Carrol Vertrees: A park could spark fond memories of Gary

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Carrol Vertrees

Updated: February 23, 2012 8:08AM

It died young, before it became a teenager, but nobody was thoughtful enough to give it a funeral. Maybe the Gary Sheraton will get the memorial it deserves, like being blown to smithereens and allowed to rest in peace.

More likely this decrepit eyesore will be demolished a bit at a time by wrecking balls. Soon, we should hope, because it is a mote in Gary’s eye that should have been removed years ago.

Building the Sheraton was not a bad idea — it got caught when history made some sharp turns. Allowing it to stand there in its terminal illness was wrong.

Gary’s new mayor, Karen Freeman-Wilson, is a woman with vision and new ideas. She understands reality. She suggests building a park there on the site across from City Hall. A walk in the park would be a pleasant change.

I lost a bottle of Tums when The Post-Tribune moved from 451 Broadway in 1957. I doubt that anybody found it when the place was torn down and I reckon it doesn’t matter anyway. I broke the Tums habit and turned to pipe smoking — it made me look intellectual. It also burned holes in my britches and made my eyes red. Where were the no-smoking zealots when I needed them many years ago? I kicked that habit on my own!

The Post-Tribune was a busy, fun place, like downtown Gary, when I signed on, and it sticks in memory like my first kiss.

I was hired after an interview with City Editor Arnold Coons, a gruff, white-haired guy who had a kind heart but tried to hide it.

The right-to-work controversy in the General Assembly makes me laugh when I remember the interview with Coons. He offered me $80 a week, “And if the Newspaper Guild negotiations end as expected, you will get $4 more a week.” (I got it.) The Guild was the news staff’s union, and nonmanagement people belonged. I never heard it questioned.

It made sense to me — later I became an officer and went to some national Guild conventions, an educational odyssey for me, a farm kid in the big city.

Another giant in that old newsroom was Sports Editor Norm Werry, one of the hardest-working guys I had ever seen. He and his staff made covering high school sports a high calling — I was proud to know them.

Sometimes we made the news ourselves. Like the day that City Controller George Chacharis, miffed at our coverage, had a parking meter installed right in front of the door where our newsprint was unloaded. When Mayor Pete Mandich returned after a weekend away, the meter came out. That is how I remember it, anyway.

In 1952 President Harry Truman came to town, and I was assigned to meet him at Union Station — then a busy place. Only a couple of guards were with him. He was in town to make a speech. I wondered years later why we did not clone this polite, common man who headed our great country.

I wish they would hurry and replace the Sheraton with a nice little park where I could walk or sit on a bench and relive some of those memorable days in the 451 Broadway newsroom. It probably won’t happen in time for me to do that, but I can dream, and I will grin every time I think of that $84 experience, when I felt really rich.