However, maybe because of the cantankerous aging process or a rekindled love for the region’s history, I often find myself staring at these sites now, wondering what once was and one day could be.
Neighborhood pride defined and continues to demarcate much of Chicagoland. My hometown of East Chicago has plenty of neighborhoods: Marktown, South Side, North Side, Sunny Side, the Harbor, West Calumet, and Roxanna, to name a few. And these identifiers have become characteristic in many urban spaces throughout the United States. Various characteristics and landmarks that established the area’s boundaries are coupled with these neighborhood names. that makes them visually iconic; many of these landmarks in the Rust Belt refer back to a particular place’s industrial heritage. The distinctive character of half-scrapped, red sheet metal buildings of the steel mill and abandoned brick administration buildings became a sight I associated with home.
I often joked that I was from the “Tracks.” When asked to clarify, I said that I was the last possible house on the Northside, a stone’s throw from what is the Pegasus Yard and across the street from the warehouse facility for National Industrial Maintenance. Our home was within walking distance of my maternal grandfather’s longtime employer, Edward Valve Manufacturing Company, where he was awarded a lighter after decades of service. However, by the time I was born, much of his old workplace was a rusting site, fenced off from the park bearing its name…