At the turn of the century, Gary, Indiana had the moniker of the White City. Its sandy beaches sparkled at the bottom of Lake Michigan and the new phenomenon of electric lights spangled the night. Named after a US Steel executive, the White City became the Miracle City, the Heartland home of Big Steel. Gary prospered through the 1960s, when the industry foundered and white flight took half the population to suburbs south of the city.
Broadway Avenue runs south from the still functioning US Steel Works on the Lake, a wide swath of macadam lined with derelict buildings waiting to be demolished and mostly boarded up businesses. Decay renders poverty palpable.
Evenly spaced avenues demarcate Broadway Avenue. They reach into neighborhoods of post war bungalows with postage stamp front lawns—the stuff that the American dream was once made of. The contemporary residences appear more abandoned than not. An imaginative mind imposes what was onto what is. Sadness swells and anger/shame disturbs the conscience, unsettling like thunder in the distance.
Count the avenues ascending from the Lake. At 23rd Avenue turn right or west. In a few blocks, at the corner of 23rd and Jackson Street, stop. Here’s the Jackson Family Home, where the Jacksons lived through 1968.
Here the properties share a similarly sized patch of front yard, each house set back the same distance from the street. The back yard is a mere strip. The original steel worker owners had the front-facing illusion of prosperity that property represents.
Unlike the adjacent house with boarded windows and wild lawn plus a host of other forlorn houses in the neighborhood, the square Jackson Family Home, one level with horizontal siding and a roof pitched to the center, though shabby, at least looks inhabited. The Jackson Family Home’s front yard is carpeted with grass turned dun by the feet of pilgrims who’ve paid homage to the King of Pop, Michael Jackson. He lived here through his first eleven years. How could nine children and parents have squeezed into such a small space?
For now it’s the setting of a makeshift shrine behind a thin band of yellow crime scene tape, imprinted “do not cross.” Stuffed toys, convenience store flowers in cellophane sleeves, home drawn posters, American flags and of other countries, too, mylar balloons, and bodega candles tumble together in spontaneous order.
Across the street a few vendors have set up tables and canopies. Michael Jackson music plays. The tee shirts and posters portray either the young or the thirtyish Michael Jackson of “Ben” or “Billie Jean.” There are no recent images.
It’s late on the Sunday afternoon following Michael Jackson’s death. The hundred-some pilgrims respect one another’s camera space. Everyone wants to digitally document the moment—an early summer moment strangely raw from unexpected death and for me, at least, strangely raw from Gary’s decrepitude.
After a week of media-hype (“’Neverland’ and more”), the Jackson Family Home provides a welcome corrective. Call it “Realityland.”
“Realityland” surely isn’t a cipher for boys who won’t grow up. Quite the opposite. It’s about a hard truth: change, what the old poet called mutability. And change breaks the heart, especially Life’s greatest change, death, the reality hurtling toward everyone. (Every death presages our own.)
The King of Pop is dead. That Michael Jackson has been figuratively dead for quite a while, two decades or so, the iconic star that fans mourn in resonance to their own days-gone-by.
Could there be a better place to materialize America’s “Realityland,” to observe the change of cities and families and pop icons and self, than the corner of 23rd Avenue and Jackson Avenue in Gary, Indiana?
Broadway Avenue runs south from the still functioning US Steel Works on the Lake, a wide swath of macadam lined with derelict buildings waiting to be demolished and mostly boarded up businesses. Decay renders poverty palpable.
Evenly spaced avenues demarcate Broadway Avenue. They reach into neighborhoods of post war bungalows with postage stamp front lawns—the stuff that the American dream was once made of. The contemporary residences appear more abandoned than not. An imaginative mind imposes what was onto what is. Sadness swells and anger/shame disturbs the conscience, unsettling like thunder in the distance.
Count the avenues ascending from the Lake. At 23rd Avenue turn right or west. In a few blocks, at the corner of 23rd and Jackson Street, stop. Here’s the Jackson Family Home, where the Jacksons lived through 1968.
Here the properties share a similarly sized patch of front yard, each house set back the same distance from the street. The back yard is a mere strip. The original steel worker owners had the front-facing illusion of prosperity that property represents.
Unlike the adjacent house with boarded windows and wild lawn plus a host of other forlorn houses in the neighborhood, the square Jackson Family Home, one level with horizontal siding and a roof pitched to the center, though shabby, at least looks inhabited. The Jackson Family Home’s front yard is carpeted with grass turned dun by the feet of pilgrims who’ve paid homage to the King of Pop, Michael Jackson. He lived here through his first eleven years. How could nine children and parents have squeezed into such a small space?
For now it’s the setting of a makeshift shrine behind a thin band of yellow crime scene tape, imprinted “do not cross.” Stuffed toys, convenience store flowers in cellophane sleeves, home drawn posters, American flags and of other countries, too, mylar balloons, and bodega candles tumble together in spontaneous order.
Across the street a few vendors have set up tables and canopies. Michael Jackson music plays. The tee shirts and posters portray either the young or the thirtyish Michael Jackson of “Ben” or “Billie Jean.” There are no recent images.
It’s late on the Sunday afternoon following Michael Jackson’s death. The hundred-some pilgrims respect one another’s camera space. Everyone wants to digitally document the moment—an early summer moment strangely raw from unexpected death and for me, at least, strangely raw from Gary’s decrepitude.
After a week of media-hype (“’Neverland’ and more”), the Jackson Family Home provides a welcome corrective. Call it “Realityland.”
“Realityland” surely isn’t a cipher for boys who won’t grow up. Quite the opposite. It’s about a hard truth: change, what the old poet called mutability. And change breaks the heart, especially Life’s greatest change, death, the reality hurtling toward everyone. (Every death presages our own.)
The King of Pop is dead. That Michael Jackson has been figuratively dead for quite a while, two decades or so, the iconic star that fans mourn in resonance to their own days-gone-by.
Could there be a better place to materialize America’s “Realityland,” to observe the change of cities and families and pop icons and self, than the corner of 23rd Avenue and Jackson Avenue in Gary, Indiana?
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment