Shirley Ballard-Davis has lived in Gary since she was about five years old, and Midtown has always been special to her.
“I’ve been around this area for a while, and I’ve seen where everything kind of went downhill,” Ballard-Davis said. “We wanted to reclaim Gary and bring it back to where it had been. … There’s more to Gary than someone might see because they used to portray just the bad part. Gary and Midtown is so much more than that.”
Ballard-Davis is a member of the Gary Broadway Main Streets Board of Directors, an organization working to help restore the city’s Midtown neighborhood. Recently, the group helped Gary become designated as an Indiana Main Street community in the Midtown corridor, named “The Midtown Broadway Cultural Heritage & Music District.”
The Indiana Main Street program is managed by the state Office of Community and Rural Affairs, according to OCRA’s website. The program provides assistance with focus, access to information, and community support and guidance to downtown revitalization organizations.
The Midtown designation is the first in Lake and Porter counties, and is Indiana’s first cultural main street honoring a historically Black neighborhood, according to a news release from the city of Gary.
The district stretches from Broadway to Harrison Street and 21st to 27th Avenue. Gary Broadway Main Streets will steward the corridor, according to the news release.
“Broadway is the front door to the core of our city,” Mayor Eddie Melton said in a statement. “Gary has a cultural legacy that was resilient enough to persist despite many historical challenges. This designation is a foundational step in formalizing our vision for a premier Musical District. By leveraging Gary’s unique African American experience and music history, we are driving tourism, supporting our local entrepreneurs, and creating a curated destination right here along Gary’s Statehouse ‘Two-Five’ corridor.”
Parisrice Robinson, president of the Gary Broadway Main Streets Board of Directors, said he grew up on 21st Avenue and Washington Street, so he has a personal connection to Midtown. For more than 20 years, he’s worked in community development and affordable housing, and he’s helped establish multiple main streets in Florida.
“I reached a point in my professional career where I wanted to give back to the community that helped raise me,” Robinson said.
With a Main Street designation, Robinson hopes that more small businesses will return to Midtown. Robinson remembers when storefronts lined Broadway and throughout the corridor, and he thinks that the designation and help from the Main Street America Center will bring that back.
As an organization, Gary Broadway Main Streets will use economic vitality, promotion, architectural design and organization to revitalize the area, Robinson said, wanting to see more local businesses, live music and entertainment.
Indiana will provide technical assistance and access to community liaisons to help track key performance indicators, which would measure visitor traffic and economic growth, according to a news release. District projects will be funded in various ways, including state grants, philanthropic donations and Community Development Block Grant dollars.
The designation also strengthens Gary’s ability to establish a cultural district with the Indiana Arts Commission, according to the city, and collaboration for additional funding.
CoCo Owens, board secretary, said she’s helped with activities in the Midtown corridor, including last year’s Juneteenth celebration and block party. Owens was born and raised in Gary, she said, and she’s excited to see how the organization helps the city revitalize and grow.
With the main street designation and work towards revitalization, Owens hopes to see more businesses and community events in the Midtown area.
“When you invest in a small business and the beautification of any main street, it’s really an investment in the people, more specifically an investment in the community,” Owens said. “It’s all about creating an opportunity and building a place where residents feel proud to live and work together.”
Ballard-Davis owns the Elbow Room, a bar and restaurant located at 200 W. 25th Ave., and she also wants to see more local businesses in the area. She’s talked with other business owners who have shared the same desire, and they’re hopeful that it will come soon.
“The main thing is they’re looking for hope,” Ballard-Davis said. “A lot of talk has been going on, but nothing came about. They feel better, and I feel better now that you can look around and see that something is happening. This is a major thing … just to see that we have been given approval and have something to work with.”
Ballard-Davis believes that more businesses will help grow Gary’s tax base and funding, she said, adding that the money that will come through the Main Streets designation will help as well.
“The wonderful thing about this is that it opens up the doors of opportunity for both state and national technical assistance and access to resources to reinvest in the community,” Ballard-Davis said.
Robinson also hopes they can also pay homage to the history of the area, specifically its significance with Gary’s Black community. The Midtown side of Broadway was restricted to only Blacks during the segregation era, Robinson said, going into the 1960s and 70s.
“The heart of Midtown was once a bustling and self-contained hub of Gary’s Black community during the era of segregation,” Robinson said. “Midtown is now an area of untapped economic potential, and by designating this as a historic corridor and utilizing its vital connection to Broadway, we’ll help transform the decline into economic growth.”
Instead of razing buildings, Robinson wants to repurpose buildings that were significant to the Black community, including Theodore Roosevelt High School. In 2024, the school was named one of America’s Most Endangered places, according to Indiana Landmarks.
“Our job is really to facilitate and create support programming where we can preserve the historic building itself,” Robinson said. “Whatever we decide to put in that building, it can be self-sustaining and income-producing, and that helps to spur economic development by way of creating jobs and entrepreneurship.”
Eze Redwood, economic recovery fellow with the U.S. Economic Development Administration, said he wants to capture the history of the U.S. that’s bottled in Midtown’s blocks, including the history of segregation and the U.S. music industry.
“For us, it’s about how we can help better tell the story of America and better help tell the story of the Midwest, while also feeding back into these blocks and corridors that helped shape America and shape American culture,” Redwood said.
Redwood is also thankful for Melton’s administration and the assistance they’ve provided to help revitalize the Midtown corridor.
“We’re fortunate to have Mayor Eddie Melton because he has the vision for really investing in small businesses and entrepreneurship,” he added. “He’s also willing to invest time, resources and revenues to help build up the area.”
Gary Broadway Main Street’s next steps include working with existing businesses to help update facades, Robinson said, and the organization has available funding for those businesses. The organization also plans to work with the Gary Police Department to improve public safety in the Midtown neighborhood.
Robinson wants to target vacant lots to complete mixed-use development and to implement a new streetscape on Broadway and 25th Avenue to accommodate traffic and pedestrians, and beautify the area. The group also wants to install more signage, lighting and lightpole banners in Midtown.
As Midtown revitalizes, Ballard-Davis hopes the area feels similar to when she was younger.
“It was very fun and enlightening,” Ballard-Davis said. “We don’t have that anymore. … To me, I think Midtown should always be a section where you can go have fun with your family and friends.”
mwilkins@chicagotribune.com
