Demolition of long-abandoned Gary hotel begins

GARY, Ind. (Sun-Times Media Wire) -

A demolition crew took the first major step in tearing down a 30-year eyesore Saturday in northwest Indiana.

A skeleton crew from Michigan-based Homrich Inc. tore down the pedestrian walkway between the long abandoned Sheraton Hotel parking garage and the Hudson-Campbell Fitness Center in the 400 block of Massachusetts Street in Gary, Ind., the Post-Tribune is reporting.

Garys Redevelopment Commission last year awarded Homrich a $1.77 million contract to demolish the hotel, parking lot and two pedestrian walkways, one over Broadway and the other over Massachusetts Street.

The hotel first opened as a Holiday Inn in 1968, closing four years later. It was remodeled and reopened in 1978 as a Sheraton Hotel, only to close seven years later.

The hulking, white structure, with broken windows and damage across each facade, is the main site visitors, workers and leaders in City Hall see out of the grand expanse of windows on the halls south side.

Three Homrich workers, wearing yellow safety vests, changed out several attachments to the large excavator shortly after they ripped into glass design elements and walls of the walkway over Massachusetts Street, with one block of the street closed to traffic.

By midafternoon, only a few concrete slabs, held together by steel rebar, remained attached to the fitness center, its windows protected by large sheets of plywood.

Piles of debris, mostly chunks of concrete and blue insulation, remained piled beneath the remainder of the bridge.

We began at 3 (p.m.) today, one worker shouted, as his colleagues worked to attach a pulverizer to the excavator. We should be done by 8 (p.m.) We want to get this stuff out of here.

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Demolition of long-abandoned Gary hotel begins