Gary, Indiana — thriller territory?
The small house at 2300 Jackson Street is about as big as a two-car garage but it’s where Michael Jackson and eight other children lived before he became a super star. Could this once fire-burning industrial city become the next Graceland?
Since Jackson’s death, two women from the Chicago area, about a two-hour drive from Gary, have started “The King of Pop Hometown Tour.” They are taking busloads of tourists on a four-hour trek through Jackson family landmarks in northwest Indiana.
"This is a tour of motivation and inspiration," guide Denise Jordan Walker tells the AP as the bus prepares to leave. "We are not taking you to a gated community. We are not taking you to Neverland. We are taking you to Gary, Indiana."
A music video of the Jackson 5 plays on overhead screens as the bus pulls off from Chicago and travels south down the highway. A young Michael Jackson sings, "I’m going back to Indiana. Indiana here I come. I’m going back to Indiana. That is where my baby’s from."
Tour backers said they always wanted to host a Jackson-themed tour of Gary, but had put the idea aside to focus on a Chicago jazz music tour instead. After Michael Jackson’s death in June, requests started pouring in, with some tourism officials predicting this Indiana city would be as popular as Elvis Presley’s home in Graceland (Memphis).
Off the highway in Indiana, the bus drives through a heavily industrial area along Lake Michigan before stopping in front of the steel mill where father Joe Jackson worked. The tour goes on to the hospital where the Jackson children were born and the elementary school they attended. It also highlights the beginnings of the Jackson 5, with stops at Mr Lucky’s Lounge, where the group first performed, and the house where the Jackson’s recorded for Steeltown Records in 1967.
The tour costs $55 for adults and $45 for children under 12.
By David Wilkening
David
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