The city of Gary has begun tearing down blighted homes in the Aetna neighborhood.
Mayor Eddie Melton and other city officials joined construction companies Monday to kick off the new "neighborhood stabilization" initiative. "As we begin to make Gary a greater Gary, we want to encourage everyone to join this team, this organization, as we go neighborhood by neighborhood, block by block, to restore this city," Melton said.
The city is starting with Aetna because it's close to transportation and other amenities, according to Gary Redevelopment Director Christopher Harris, with interstate highways, the South Shore Line and Lake Michigan nearby. "Aetna is truly a hidden gem waiting to be redeveloped," Harris added.
Seven companies and the Lake County Highway Department agreed to donate their services for the demolition effort. Jim Wiseman with Rieth-Riley Construction, who's a native of Aetna, helped spearhead the effort.
"When I called these gentlemen and ladies on this, not one of them hesitated," Wiseman said. "Everybody said before I'd even finish, 'We're in. Let's do it. Let's make a difference. Let's give back to the communities that give to us.'"
City council member Lori Latham noted that the city didn't want to waste any opportunities to create a brighter future for its neighborhoods, even though demolition comes with a sense of grief. "While the buildings that are being torn down today are dreadful, dilapidated eyesores, they were also places where kids grew up, where Jim grew up, where joys and pains were lived out and where now all signs of those lives embodied in that building will be completely erased," Latham said.
Harris said the city has held 85 unsafe building hearings for properties that have sat abandoned for years, and 45 percent of those properties' owners are now working to save their buildings from demolition.
