GARY: The USA's Most Dangerous City? What I Actually Saw

all right everyone I am in Gary Indiana let me show you on the map real quick just to give you an idea see the Blue Dot Gary is a suburb of Chicago right there on Lake Michigan now um no town or city has been disparaged and maligned in my comment sections as much as Gary uh common comments are well it's bad but it's no Gary Indiana or this place is Beverly Hills compared to Gary Indiana so of course here I am I've got to see it for myself now the story is pretty simple when it comes to Gary this town was founded by a company a steel mill early 1900s the town is even named after the guy who ran the steel mill his name is Albert Henry Gary anyway it was very successful so successful that the Russians even made an exact copy in this town I can't say the name of it so there it is on the screen the entire town was based its survival was based on the steel mill and that collapsed and when it did the town collapsed up to that point the city was thriving uh 180 000 people lived here it was a major city but today there are about 69 000. 61 percent of the population is gone and much of the city lies in Ruins I read that there are about 13 000 abandoned structures including homes in this city some of the other numbers aren't much better 32 percent poverty in this town and for children 17 and under it's a lot worse 54 percent of the children who live in this town live at or below the poverty line so some of the other numbers real quick before we really start diving into the town median age is 37 years old gender breakdown 54 female 46 males 12 of those females are widows now the street that I'm about to get on right now is Broadway it's the major street that runs through town and as I tell you more I'll just show you in this part of the city as we drive towards downtown you'll see a lot of what I'm talking about these empty buildings the decaying infrastructure but anyway some of the other numbers before we start really exploring um one that sticks out is only 30 percent of the population is married versus 50 of the rest of the country the race breakdown here it is uh 78 black nine percent Hispanic 10 percent White the remaining three percent is other now here's the incomes of the town and now compare it to the U.S average to give you an idea of what we're looking at here per capita income in this town is 19 500. that's 375 dollars a week uh by comparison the U.S average is 38 300. median household income is thirty four thousand one hundred so that's everybody that lives in a household 15 and up who makes income uh or makes money that median income is 655 a week per household U.S average is 69 700. which is a thousand three hundred and forty a week so again incomes here are about half of what the U.S average is now at this point I'm just going to drive into the city center tell you a few more things let's see the median home value in this town is 70 600. and we'll take a look at a lot of the homes here before I leave uh U.S average is 281 000. so home values here are about 25 percent of the rest of the country let's talk about the elephant in the room crime in Gary what it's most notorious for well for uh first of all the overall crime rate is 4100 per 100 000 people that compares to 2300 for the rest of the U.S so overall crime here is about twice higher but what's really bad here is homicide murder rates that is what Gary is known for now I'm gonna pull over here and we'll dive into that I'm just going to show you the city center as we come in yeah I'm pretty much into downtown now there's a lot of things to see here so I will show you those but um let me find a spot and I'm going to tell you about the murder rate in this town yeah right here on the other side of the street is City Hall uh the city's founder he actually ran U.S steel they have a statue of him here yeah Albert Gary all right uh and then there's the steel mill right there the entrance to it all right I'm going to head towards the steel mill here the northern section of town is yeah it's just the steel mill I'm gonna drive up here and see uh how far I can go in here all right yeah this as far as I can go so I better turn around all right uh here we go now the chart I'm showing you is of the cities in the United States with the highest murder rates and uh you know sad to say but it's The Usual Suspects New Orleans number one with 74.3 per 100k got St Louis at number two with 68.2 Baltimore number three Detroit number four Memphis number five I'm pretty sure none of this surprises anyone but these are the 75 largest cities so uh what if you include all cities that have over one hundred thousand people in population well it changes a little bit um you got Jackson Mississippi at number one now with 88 Point uh what is it 88 .8 Birmingham Alabama moves up into third place was 72.9 now you still don't see Gary on this list because Gary only has 69 000 people but if you were to include Gary where would it place Gary's murder rate is 76.3 per 100 000 people so if it was listed among the U.S uh largest cities it would be number one if you put it on the list with cities over 100 000 people it comes in number two right behind Jackson Mississippi Jackson Mississippi by the way has been the murder capital for two years running just to let you know when I see the comments people make about Gary and of course I think to myself can it really be that bad uh yeah it probably is based on these numbers but uh what is it like here what does it actually look like what will I actually see as I explore the town well I'm going to do that right now so I'm gonna head back into Gary and uh we're gonna look around the city now as you drive through parts of the city you see a lot of exactly what you expect to see buildings disintegrating where they sit something to show you over here though um yeah of course this looks really bad here but let's see uh in front of me here and to the right you can see that in blue it's modern new housing so there are signs of life here this road could use some work but anyway um yeah up here to my left is modern new housing as well looks like condos Maybe yeah you can see them right there actually real nice now up ahead of me is this church let me get closer to it and I'll tell you a bit about it now I'm approaching City Methodist Church and astonishingly beautiful but decaying building built in 1926 you can't miss it the Gothic architecture uh but it has been empty oh I think since the 1970s I read you can tell how incredibly beautiful it was at one time and was the largest church in the midwest at one point it's just incredible that it's in this condition let me see if I can get another look at it whatever this building is it's setting empty right next to the church but here we go that is something to see isn't it it's incredible I'm out on foot now the fence has been torn down so you can just uh walk in here so how about if I do that should we go see the inside let me give you a good look so magnificent foreign shall we wow [Music] acknowledge me this is incredible thank you I guess this was a preacher would give his sermon it's just astonishing isn't it that there's something like this all kinds of weird noises in here sounds uh haunted to be honest with you let me take a look through here I'll just keep the camera on so you can see everything not going up those stairs it's a fireplace here look at one