Hammond Circus Train Wreck

In Hammond, Indiana, where 165th Street meets the border of Gary, a barrier or dike was constructed in the early 1980s to keep toxic flood water out. The once controversial barrier remains there to this day.

In Gary, "West Side" may also refer collectively to the neighborhoods west of Broadway, including Westside, Downtown West, Brunswick, Ambridge Mann and Tolleston.Westside (also spelled West Side) is a neighborhood in west-central Gary, Indiana, USA, bounded by the Cline Avenue expressway on the west, the Norfolk Southern railroad on the north, Clark Road on the east and 25th Avenue on the south. It lies directly east of the Hessville neighborhood of Hammond. Within Gary, it adjoins the neighborhoods of Brunswick, Tolleston and Black Oak. In 2000, Westside had a population of 6,153, which was 63.3% African-American and 31.9% white, with 10.1% Hispanic ethnicity.Much of the neighborhood's acreage is devoted to industrial and institutional uses, including a landfill. Westside's housing stock is concentrated in the northeast and southern areas. In 2000, its 2,340 housing units were 92% occupied and 60% owner-occupied. Most development in the area occurred after 1960, giving it a younger housing stock than most other Gary neighborhoods. In 2007, the neighborhood had the third highest housing values in Gary, behind Miller and Ambridge Mann.The 1964 comprehensive plan for Gary had designated the entire Westside area for industrial use, but "the area was invaded by speculators, who built isolated housing tracts". Construction continued into the 1970s, including some affordable housing projects. Westside and Miller were the only neighborhoods in Gary to increase population between 1970 and 1980, when Westside's population reached 6,368. However, crime soon became problematic; in 1984, when Westside was still largely middle-class, the Jewel supermarket serving the area closed because repeated thefts and robberies. Today, retail business in Westside is quite limited, except for a retail cluster near the Burr Street exit of the Borman Expressway, on the boundary between Westside and Black Oak.Westside has an elementary school and West Side High School. There is an 8-acre city park, Seberger Park, near the neighborhood's southwestern corner.

West Side Leadership Academy is a four-year (9-12) public school of the Gary Community School Corporation in Gary, Indiana, United States.

Brunswick is a neighborhood in northwestern Gary, Indiana, just south of Gary Chicago Airport. It borders Hammond and East Chicago to the west, and the Gary neighborhoods of Ambridge Mann to the east and Westside to the south. The borders are defined by the Indiana Toll Road on the north, Chase Street on the east, the Norfolk Southern railway on the south and Cline Avenue on the west. As of 2000, Brunswick had a population of 4,442 people, which was 84.6% African-American and 7.7% white. Like many Gary neighborhoods, Brunswick was a segregated white community until the early 1970s, when massive white flight occurred.As of 2000, the neighborhood's housing stock had a 90% occupancy rate and a 68% owner-occupancy rate. It was dominated by single-family homes, with 10% consisting of multi-family dwellings. The neighborhood is the site of a major shopping plaza, with additional commercial development clustered along U.S. 20. There are two private elementary schools, West Gary Lighthouse and Aspire Charter Academy, and one public elementary school, Brunswick Elementary. Brunswick was formerly served by its own post office. However, the Brunswick Station post office was closed in February 2011, and its operations were merged into those of the post office in Tolleston. Brunswick is served by its own branch of the Gary Public Library, which was established in 1959 but only moved into a dedicated space in 2003.Transportation connections in Brunswick include rail, highway, and air. The Gary/Chicago International Airport is located directly north of the neighborhood, and the neighborhood is served by the Clark Road station on the South Shore Line. The Cline Avenue expressway runs just west of Brunswick, and also affords access to the Indiana Toll Road which runs north of the neighborhood. At surface level, the neighborhood is traversed by U.S. 20, and is served by the buses of the Gary Public Transportation Corporation. Remnant areas of dune and swale habitat exist in Brunswick. Examples include the 110-acre Ivanhoe nature preserve operated by the Nature Conservancy, and the Clark and Pine Nature Preserve operated by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, which has the highest concentration of rare and endangered species of any Indiana nature preserve. The neighborhood is home to a 49-acre city park, Brunswick Park, which also incorporates areas of remnant dune and swale.The sewage treatment plant of the Gary Sanitary District is located in Brunswick, near the Grand Calumet River.

Gary/Chicago International Airport (ICAO: KGYY, FAA LID: GYY) is a joint civil-military public airport in Gary, in Lake County, Indiana, United States. It is three miles northwest of the city center of Gary, and 25 miles (40 km) southeast of the Chicago Loop. It is operated by the Gary/Chicago International Airport Authority, the basis for which was formed by the Chicago Gary Airport Compact signed in 1995. Nearby highway connections include I-90, I-80, I-94, I-65 and the Chicago Skyway. Federal Aviation Administration records say the airport had 4,353 passenger boardings (enplanements) in calendar year 2008, 1,633 in 2009 and 2,143 in 2010. It is in the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2011–2015, which called it a non-primary commercial service airport based on enplanements in 2008 (between 2,500 and 10,000 per year) but would be categorized as general aviation based on enplanements in 2010.

