“Why the hell were you in Gary, Indiana?”

A reasonable question, yet guilt swells while answering.

“Exploring abandoned structures,” I respond.

What other answer is worth saying? It is unfathomable to travel to Gary for any other reason, unless you’re from there. But when a third of the structures in the city are abandoned, who would want to stay? The appeal, from an outsider’s POV, is the decay.

One sliver of me wants to feel bad for walking through the half-dead corpse. The ruins crumble day by day; dirt, refuse, and debris slowly build up in every corner. My friends and I tread quietly through the hallowed hallways of buildings that haven’t been used for their intended purpose in decades. There was no great battle that blasted these buildings to smithereens. A concoction of multiple diseases—crime, poverty, urban decay—set the city of Gary on this path. All stem from the crash of the steel industry that was the Atlas to Gary’s world. He did not shrug.

To see a dying city is to see a giant collapsed on the ground, bruised and battered. Fumes from the vile steel mills bellow out of its lungs. An unmovable body, only to be poked and prodded. A visceral sight to behold. To bury it would be impossible. It must either be given new lifeblood or left to be marked a sacred skeleton. This is Gary’s graveyard.

Palace Theater: The Eyes and Mouth

The decaying facade of what was once a dazzling nightlife centerpiece stands still. The lower half is covered in half-heartedly placed wooden boards. My friends and I are initially deterred, for no obvious crack or crevice is offered to allow access to the palace of stars. A simple jaunt around the back washes our worries away. The back doorway was meant to be blockaded, but someone with a crowbar disagreed with that judgment. We crouch and enter.

A grand amount of nothing that is shrouded in darkness. Holes dot the floor before the stage; however, man-made or not, a ramp formed out of debris leads to the stage. Mildew-stenched clothing is scattered along the floor. The question “Who brought all these clothes?” shoots through my head. In every building we’ve seen, a department store’s worth of clothes is strewn about. On stage right, our eyes gaze up at a broken ladder. Untold danger and glorious views await us. However, our trip to the mouthpiece of Gary, Indiana, is cut short.

Sirens whizz by. While we did take note of a traffic stop outside before venturing in, we are unsure if the new police presence is because of us. Thus, we bolt. Memories of all the post-apocalypse fiction place me in some cutscene hiding behind a wall of rubble, mere feet before the enemy. The wild grass begs me to crawl in it until I reach some run-off drain to escape my pursuers. I long for some mortal danger to electrify my heart, but we simply, nonchalantly, walk away from the former nightlife capital of Gary.

American State Bank: The Heart

If money is the lifeblood of an American city, then the bank must be the pumping heart, distributing money to those in need, or withholding it and letting the city wither. Such is the case at the American State Bank of Gary.

A logo is embossed on the front door. Molten steel engulfs the entire world. Even in black and white, the orange glow of liquid metal washes over my face. “City of the Century,” the slogan stands mighty. Who could’ve predicted its downfall? The sky-piercing columns of cloud-gray stone mark a formidable foe to break into. However, a sly walk around the back reduces this fortress to an open-air market. The doorway isn’t even half-heartedly boarded up.

“Bush wins re-election,” the newspaper shouts loudly as its faded and yellow-tinted pages layer the floor. Into the basement, out of the basement, up the stairs, down the stairs. We ask ourselves, “Where is the damn vault?”

It’s not a true bank without the highly secured, metal-coffin-of-a-room that divides the wealth and the people. Within the grand foyer, darkness and putrid smells permeate, yet right in front of us, there is the rusted vault door that we glossed over in our searches. We dry heave as the gateway to riches swings open to reveal burnt dreams and decomposing opportunities. Ash and soot cover what was once pristine. Shirts above our noses, eyes getting glossy with tears, we enter the inner vault. Degradation is one of nature’s paintbrushes for the fallible structures of man. We move on to the next marker of death.

Horace Mann High School: The Mind

Laughter and sounds of camaraderie echo through the desolate halls. How many moments of friendship or tragedy have occurred here? Where did the sprawl of students move to once these halls of knowledge shut down?

In the cramped cafeteria, piles and piles of geometry books that were once the bane of existence for seventh graders are now skyscrapers filled with opulent apartments for mold, mildew, and mushrooms. A dragon hoarding knowledge instead of riches would be fit to rule over this cave.

A drained pool makes for a grand auditorium as my friend belts out “Hoist the Colors” from Pirates of the Caribbean.. Illuminated by our phones, the mounds of debris and clutter turn the once pristine pool into a micro junkyard. If one jumped down to rummage through it all, then the only way out of this twelve feet deep pit would be a makeshift ramp made out of discarded furniture. I don’t dare to venture.

Wading through the pool’s locker room, we see a glimpse of light amidst the stretch of darkness in the inner bowels of the school. Calling out my friend’s name, a prepubescent voice calls back. A group of young teens, 13 to 17, are also exploring this space. For a moment, they flee. Once their senses are recollected, we chit-chat and share our findings. I wouldn’t have explored abandoned high schools when I was 14. Advising them to be safe, we depart from the balcony overlooking the grand gymnasium.

City Methodist Church: The Undying Soul

Whilst the church was the first place we ventured into, I document it last because of its impact that I still carry. Wading through a sea of brambles, the uncovered doorway allows us to enter a space filled with life and decay. Stillness rings out as an invisible force guides us. Within the crumbling walls, the past holiness and present decay blend into a blissful tranquility. In the atrium, a few remaining panes of stained glass glimmer peacefully. The roof has withered away to reveal an open skylight; however, Jack Frost has sprinkled only a pinch of snow inside. Up above, a greeting from a group of fellow explorers appears.

Traversing to the second floor gives way to many more discoveries. Peering into one room, we see that a person, seemingly with a sledgehammer, has knocked a wall down brick by brick. The grotto formed from the five-foot gap between the left and right side of the building is now exposed. Fallen timber from an unknown source has piled upon the roof. A few living trees have intermingled, taking root and subsisting on the bare essentials. One artist has slyly traversed the unstable roof to depict a purple deer spirit against the worn, red bricks. Someone must’ve poured hours into crafting the initial design, then meticulously reproduced it in a building collapsing in on itself day by day.

Above one of the numerous doorways to the basement, in thick, black paint strokes, is “Welcome to Hell.” They aren’t wrong. My dying flashlight offers sparse illumination but still uncovers the childish, explicit drawings. Hell is quite cooler than I expected. Beams of sunlight persevere by shining through the half-caved gaps.

Somewhat cliché, but I’m reminiscing on the last few lines of “The Sound of Silence” as Simon & Garfunkel belt out, “The words of the prophet will be written on the subway walls / in tenement halls.” Ostensibly the church is not a place to be seen. Gated off, left to crumble in silent peace, the church should not have messages written on the walls. The words, the art, and the phallic drawings are condemned to crumble into nothingness; an unknown expiration date is stamped on every piece.

Some wish the past to be destroyed and rebuilt with the current ideals. Some wish to return to the simpler times of ye olde. I cannot advocate which path you choose, but I prefer a blend of the two. People are not meant to congregate within these halls, yet people do. People who cherish the beauty of the long-forgotten. Fleeting admirations and memories remain for a little longer.