You gotta be kidding. Gary makes Essen look like Miami. Indiana Dunes State Park -- great beach. The town itself -- a disaster area. Only reason to visit: if you have loved ones there. And then only during daylight hours.

I understand that Gary is the best kept secret..it has become the in place! Now that the factories are closing , you can have the beaches to yourself. Take the skyway for a view of the city and lake.. and , also, it's a great town for strolling. Have fun! Gary Chamber of Commerce

Sorry, just writing to get to the top of the list.

Don't go! We often pass by Gary on the way to Chesterton and the place is deserted. Once, I stopped and drove around. This was around noon, I did not see anyone on the streets. Spooky, like a modern ghost town. There are lots of abandoned buildings.

You don't want to go to Gary. Visit Chicago. It has much to offer.

I have compiled my personal top ten list of other under-rated hot spots to visit after your envigorating trip to Gary. 1) Allentown, PA, 2) Camden, NJ (maybe take in a day at Newark as well) 3) Worcester, MA, 4) Fresno, CA, 5) Wichita, KS, 6) Macon, GA, 7) Lincoln, NE, 8) Rock Springs, WY, 9) Galveston, TX, and 10) Duluth, MN. I would love to hear other suggestions to add to my compilation.

You've either got to be kidding or from some where a long way from the shores of Lake Michigan! There is nothing to speak of in Gary worth seeing unless of course you have loved ones there, and then offer to meet them in Chicago for some time away from Gary. During the day, the only safe time to really be there, you will have a hard time breathing from the fumes and pollution. At night it is probably one of the most UNSAFE places to be. If you want to be in the area, I would suggest Chesterton, In. for nice beaches or else go anywhere north up the lakeshore into Michigan. BEAUTIFUL! I'd avoid Benton Harbor Mi. for the same reasons I'd avoid Gary.

I hope your question is a joke---Gary was the place on our car trips east from Chicago where the kids used to roll up the windows and demand air conditioning. I can't imagine wanting to visit such misery. Chicago is the town around here or up in Michigan at Long Beach or New Buffalo etc. Gary is sad. Are you pulling our legs?????

Casinos on the water, lively night-time action, and a beach front that only exxon could appreciate. Yes, these wonders and more abound in the thriving metropolis that is Gary. Window shopping along the scenic avenues help to pass away the lag hours between Beethoven in the park, and the Kid's for Character musical review. Don't let the mass media fool you Gary is the place to be for year round days of family fun and togetherness.

Huh?!?!?! Your message has got to be a joke. I'm from Chicago and we don't even go to Gary.

If $$ is your problem, save some more and go elsewhere.

Peace.

First of all, this has got be a hoax. Somebody with a weird sense of humor, like myself, posted this question. Gary, Indiana??

Here are some suggestions to modify the top 10 list posted above. First, remove Wichita, KS and Fresno, CA. Wichita has great people and is not particularly dangerous. Fresno, though not the garden area of California, has the distinction of being the only city in the US within an hours drive of 3 US National Parks. Now add Yuma, AZ and don't forget East St. Louis, IL. These both should replace Fresno and Wichita. This is JMHO.

I really like the top ten list above, but I feel that an important town needs mentioning; Harrisburg, PA needs to be on that list. I'd like to give this person a tour up through Steelton...as for Gary, the pollution from Inland Steel can be seen for miles. As you put money in the toll booth, the air stinks like rotten potato peels. The Indiana State Police had to be sent in recently to bring the murder rate down.

Thanks for all the info on Gary. As a result, I've decided to go with my second choice - East St. Louis.

East St Louis! Clearly you are providing us with some comic relief on this post.

On the list of 10 above you can't be serious about Duluth, Mn. It is a very nice (and safe) small city and has done lots to make itself a tourist destination. We go there everytime we visit Mn. and we don't have any relatives there - just love the area and the people. We have been to Gary and there is NO COMPARISON!!

I love visiting Gary! The fishing is great in the lakes below the big tollway bridge!
They have a wonderful bikeway that runs along the shore and past the scenic old factories.
enjoy!

sometimes the sheer humorlessness, or inability to recognize humor, on these forums just astounds me!!
even after Melvin chimed in with a second jab, virtually no one got it.
c'mon.....it was a JOKE!!

In truth, there is a beach that features singing sands...and the air in Gary is a big improvement over that in Calumet.

Barry, Don't you realize that many of the other posters seem to be playing along with Melvin?

Mimi, what are 'singing sands'? and where is Calumet?

Noah:

I do realize that some posters were on board. I was partly referring to many other posts of late in which humor, usually sarcastic, was completely missed, often inciting angered responses.