Oliver P. Morton High School is a public secondary school located in Hammond, Indiana, United States. It is part of the School City of Hammond district.

Gary/Chicago Airport station is a South Shore Line train station located in the Brunswick neighborhood of Gary, Indiana. It is located on Clark Road about 1.1 miles (1.8 km) southeast of the Gary/Chicago International Airport terminal. The station has a single side platform on the north side of the two-track line. It is a flag stop.

WIND (AM 560) is a radio station based in Chicago, Illinois, broadcasting its conservative talk radio format on 560 kHz. Studios are located in suburban Elk Grove Village, while it transmits from a four-tower array in Griffith, Indiana. WIND is owned by Salem Media, a company specializing primarily in Christian radio. Due to its location near the bottom of the AM dial, transmitter power, and the surrounding region's flat land, WIND's daytime signal provides at least secondary coverage to much of Illinois and Indiana, as well as southeastern Wisconsin. At night, WIND's coverage into Indiana and central Illinois is reduced, as its nighttime pattern concentrates its signal in the Chicago and Milwaukee areas.

Calumet is the portion of East Chicago, Indiana located east of the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal and south of Chicago Avenue (Indiana State Road 312). The neighborhood is bisected by the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad. The area west of the tracks is referred to as Calumet proper, or as "West Calumet" (a term also often used specifically for the now-shuttered housing complex at the neighborhood's southwest corner). The area east of the tracks is known as "East Calumet." Like many East Chicago neighborhoods (including Roxana and Marktown), the residential part of Calumet is surrounded entirely by industrial land: the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal to the west, the Chicago Avenue industrial corridor to the north, a Citgo tank farm to the east, and the DuPont site and USS Lead site to the south. Beyond its industrial rim, the neighborhood is bounded by the Grand Calumet River and Hammond's Hessville neighborhood to the south, Southside to the west, Indiana Harbor to the north, and the Gary-Chicago Airport to the east. Notable local attractions include Riley Park, one of the city's largest parks. Riley Park hosts an annual festival known as Calumet Day, which has been held since 1994. The neighborhood is also home to the Carmelite Home for Girls, an orphanage established in 1913 by Maria Teresa of St. Joseph. Many historic churches dot the neighborhood. Calumet was, for decades, one of the only neighborhoods in East Chicago to welcome African American residents, along with New Addition and North Harbor. That legacy continues today; as of 2013, the neighborhood's population was 71% African American, and 30% Hispanic.

Prairie Park is a neighborhood in the Indiana Harbor section of East Chicago, Indiana. It is bounded on the north by U.S. 12 (Columbus Avenue), and on the south by Indiana 312 (Chicago Avenue). To the west, it looks across Elm Street at the Washington Park neighborhood, and to the east it is bounded by the Cline Avenue expressway and industrial northern Gary beyond.As of the 2010 United States Census, Prairie Park had 812 residents, of whom 46.2% were African American and 48% were Hispanic. The population was down from 946 in 2000. There are approximately 300 homes in the neighborhood.Prairie Park is known as one of East Chicago's more diverse and affluent neighborhoods. It is home to the Block Middle School, Washington Elementary School, and the main building of the East Chicago Public Library.

Hessville is a neighborhood of Hammond, Indiana. Located in the southeast corner of Hammond, it adjoins the Hammond neighborhood of Woodmar to the west, the East Chicago neighborhood of Calumet to the north, the Gary neighborhoods of Westside and Black Oak to the east, and the town of Highland to the south. Notable natural areas in Hessville include the Carlson Oxbow Park, Gibson Woods, and the Seidner Dune and Swale preserve operated by the Shirley Heinze Land Trust. Much of the neighborhood is built on a former dune and swale landscape.Notable people from Hessville include Jean Shepherd, whose movie A Christmas Story is set in a fictionalized version of mid-20th-century Hessville.The town was founded by local merchants Joseph and Elizabeth Hess in 1852. Hessville was incorporated in 1918, but following a legal battle its incorporation was invalidated. The town was annexed by Hammond in 1923.

Carlson Oxbow Park is an 89-acre nature park located in the Hessville neighborhood of Hammond, Indiana, along the north bank of the Little Calumet River and immediately south of the Borman Expressway. It takes its name from a sharp bend in the Little Calumet that was left behind when the river was straightened in the 20th century, forming an oxbow lake.