however is where the similarities end. I had looked at doing both Detroit and Gary during my trip but for various reasons the visit to Detroit didn't happen - only one of those reasons being the amount of horror stories I have heard recently about photographers being targeted, being mugged, attacked or even shot whilst photographing abandoned parts of Detroit. Gary I had heard some bad things about, of course, but in comparison with Detroit it seemed like the 'safer' option. After all, if a city loses 90% of it's population over the last three decades that means there are 90% less people who could possibly attack you!
So we eventually stepped off the train in Gary Transportation Center, one of the few things that is open and through the doors into a different realm...I still to this day remember the feeling I first got when I stepped foot in an abandonment, and stepping foot in Gary for the first time was another of those feelings I won't forget. It's a large city, but the silence and desertion is like nothing I've ever experienced before. It was so quiet, you'd be forgiven for thinking you were in the middle of nowhere. Nobody walking down the streets that we could see initially, buildings everywhere derelict and wide open to the elements. No cars on the roads, parked or driving.
First port of call was, naturally, the most iconic derelict building in the whole city of Gary, one of the most instantly recognisable derelict buildings in the whole of the United States and a symbol of the decay which has befallen the city over the last three decades - Gary's Methodist Church. In the days leading up to our visit, a storm had brought a large portion of the roof down in the sanctuary.
In the grand scheme of things, the two most well known, infamous rust-belt cities in America are Detroit and Gary. Both suffered the same sort of downfall from the 1980s onwards, and both have a similar percentage of abandoned structures for their size. This however is where the similarities end. I had looked at doing both Detroit and Gary during my trip but for various reasons the visit to Detroit didn't happen - only one of those reasons being the amount of horror stories I have heard recently about photographers being targeted, being mugged, attacked or even shot whilst photographing abandoned parts of Detroit. Gary I had heard some bad things about, of course, but in comparison with Detroit it seemed like the 'safer' option. After all, if a city loses 90% of it's population over the last three decades that means there are 90% less people who could possibly attack you!
So we eventually stepped off the train in Gary Transportation Center, one of the few things that is open and through the doors into a different realm...I still to this day remember the feeling I first got when I stepped foot in an abandonment, and stepping foot in Gary for the first time was another of those feelings I won't forget. It's a large city, but the silence and desertion is like nothing I've ever experienced before. It was so quiet, you'd be forgiven for thinking you were in the middle of nowhere. Nobody walking down the streets that we could see initially, buildings everywhere derelict and wide open to the elements. No cars on the roads, parked or driving.
First port of call was, naturally, the most iconic derelict building in the whole city of Gary, one of the most instantly recognisable derelict buildings in the whole of the United States and a symbol of the decay which has befallen the city over the last three decades - Gary's Methodist Church. In the days leading up to our visit, a storm had brought a large portion of the roof down in the sanctuary.
