Palace Theatre
791 Broadway,
Gary,
IN
46402
791 Broadway,
Gary,
IN
46402
16 people
favorited this theater
Showing 51 - 75 of 104 comments
Very Sad indeed! I friend of mine who lives in Nashville now said Gary Indiania was like a war zone.
Very sad! Very handsome building just sitting there rotting, like the city as a whole. Funny how the fancy street lamp looks brand new. It reminds me of the old saying…..“you can put lipstick on a pig…..but it’s still a pig!”
Looks like everything is out of business in that area
Did the Jackson 5 perform there, or did someone just stick that on the marquee at some point?
Ooops! My mistake. Of course, Cleveland has restored palaces as well! I don’t know what I was thinking.
I saw that episode and immediately knew that it was the Palace, having previously read the above threads and done some research. From what I can tell, there is virtually no hope for Gary. It is about on par with East St. Louis which has a similar incredible palace (The Majestic) sitting in ruins.
Camden, Detroit, Cleveland and Paterson are also basket cases. Alone among them, Detroit is the only one to have restored palaces.
They just featured this theater on History Channel’s “Life Without People” series, in which Gary was a part of tonight’s show. The interior of the theater appears to be on the verge of a total shambles, and there doesn’t seem to be much left that wasn’t destroyed by time and neglect.
Is this entire town abandoned? They also showed the Gary Methodist Church which is also a substantial structure on the verge of collapse. The whole downtown appears abandoned.
This website shows nice pictures of the theater form 2005 –> View link (photo gallery: Jackson Five Theater).
Yes the Hoosier is still running movies and usually first run movies at that.
New photos taken on Aug 30, 2008.
This should take you to photo link.
View link
Isnt the Hoosier still running film in Whiting ?
Here are a couple of photos of what she looks like now. Poor old girl…a few VERY well-hidden hints of her former glory still sit in silent blackness.
View link
View link
It’s sad to see what was once likely a BEAUTIFUL theatre reduced to a shaky shell waiting to take her final bow into herself.
Unfortunately, not much is left there to save and structurally she grows increasingly unsafe. What’s left of the once impressive plaster details around the stage’s curtain is fire-scorched and crumbling away. The backdrops that hang there are mold-ridden and the lake of orange ooze underneath the stage isn’t doing the stage itself or anything else around it any good.
It’s not only a sad loss for the region, it’s a sad loss for those charming old theatres everywhere.
Yeah, The Palace in Gary is the same right now, I just read that the Garden Theater in East Chgo was torn down, SO…in NorthWest Indiana…if/when the Palace Theater in Gary is torn down…..NO MORE VINTAGE THEATERS IN ALL OF NORTHWEST INDIANA…….Sad for the region? PATHETIC that NO ONE, be it a politician who just wanted some culture, or even the whole town….would want to save a bit of culture from the past……No wonder small towns are DEAD…or dying……
Well, to be fair I don’t think the Crocker Theatre was anything but a shell when they tore it down. Certainly they could have saved the exterior. But my understanding is that the building was almost completely gutted many years before demolition.
Hey BWChicago and Lost Memory,
You sure took some striking photos of the theater for us to see. Very sad place. I hope you weren’t hassled to much, but even I wouldn’t venture inside or out there without a Police escort! Even if the four walls are sturdy, the politics of Gary are too corupt to care about saving the building. Hight crime rate, lack of jobs (except the casinos)and the white flight to the suburbs in the 60’s doesn’t help the matter either. If they built one of the casinos close by, maybe. That didn’t stop Elgin, IL from tearing down the Crocker Theater just walking distance from the Grand Victoria Casino. Guess they didn’t want any competition taking away their dollars!
Here is a 1956 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/23fbqm
Wow: I’ve never seen such clear images of the interior. Now that I have, I kind of wish I hadn’t.
Photos of this theater are HERE
It is sad to see an Eberson Design fall to such a bad end. I’ve just been watching a theater of a similar design that was in about the same shape as the Palace taken down not far from me. It had started down it’s final journey many years ago and met it’s end now. Looking at the photos that were linked to, about all one could hope for is to extract elements of it that can be salvaged. Sad.
Thank you, urbanremains. That’s the best way to handle this sort of thing. :)
as stated earlier, i’ve put that topic to rest…snweb.org is more than welcome to contact me regarding the plaster issue…i’ll address any and all your concerns in a professional manner. i apologize for making public, an argument between myself and another user.
Please end the plaster discussion, guys. It’s off-topic.
A special note to urbanremains: legal threats have no place on Cinema Treasures. If you threaten one of our users again, you will be banned.
I have probable cause to call you out on this urbanremains. Defamation this, defamation that, I am not trying to give you a bad name, I am merely pointing out that you have a piece of a building that was never allowed to be salavaged legally.
Stop dodging the issue at hand, and tell me more of how you and the other company aquired the piece. It’s all about being a good business.
These personal attacks show your unprofessionalism. I simply point out that a plaster has been wrongfully taken, and you search out my entire online activity for defamation. What have I done to save a building? Lets see, off the top of my head, I am in 3 preservation groups, have been on the team nominating downtown Detroit for the 11 most endangered historic places (in which it was successful on the list), created a website and petition to save a hotel, preservation via documenting interiors before they are demolished, and just now I am trying to save an historic theater in the town of Gary that has been raped of her interior lobby plaster.
Please tell me how stealing plaster from a theater illegally is preservation in your eyes.
Hey Urban Remains: I think you should cool it a little. I can understand why you might be out of joint. But threatening legal action and taking multiple shots at SNWEB only makes you look like a jerk in my eyes, and I would guess the eyes of other users. SNWEB is a dedicated preservationist who has volunteered his time to keep this web site running, among other things. I don’t like to see you drag his name through the mud. In fact, I imagine he could throw the same sort of law suit at you that you are discussing after this rash of posts. If SNWEB is missing some information here, why don’t you engage him in a level-headed conversation. This way you can show him, and the rest of us, where you are coming from.