The 'singing' of the sand dunes around Lake Michigan is a modern scientific mystery. Most of the world's duned areas occasionally exhibit this curious phenomenon. Two types of noises occur, a squeaking sound (typical of the Lake Michigan area dunes) and a loud, deep, booming noise more common in the African deserts. The booming is much rarer and more impressive. Theories abound as to how these sounds are actually created, but most agree it relates to friction among individual sand particles, multiplied millions of times over. As such, the 'singing' is only audible when the sands are shifting. Sometimes simply walking on the dunes will recreate the squeaking sound.
Calumet City is just west of Gary, and is similar in many ways.

Hey, one bonus to Cal City that puts it light years over Gary: A great mall. We luvvvv River Oaks. If Gary got a great mall, I'd go there. But, sorry, not even a Saks would get me to East Saint!

Barry, thanks for the info on the
"singing sands". My husband and I
spent an anniversary weekend at a B&B in Union Pier, MI (on Lake Michigan)two years ago and experienced the squeaking sand not having a clue what caused it. The "squeaking" came through loud and clear on our camcorder. Thanks for the explanation.
Diane

THank you for the info. Barry.

I live in Indiana & believe me I wouldn't go to Gary or even pull off its exit ramp if you paid me. It'unsafe,dirty,stinks,-etc. Go to Chicago or come to Indianapolis-believe me you dont want Gary.

GARY??? You must be kidding. I lived in Indiana for 20years and visited Chicago many times. Gary is the type of place where you make sure that the car is full of gas before you enter. As for the scene...old steel mills and oil refineres that make the pollution so god awful that you can't breath. Do NOT GET OFF THE SKYWAY. Make sure that you have money for the tolls and stay on the raod. If for some reason you still want to visit Gary...The Jacksons are from Gary...the only good thing about it. As a native hoosier...I would just as well consider the city of Gary as Gary,IL.

Avoid Gary! Indiana Dunes State park is nice. Just went yesterday for the first time.$10 for non Indiana residents per car not per person. I live in Chicagoland take it from me there is better places to be in Indiana.Chicago is great worth the trip dont stop on the other side of the lake till you get north of Benton Harbor( "ghetto ghost town")

Guys, this is a 8 yr old post!

Okay, this gave me a good laugh. Someone owes me a new keyboard now as I just spit coffee all over it.

Actually though, Miller Bakery Cafe in Gary is a rather nice resturant. Yes, I have some family in the area.

Who resurrected this?
Gary Indiana
Gary Indians
Not Louisiana Paris France New York or Rome
But Gary Indian
Gary Indiana
Gary Indiana's someone's sweet home
(No dissing Gary!)

my daughter typed that

What a hoot!

I was singing that song G A R Y INDIANA, G A R Y Indiana etc. to myself throughout and there it was at the end.

Actually Gary has changed a LITTLE since this post of 1998. I had to get off the expressway several times in 2005 when the construction was at its peak. One early summer evening I spent an hour or so on a totally unscheduled tour of Gary, Indiana.

Its downtown has some vintage buildings. But within 4 blocks the windows are being held in by duct tape and some are askew. Buildings can still be seen without residents, or are basically burn outs. But overall the air and whatever industrial wreckage isn't as bad as it was 15 or 20 years ago.

And here is the REAL eye opener. In Michigan City within sight of old steel mills etc. they are building $400,000 canal front or lake "front" condos.

It all comes around.

And I won't tell you what the worst term for Gary was when I was growing up in Chicago.

There is such a thing as an arm pit, we used to call Gary the leg pit when we were "nice". It had another name when we weren't.

drivegirl (who topped this mess) has the oddest posting history. 4 posts in 4 years and one of those (in 2004) was was also topping an old moldy thread.

Sheesh, how does she even remember her log on after all that time???

I left Gary in 1946 and have never been back. My relatives, who live in Ogden Dunes, tell me that they have steeled their nerves and driven into Gary to see where the old homestead is now a vacant lot. My high school class of 1946 is probably having a reunion this year, and I ain't going! I was delivering an airplane in 1976 and seized the opportunity to land at Porter County airport (Valporaiso) and attend the 30th reunion...in Chesterton. Don't go to Gary.

Bobmrg: Don't worry - No one is going to Gary. This thread is from 1998

Except me, I may being going to Gary (and vicinity in a couple of weeks), but I know what I'm getting myself into

We'll pray for your safe return

Duluth, MN is a wonderful city!!!! Shouldn't even be mentioned when talking about Gary, IN.

This is too funny; can't believe some people took it seriously.

Add North Phila., and Detroit to your "must sees" list, Melvin! I haven't been there, but I understand Tijuana is nice.

Hey, guys, Melvin is of course a joker. The thread must be renamed: "What is the worst place to visit?" We have heard Gary and E. St. Louis mentioned. Also added: Detroit and Duluth. So who has another nominee?

ozarksbill

When you mention Duluth as a "worst place to visit"...it really isn't fair.
I know this thread is a joke, but to include Duluth with the worst cities listed isn't.

