Ozarksbill

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

isabellasu

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.

SamH

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.

Vittrad

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.

cfntmpn

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?

JJ5

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".

JJ5

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.

wsoxrebel

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.

FainaAgain

Should I make a side trip from Chicago to Gary?

wsoxrebel

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!

JJ5

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.

drewbari

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

Vittrad

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.

JJ5

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!

Jones_n

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.

JJ5

Not just in Gary either.

All the places you can boat launch are also "blooming". There are $400,000 condos in sight of some old steel mills in IN. Near the casinos etc.- lots of change has occurred.

Jones n, I use I-80 like an alley. I have a home in IL and one in MI on a small lake. I love it.

Don't be surprised if the Southside, especially if we get the 2016 Olympics doesn't eclipse Wrigleyville. I would not be surprised.