16″x 24″ Ambassador – Gary, Indiana

16″x 24″ Long Exposure Photography of an apartment inside the former 68-unit tower designed by architect William Stern. In its heyday, the premier living space housed the city’s upper crust, specifically the executives of Gary’s U.S. Steel. And then came the 1960s. White flight pulled the executives to the outer areas of Gary and the apartment soon transitioned to low-income housing. When money ran out, the disrepair lead to the Ambassador’s official shuttering in the mid-’80s. A glimmer of hope surfaced in the ’90s when an investment group stepped up to rehab the building, but the money never materialized. A decade went by and The Ambassador reached its point of no return. For thirty years, the Ambassador sat empty … and yet full of life, as explorers from all over the world would sneak in for a peek at the post-apocalyptic decay. But in 2015, the city of Gary finally beat Mother Nature to the punch and erased the monstrosity from Gary’s skyline. We shot this photograph just a few months before the wrecking ball hit. All of the items you see in the room, including those galoshes shoe covers, were there when we arrived. Even though a place like the Ambassador was certifiably condemned, it doesn’t mean it was ever completely abandoned.