Hey I was in Gary this weekend ... well OK Hammond. I got lost and drove around the block a few times, stopped at a C-store and got something to drink and found my way after talking to a Hammond cop. All in all a nice visit.

Actually, while Gary the city indeed mostly has a lot of problems, I still stand by the Miller Beach section as quite nice and my father has taken my nephew to a couple of Railcats games(hey you've got to love a minor league baseball team that manages to work a beam of steel into their logo). I've taken the train and driven through Gary on many, many occasions and well, this may be a thread to poke fun, but it is truly tragic and IMO criminal how far some parts of our cities have fallen and decayed.

I grew up in Northern Indiana - Gary was a place that you went through as fast as you could to get to Chicago. The only time that I have felt as unsafe as I have driving through Gary is in equally deserted parts of downtown Detroit and Memphis (believe it or not - though that was some time ago and it involved a covertible going the wrong way on a one-way at about 11:30pm on a saturday night in July).

But I digress ~ I believe that I read some articles last winter about the city of chicago/gary working together to open the gary airport to more flights and start running shuttles in between the gary airport and downtown chicago.....does anyone else recall such a story?

I wrote an article in our local Southtown (Chicago Suburban)newspaper regarding the unrealistic pie in the sky push to use Gary aiport as the 3rd major metropolitan airport instead of the proposed Peotone IL inception. This was a major, major issue about 3 years ago.

I won't go into all the details (or the political gouging and good boy systems that have made the 3rd airport a much put off eventuality) but suffice it to say that the people who have most strongly suggested this use of Gary have never run the gauntlet of I-80 traffic or any of the other realities of this industrial corridor. There's many a reason it's close but not used.

And as sad as Gary's story is, it is no sadder than any other Chicago prime neighborhood that had been gutted by gang takeovers, the economics of mass migration of people coming from a rural to a urban environment with no education to what that encompasses, and embezzlement etc. by the ones elected to be "in charge".

Oh, and the latest is that the Hooters Airlines just imploded and that was one of the main carriers from Gary with their flights to Vegas. No more.

We have a friend whose line of work is in sales and he claims the best place to visit the restroom during his driving workday in NW Indiana is the Gary IN airport. No kidding.

Should I make a side trip from Chicago to Gary?

Only if you want to make some money giving plasma.. that is the main commerce as I remember.

On a lighter note, watch "A Christmas Story" based in Gary IN a long, long time ago. Those hounds from hell sure like to eat turkey!

It's so "interesting" to me to see that some of the same posters from 8 years ago to today, didn't orginally "get" the OP at all.

And that although they would never enter Gary and have dire warnings for everyone, still at times want to pontificate about white flight and other ghetto issues that they have no life experience with at all.

Taking that last 4 or 5 mile straight ride through Gary and its environs route when the expressway was closed in late '05, did surprise me, Vittrad. The entire is really not as bad as parts of Englewood or Garfield or Morgan Park or other areas very close to the Lake in Chicago. Areas that Green and Red lines transverse as well, that Fodorites routinely suggest taking.

Poor Gary, overall it has gotten such a bad rep- when in reality its placement and own government are the primary enemies.

... and I thought the defunct parks
threed was old. LOL

I went to a Gary Railcats game over the weekend with my family and (briefly) thought of this thread.

The game was great and they won 8-2.

Good going, Vittrad. I love baseball at that level. We go to the Joliet Jackhammers a couple of times a season in a good year.

I hate to hear negative Gary talk in the Jay Leno mode of humor. Also as in the most Eastern areas of IL near Chicago- well, they steeled the country, and got nothing back but lip. Go Gary Railcats!

Wow this is a great LONG thread. My wife and I live in Wrigleyville (nside of Chicago) and just bought a small beach house in Miller Beach, GARY Indiana. (We are WHITE, college educated with more money than most)Houses on the lake are going for almost a million dollars and the beaches are the best of the dunes. It takes us 50 minutes door to door and is a great get-a-way from our condo life. Most of our neighbors are multi-millionaires from the city. I know this is an old post and was supposed to be sarcastic but I find it sad that people would joke about the misfortune of others. Gary is a CITY with beautiful and neglected areas. A lot of people are working hard to clean/fix up the area and unless you are a gang banger selling/buying drugs there is nothing to be scared of. Granted downtown Gary is struggling but mostly because people are "too scared" to shop in the stores. Most of the threads have an undertone of racism, they made it sound like black people are hiding behind every corner to mug and kill you. Guess what? People are just trying to live their life, work and raise a family. Grow up, go to the beaches, a Railcat game, Miller bakery Cafe or the Miller Art Gallery. Support the area and not use ignorant scare tactics to keep the area from improving. Check out eastedgehomes.com to see one example of how the area is changing.