Page 98 - Demo

96For decades, their fates were linked%u2014as the company expanded and flourished on Lake Michigan%u2019s southern shore, Gary did, too. Then, as increasing numbers of foreign cars and appliances were imported%u2014as well as raw steel%u2014their vitality waned together. With fewer workers needed in the mills, and attractive suburban communities drawing families away, Gary%u2019s population nose dived. It has yet to recover. As John and I climbed the trash-cluttered, weedy steps up to the main entrance doors, we found the building completely accessible, with neither barricades nor locks. Inside, it appeared as if the place had been bombed in some great war. Along a marble-clad wall gaped a series of tellers%u2019 windows. Indeterminate rubble%u2014detritus from years of disintegration%u2014littered the floor. Above us, sections of roof were missing, as well as panes of glass from the clerestory. Sunlight, rain, and pigeons entered freely. Beyond, in the massive postal working area, the broad, wooden floor had deteriorated badly. In several areas, large sections were loose, warped, and lifting up. In a few spots, the wood blocks had so thoroughly decomposed, it had biodegraded into a soft black mulch in which young trees were taking root. Curiously, a lone, metal, mail-hauling cart lay on its side. It was a setting made photogenic by distressing desolation. Gary%u2019s Main Post OfficeThe great building was forlorn and abandoned, but it somehow retained an air of dignity%u2014like an aged, disheveled, maiden aunt who was still able to project vestiges of her earlier prim and proper self. Truly, Gary%u2019s Main Post Office, at Sixth and Massachusetts, in the heart of downtown, was a sight to behold.Built during the Great Depression, it had been designed by Howard Lovewell Cheney, the man who%u2019d been the supervising architect for Chicago%u2019s famous Tribune Tower. Blocky and solid looking, with an expansive limestone facade, the Art Deco edifice conveyed a sense of enduring reliance and unquestionable trust. This had been important, for it was to serve a growing and thriving city%u2014one that eventually became Indiana%u2019s second largest. But, as with other once-mighty Midwestern industrial towns, and their once-grand infrastructure, Gary and its magnificent post office endured an unanticipated, momentous decline.When it first opened, this landmark Post Office was heralded as a necessary and appropriate addition to a proud, young community. Constructed just a few years after the death of the city%u2019s namesake%u2014U.S. Steel%u2019s president Elbert H. Gary%u2014it had the potential to be a lasting architectural memorial to him, and the company he ran. It had been U.S. Steel, after all, that had conceived of, and helped finance, the founding of Gary as a model mill town.Lobby, Gary Post Office, 1936%u2014Gary, Lake Co. (688.02)