End near for Ivanhoe Gardens 'eyesore' housing complex in Gary

GARY -- Carmen Kibuka remembers watching several decades ago as a visiting Georgia congressman toured Ivanhoe Gardens, her home.

That was when the public housing complex on Gary's west side was a national model. Kibuka lived there with her family in the 1960s and early 1970s.

"It was real nice then, and they were showing how it was thriving," Kibuka said.

But Monday, Kibuka and several Gary officials took a ceremonial swing at one of Ivanhoe's many collapsing homes with a hammer. They were all there to celebrate its pending demolition.

"An eyesore will be gone," Mayor Rudy Clay said, "and progress and growth is on the table now."

Willie Hollingsworth, deputy director of the Gary Housing Authority, said his agency will use $1.433 million in federal stimulus money to raze Ivanhoe this year.

The buildings could start coming down in about a month, he said, and the housing complex should be gone by October.

GHA closed Ivanhoe in 2007, surrounding the complex with a chain-link fence quickly punctured by vandals. An assessment study in 2006 declared it "functionally obsolete" because of its small living spaces, poor infrastructure and rodent infestations.

Ivanhoe never saw a major renovation since it was built in 1942, according to the report, and rehabilitation would have cost as much as $22.2 million.

It had also earned a reputation as a criminal hot-spot. When Ivanhoe closed in 2007, maintenance workers recalled cleaning up after several homicides in its apartments.

"All hell broke loose," William Cistrunk said at the time.

GHA even installed bullet shields on street lights to protect them from drug dealers, who used to shoot them out.

Ricky Gipson, who lived in Ivanhoe in the 1960s and 1970s, said the grandmother of the Jackson 5 lived there. He remembered seeing members of the band in the streets.

Gipson said Ivanhoe was a diverse community filled with talented people when he lived there. There were plenty of carnivals to attend and basketball games for children to play.

"It was like a village, it really was," Gipson said.

Mike Brown, president of GHA's board of commissioners and also Lake County clerk, said it isn't clear what will happen with the Ivanhoe property once it's torn down.

There has been talk of selling the property to private developers or building a new HOPE VI development on the site.