Just to the right is this stairwell which I wouldn't get anywhere near. The cool lighting effect was achieved using a Coleman lantern placed just out of frame, behind a brick column. Otherwise, this area is 100% pitch-black!
During the rainstorm we just poked around under the balcony area until we could move around again. We found this small room where some seat cushions were piled up. Another Coleman lantern lighting effect, but I also used a flashlight to "paint" the light into the shot.
We eventually found a way back onto the balcony without getting wet, but even as the sun came back out the water continued to pour inside.
The sun shining and rain coming in at the same time made for some interesting shots...
We moved on into the apartments shortly afterward, as it was still too wet to really do much in the theatre. A typewriter is one of many vintage oddities found throughout the abandonments of Gary
"Glow in the Dark"... the lighting was accomplished with the natural light pouring in through the windows from the alley, and an el-cheapo flashlight. No flash was used. The area I was shooting from is pitch black!
One of the apartments was apparently leased out as a doctor's office. Inside was a page of the Gary Post-Tribune that dated to 1972... the year the Palace closed. I didn't hang out in here too long because suspended from the ceiling is a huge plastic tarp FILLED with dust and debris that I didn't feel like knocking down and breathing in.
We got up onto the third floor of the apartments and only got through half before I had to end here... because Chuck Taylors suck for urban exploring, and what looks like a hole in the floor is really a few inches of water.
Something's cooking here...
An hour after it had stopped raining, the water had stopped leaking inside and it was safe to take the cameras back into the theatre...
The Palace is what's known as an "atmospheric" theater; its architecture is designed to not look so much like you're in a building, but rather under a dark sky. I've read somewhere that there were actually many tiny holes in the suspended ceiling, which when lit from behind, gave the illusion of stars on a night sky.
The Palace has several entry points, but this is the most covert because it's in the alley. Watch your step!
I got a grand piano to prop-up my mortal remains... Some of the keys actually still work!
Exterior hasn't changed since December, other than some new plywood
My new friend... his name's Dione. He told me he was bored, but then I realized he IS a board!
No shows today.
The Palace was surrounded by apartments, offices, and storefronts on the ground level. This was one of the stores that had not been boarded back up, and it was one that was renovated in the failed 1987 remodeling attempt.
The Jackson 5 did NOT perform at the Palace... the false marquee that read Jackson Five Tonite was hung by Donald Trump for the Miss USA pageant almost a decade ago, and the current Jackson 5 Forever banner was hung shortly after Michael's death last year.
And finally we have an overview of the complex. The taller structure in back is the actual auditorium.
After just 13 years of exposure, the plants are well on their way to reclaiming the building...
The graffiti here is pretty bad...
One of many memorials to Seth Thomas, an explorer who helped discover many of the places around the Chicago area. He was hit and killed by a train coming home late one night in 2006.
Going up the stairs, and going down the stairs, and going up the stairs, and going down the stairs, then going up the sideways stairs...
Construction techniques have certainly changed...
Satan works at the Church
I wasnt ballsy enough to try the bridge...
Pretty sure this was a rooftop theatre on the other roof. The building in the background is the Genesis Towers senior home, formerly the Hotel Gary.
Fascinating how plantlife can start growing in the deadest of areas, such as rooftops.
2 minutes on Google points all the blue tagging to the LTV Squad from NYC... part explorers and part taggers. This shit's pretty pointless, but I kind of admit I do like their bizarre sense of humor.
Man it was like "family day" at the church... you could call it Gary's own tourist trap! While we were there, THREE sets of people came and went. We walked out of the auditorium, and a family from the northern suburbs (mother, grandmother, and two girls) were walking in. The oldest daughter apparently found the place online and wanted to see it to take pics. Not too long after that, a professional photographer, his model, his friend (bodyguard?), and the friend's dog checked the place out, then set up a photo session inside the sanctuary. Finally as we came out of the school, a young couple showed up to check the place out. I think they were also photographers.
Window to the world...
The most bizarre thing about Gary are its new developments plopped right in the middle of the ghetto... right across 6th Ave. from the church is a brand new housing development, and across Washington is a charter school. The way the heat was on that day, we could've used ice cream!
I made it a priority on this visit to get shots of the exterior...
This be the school, and on the ground floor is the retail. I believe they were added to the building when the churchgoer numbers began to drop, but I could be wrong.
The exterior architecture of the actual church is just as incredible as the interior!
Not to mention it's freaking huge!
In case we needed to make a quick escape
"Gotham City Cathedral, transportation for two. Five minutes... better make it ten."
Sandwiched between two train trestles is the old Union Station. It is the last thing you see before you hit the US Steel mill, and was built 100 years ago!
The exterior may appear to be in great shape, but inside it's real bad. It closed in the 1950s and has been rotting ever since.
There are two pits on the sides of the building. Not sure where they go.
No clue where the boulder in the middle came from.
The pits on the sides are filled with debris
Lonely days aren't gone, I'm not going home. Think that letter got lost in the mail...
We go outside and behind the building we find another building engulfed in trees. Didn't get out there.
"How often does the train go by?" "So often you won't even notice it." (The Blues Brothers)
...and unfortunately that's it for this trip. We were exhausted from the other 3 buildings, plus the 90-degree heat. I'm already planning on going back this weekend to hit some buildings I've never been in.
Hit this place a couple of weeks ago... didn't even get through a quarter of it, it's freaking huge!!! If you saw The Dark Knight, it will look familiar to you.
The Ambassadors are a high-rise apartment building that was built in the 20s for managers of US Steel, and is located on 6th and Monroe; just a bit west of Broadway. It closed in 85, and fell victim to a botched remodeling attempt. It's sat completely dilapidated since the early/mid-90s.
Doing things a bit different, we got to the top, then did pics as we headed back down, just so we could at least see the whole place.
Yep...
...it's definitely Gary.
Elevator stuff
Elevator control room.
Stairway leading to the elevator control room. All the crap that has accumulated on them has made it a royal pain in the ass to navigate these stairs.
Another staircase. Some of them are torn out, either from scrappers or from the bullshit remodeling. Same reason some of the walls are blown out.
On the last floor is one big penthouse with a pretty roomy kitchen.
It's also got a pretty nice overgrown rooftop garden...
) wall.
