I-90 West: Gary IN, to the Chicago Skyway

Follows I-90 West from Mile 17 in Indiana to the Chicago Skyway toll plaza.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Interstate
• freeway
• expresway
• driving
• highway
• Chicago
• Skyway
• I-90
• Toll
• Road
• IL
• Illinois
• Gary
• IN
• Indiana
• Jacksons
• Jackson
• Torture
• freewayjim

[daRegionRat]

As an added factoid for you Jim, President Obama was a community organizer in the South Chicago neighborhood trying to help those laid off from now closed U.S. Steel South Works as well as the other poor would have replaced people that used to live and work in the neighborhood. You can see the empty area much on fill along the lakefront to the east (to the right of the camera) off of the bridge over the Calumet "River" actually a cut made through to Lake Michigan from Lake Calumet to the west.

[Freewayjim]

@daRegionRat Thanks for the history lesson on the area, interesting stuff!

[Fanik10]

Freeway Jim. Did you drive past the Jackson's house?

[Freewayjim]

@Fanik10 Not that I'm aware of, what you see in the video is what I drove.

[prfsnlwannabe]

Good vid, and it was an interesting surprise you went over the Skyway bridge at the end. The city's lease of the Skyway years ago was the END of me ever driving over it again, though. (have used US 41 since, not surprisingly) So it was a little nice to see a view going over it, if just to bring back some memories....

I really wish radio stations would play this version of Torture instead, instead of the crappy cover by whatever female artist recorded it years later. :(

[Freewayjim]

@prfsnlwannabe Huh, I did not know somebody covered "Torture", just as well, lol.

[CAPRICES4LYFE]

this the shortcut into chitown less traffic than 94 and worth the toll

[viejos1000]

my fav bridge i live really close by it try going to calumet park and look at it it looks so awsome!

[daRegionRat]

The communities that blacks aspire today are neither the predominately black or certainly Southern white (former Klan strongholds in Indiana back in the 20's). These communities contain descendants of the immigrant white mill rats whose attitudes were fostered and shaped by the culture at the mills as promoted by the owners. This pattern will continue until changes are made by all groups.

[daRegionRat]

Blacks and even Southern whites never integrated into the "melting pot" culture that makes up my native Calumet Region stretching from Far South Side neighborhood like South Chicago and around the southern shores of Lake Michigan. Still these people are in identifiable communities that all other ethic groups in "da Region" avoid. More recently the exodus from Gary had been black as the lower school performance and much higher crime reached a tipping point.

[daRegionRat]

Back before another "rat", Frank Sinatra, had a concert in Gary to help smooth relations, blacks have been singled out. First the mill owners Carnegie-Illinois today's United States Steel, hired from many ethic backgrounds to break up solidarity among the workers so that they would not form unions. This tactic was used nearby including the Stockyards and other mills including Republic Steel in the South Deering neighborhood on the Far South Side of Chicago where workers died to unionize.

[daRegionRat]

The 175,000 population includes a working class white area annexed into the City of Gary in 1976. Otherwise the City would have already shown a decline from 1970 two years after Gary's first black mayor was elected. The largest reason Gary has had so high of a population decline is due to white flight due to the rising black population. Gary has has blacks residing as the mills heavily recruited from the South both black and white. But has never had good race relations.

[daRegionRat]

The type of steel made in the U.S. has changed. U.S. Steel Gary Works and the original and still by far largest mill in the City of Gary and the former U.S. Steel South Works in the South Chicago neighborhood on the Far South Side of the City of Chicago made all of the structural steel for the John Hancock Center in the Near North Side neighborhood and Sears Tower in the Loop neighborhood.

[daRegionRat]

Great job, Jim! One comment on the statement that Gary's population decline from 175,000 to 80,000 was because of a decline of the steel industry or specifically NAFTA. Neither is true. Specifically the steel industry and the largest and original mill in the City of Gary produces more steel than ever before. Steel production takes less people to manufacture even lower previous tonnage totals.