Gary City Methodist Church

Gary, Indiana

Summer 2007.

Next, we got to driving around Gary because I was dying to see this, the Gary City Methodist Church.

The Gary City Methodist Church, a dream of William Grant Sermon, who wanted a church downtown;
"the downtown church is moving out to the suburban districts. Down in the city are boarding houses, apartments & tenements full of people. Down here are saloon & dance halls & brothels where God is forgotten. The church moves & makes its rest in peaceful suburbs where this is needed, certainly, but not as deeply as in the thick of the city's life."

The church was begun in 1924 at a cost of $650 000, where U.S. Steel contributed $325 000.  The church hybrid - a trifecta composed of a commercial section, a worship area, and a social-education unit - was designed by the Lowe & Bellenbacher firm as a gothic structure composed of Bedford Indiana Limestone.

The first sermon was delivered at the church on October 3rd, 1926. 

The church also played an important role in the early cultural makeup of Gary.  In the 20's, the Ku Klux Klan was gaining strength in Indiana & wanted to show a movie called Birth of a Nation, which glamorized and glorified the Ku Klux Klan.  Paster William Sermon blocked this showing & also welcomed black worshipers to Gary Methodist at a time where African Americans were refused entrance to white churches.

At its peak, Gary Methodist had a congregation of 3000 members, with 950 members filling the sanctuary for the church service.

The 1960's brought dwindling attendance through the 60's economic downturn & social changes.  In 1973, the church was down to 300 members & by January 1975, the remaining members were unable to pay the building upkeep and vacated.  Into the 80's the building was occupied by various tenants, another congregation, a local dance center, a halfway home, office space & storefronts until it was eventually fully abandoned.

The two buildings were number 1 & 2 for Clarkson and 2 & 3 for Roachy, so this was something new to them.  While I've walked on so much floor clothes that you couldn't see the floor, it freaked them out as they thought something was concealed by the centimeters of clothing.

I couldn't find information on the internet about the segregation of the inside structure, so I'm going to assume that this is an auditorium for the social-education unit.

Anyway, this was the first part that we wondered into.

There were no chairs on the floor of the auditorium but the balcony remained with chairs intact.

Well somewhat, Roachy told me to sit there as he wanted to take a picture of me and then proceeded to lean back against some chairs, the chairs broke and Roach was surprised,

"The chairs broke!"

"Roachy, were in an abandoned building, those types of things happen."

Haha, wow.

We wondered the corridor exiting the auditorium and into an area with a fireplace and some couches.

While I'm entertained by an auditorium, the reason we had came here was the sanctuary itself.  The Detroit Hood Church doesn't count, ever since the start of going into buildings, I've wanted to get into 2 things - an old gothic church & an arena.

I got one of those things done this day and couldn't have been happier.

Along with myself, Clarkson & Roachie were both in a general sense of amazement themselves.

We came upon the memorial to Seth Thomas, aka. Devnull.

Seth was an explorer that came & went before my time.  He died on Saturday, September 23rd, one day shy of his 24th birthday.  He didn't die exploring, he stopped to take pictures of a train on his way home and was stricken dead.

Although I never met Seth, he accumulates a great amount of respect amongst the web community I associate with, so I know he was a great person.

R.I.P. brother.

I explained the memorial to Clarkson & Roachy, looked at a few pictures and came to appreciate the place Seth loved so much.

Wondering up some stairs, we found that the balconies had seen better days & proceeded to just stand at the end of the stairs and take some pictures.

We exited the sanctuary and went up some stairs where the fireplace and couches were located, finding what appeared to be an indoor basketball court.

Once above the first floor, there were windows everywhere that revealed the fact that we were surrounded by ghetto palms and gothic architecture.

We found our way to the roof and its own overgrowth of trees.

...and this roof bridge which I opted to walk around.

Back into the building and the last interesting thing we saw was a hallway with some mean six foot doors.

Anyway, after being another victim to the Great Gary Arson of 1997, Gary Methodist has faced demolition; but recent plans include demolition of part of the building and to make the sanctuary into a ruin garden.

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