The Nation: The Godfather in Gary

For all the hosannas sung to it in The Music Man, Gary, Ind., is not one of those garden spots that perennially win community-service awards. Indeed, it is in some aspects the very model of modern urban decay. Founded in 1906 by Industrialist Elbert H. Gary (who judiciously chose not to live there), it sits like an ash heap in the northwest corner of Indiana, a grimy, barren steel town. The sons and daughters of the Poles and Slovaks and Croats, who for generations have worked the foundries, form a decided white minority. Most of the blacks, who make up the...

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