This may be hard to believe for those who have been there but city officials in the hard-times city of Gary, Ind., want to make it a major tourist destination in the wake of the death of its most famous native: Michael Jackson.
The mayor is calling Jackson’s modest boyhood home the new Graceland, and others hope to use Mr Jackson’s name to raise funds for a museum.
Major Rudy Clay said he would like to transform the downtrodden community into a Mecca for the pop singer’s fans. He said he’d like to arrange to have the pop icon buried in Gary.
"If they can do it for Elvis Presley in Graceland, we can do it for Michael Jackson in Gary," Clay, 73, told The Associated Press.
Boosters see Jackson’s family home, and the two nearby schools the Jackson siblings attended – Garnett Elementary School and Roosevelt High School – as the epicenter of a collection of Jackson attractions paying homage to a native son.
“Gary is the hometown where it all started,” said Curt Brantingham, public relations manager of the Indiana Office of Tourism. “Any tourism there would have to be something compelling to draw people, not just once but multiple times, something of such interest that it would have a wide appeal.”
Over the years, there has been talk of a museum, a monument – and a performing arts center, with the Jackson family involved in these discussions, even with previous administrations, said Lalosa Burns, Mr Clay’s press secretary.
But tourism experts said they were skeptical that Gary could really draw Jackson fans.
One reason is that the pop singer only lived in this community about 30 miles southeast of Chicago through the age of 11. Since then, he has rarely visited.
With Majestic Star as Gary’s sole hotel, visitors customarily make their way to nearby Merrillville, Indiana, for overnight accommodations.
However, stranger things have happened. Improbable successful character actor Karl Malden who died recently was born here. John Dillinger lived here in the Beverly Apartments in 1933. On the negative side, Gary was named the most dangerous city in the US in 2005. The city was built on fill brought from the bottom of Lake Michigan through suction pipes.
Report by David Wilkening
