Of Notoriety: Gary History Friday lecture event revisits downtown of yesteryear

At a Christmas party our friends the Scamerhorns hosted in 1983, the subject of the Robert Hall clothing store, a retail anchor along Broadway in downtown Gary, resulted in a funny reaction from guests.

My older sister Pam, then a high school senior, was wearing a long wool and “herringbone” winter topcoat accented with a colorful, long winter scarf.

Upon arrival, all coats were heaped on one of the beds in the first hallway bedroom, and in this case, it wasn’t difficult for guests to spot my sister Pam’s presence, a 6-ft tall basketball player, as she removed her coat, allowing a clear view of the large silk inside pocket label displaying the words “Robert Hall.”

The sight of the label prompted guest Debbie Russell of Kouts to inquire: “I love your coat. I thought Robert Hall on Broadway in Gary went of business years ago?”

She was correct, of course.

Long wool top coats had become fashionable once again during the decade of the 1980s, and my sister had staked her claim to one of our dad’s old coats in our home’s front door closet. It was now an outerwear garment resurrected as a fashion statement.

For decades, Robert Hall, with locations in Gary and Highland, as well as around Chicagoland, was the shopping destination for the latest fashionwear. The Gary location closed in 1975, and the Highland location on Indianapolis Boulevard followed soon after in 1977.

If you listen carefully to the 1978 film musical “Grease” (and the Broadway stage version) set in a Chicago neighborhood, the high school principal, played by Eve Arden, awarded dance contest winner Danny, played by John Travolta, a pair of drive-in movie passes and also a gift certificate from Robert Hall Department Store.

My parents, both in their mid-90s, have often talked about the shopping destination along the Broadway Avenue stretch of downtown Gary that was in the 1950s and 1960s. The retail and urban expansion along U.S. 30 in Merrillville and Hobart during the 1970s contributed to the economic demise of downtown Gary as a desirable destination.

A memory lane of nostalgia and reflection on the evolution of Gary in the past century is the focus of a fascinating lecture event on Friday hosted by Samuel Love and presented by Calumet Heritage Area.

Love, a social and civic practice artist based in Gary, will present a selection of readings, historical and commentary, “Speaking to an Alternative History of the Steel City” as the theme of the evening.

With poems, songs, excerpts from speeches, articles, and short stories set to a visual background of historical and contemporary photographs, Love will offer a history “not of what could or should have been, but one that exists alongside, behind, above, and within the simple stereotypes that persist around Gary, Indiana.”

The lecture presentation is at 7 p.m. Friday, Jan. 17, held at the historic Albee House, 13018 Maple Ave. in Blue Island, Illinois. Reservations are required, and the cost to attend is $15, with light refreshments provided. Online registration is at https://checkout.square.site/merchant/BCYY13RRYCPPK/checkout/WBVGMNHLAOI3PCJOSHB4RDU5

Or email info@calumetheritagearea.org for more information.

Love is the editor of “The Gary Anthology” (Belt, 2020) and the producer of two short films, “Calumet: The Region’s River” (2021) and “Grown In Gary” (2024), each created for the preservation of Hoosier history and Indiana Humanities. He is the fourth generation of his family to live in Gary, with a family history that began when they arrived in 1911.

Of course, one of the most famous songs in the musical “The Music Man” has Northwest Indiana roots, since the main character Professor Harold Hill says he hails from Gary, Ind., which inspires the song of the same name “Gary, Indiana,” performed by Marian’s lisping little brother Winthrop, played in the 1962 film by child actor Ronny Howard.

It’s also a key plot point, since Gary — which once ranked as the second largest city in Indiana, right behind Indianapolis — isn’t really so very old.

It was founded in 1906.

This date fact is important in “The Music Man,” as charlatan Professor Harold Hill, played by Robert Preston in the film, claims to be “a graduate of the Gary Conservatory Class of 1905.” However, town librarian Marian, played by Shirley Jones in the film, reveals Gary didn’t even exist as a city until 1906!

Philip Potempa is a journalist, published author and the director of marketing at Theatre at the Center. He can be reached at pmpotempa@powershealth.org.