last area here wow you can see just how Grand this was absolutely insane sure you get a good look at everything incredible all right well I'm gonna get out of here and get back in the Bronco there's so much of this here the empty building all that's broken out it would seem like a place homeless would hang out in maybe they do but I will tell you this I have not seen any homeless here scouted the town out yesterday looked around a bit saw no homeless now it's pretty cool here it's about 39 degrees that's four degrees Celsius for people all over the world including Canada just want to make sure my Canadian friends know I did not ignore them but anyway yeah it's pretty chilly and if there were a lot of homeless that's one of the you know if I was homeless that's one of the places I would be going to but I don't really see it a lot here not sure what Indiana's uh laws are concerning that anyway there's a yeah downtown today is Thursday by the way it's the middle of March it's about that's about 9 A.M there's a lot I wanted to see so I got started early a lot of traffic lights here no longer function you're seeing a couple there all right uh let's see I'm back where I started from let's go look around some more huge sections of the city look just like this businesses that are no more abandoned homes foreign you can see a lot of places in the city where the homes and the businesses have been torn down and uh well nature is taken back over and then you know another house will pop up now there's a great old theater here I'm going to take you to that right now and show it to you yeah now here's the theater uh it's called The Palace Theater built in 1926 of course it's not in operation now but um it was designed by the guy who at the time was considered the greatest at designing theaters in the world I can't remember his name I didn't write it down but anyway you can see that it was once incredible despite there being 70 000 people there are no long but there are some grocery stores you guys always ask to see them here's one here save more there's a few others in the town as well also as far as I can tell there are no hotels at least not major chains my wife and I had to stay in nearby Merrillville it's about nine eight nine miles down the road really nice modern town rows and rows of these in really good condition in other parts of the country these are half million dollar houses or more yeah that's that's a terrible thing that this has happened here now that one caught on fire it looks like mixed in though here in the neighborhoods there are homes that are well taken care of and uh are beautiful now the homes that I am approaching now are a very unique architecturally some of the more interesting homes ever built these are called Thomas Edison concrete houses uh he patented the design these homes are built with a single pour of concrete now they're pretty tough to build you can imagine it would take a lot of work to get uh the areas that you feel the concrete in just right so that you could pull up your concrete truck and make one single pour but once you did that you had a house these didn't really catch on across most of the country but U.S still really liked the idea and today there are still about 70 of these in the city of Gary absolutely gorgeous yeah you'll come on streets where the homes are all well really well taken care of so it's important to show that Gary is just not all abandoned buildings There Are Places of beauty here too there are beautiful streets residential streets uh this is one of them here's some more of these Edison homes really fascinating idea isn't it just to get the uh entire house framed out show up with a concrete truck and build an entire house in a short period of time with your concrete truck I hate to see him in this condition though these are historical homes should be taken care of but they're not sadly I'm sure the city of Gary just doesn't have the money I hate to see that I just drive through downtown here and then you'll see a home just kind of sitting out here by itself in a sea of trash just set an empty oh you hate to see all this trash too foreign I'm just always shocked when I see trash drone or just thrown on the ground like this nobody picks it up I know many people have Gary take pride in their city but honestly to clean that up Am I Wrong I Don't Know what can I say I don't get it you know these are these are being left here to uh left to die foreign called Jackson Jackson way I think you can probably guess why uh this street is where the home of Superstar Michael Jackson grew up in in fact his entire family if you know anything about the Jacksons you know that they uh came out of Gary Indiana so I'm approaching his house because of course when you come to Gary you have to uh come to this place I'm showing you the street that he lived on so you can imagine a young Michael out here goofing off now here's the home right here as I understand it the home next door all right is part of the property as well even though they didn't live there but anyway let's get out take a look shall we yeah it's very small I was reading about the house um it was built in 1949 his parents paid 8 500 for it uh in 1950. 672 square feet two bedrooms one bathroom and um I think we all know that the Jacksons were a large family it's hard to imagine all those kids in this tiny little house really is uh yeah it's crazy but uh it's interesting to see that kind of greatness coming out of such a humble place yeah this neighborhood here Jesus says in bright neon you can see that from Broadway the Main Street thank you that's pretty cool well cat oh there you go guys I wasn't even looking for a cat in this video but there he is amongst the trash hanging out anyway uh let's see let's see how much are they paying for gas here in northern Indiana many of you always want to know there it is 3.44 cents a gallon they have a baseball park I believe for the local Semi-Pro team the RailCats that's nice beautiful new Park yeah you can see it it looks real nice doesn't it I'm one block off Broadway you can see um oh that was a nice home at one time it just looks bleak doesn't it yes I know the weather doesn't help but you drive through areas of this town and it genuinely looks uh post-apocalyptic big houses reminds you of Detroit quite a bit these are huge homes just everywhere here foreign be saved what do you guys think what are your thoughts now that you've seen what I've shown Post in the comments uh I'm curious uh what you think see what looks like a local Watering Hole we see Liquors cold beer Lounge and it is open and then just across the street this is what you're looking at or over here you know you'll drive through all this Devastation and ruin and then you'll come up on a street like this beautiful well-kept homes it is such a contrast this town yeah these are all really nice middle class homes well taken care of it's really nice oh that was a bump anyway I'm just really not talking much here just showing you guys what I'm seeing all right guys I'm going to end the video here um I hope you found that interesting I did Gary is a fascinating place anyway we are heading into Ohio next so be looking for those

Channel: Joe & Nic's Road Trip

Views: 9,863,694

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Id: ISajeWJ3Cts

Length: 35min 19sec (2119 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 23 2023