The Patch (Gary, Indiana)

 neighbourhood, historical layer / disappeared object

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The Patch (also formerly called the Southside) was the unplanned expansion of Gary in the early 1900s-1920s in which its poorer foreign workers were originally housed. It attracted more than 200 saloons and other disreputable establishments that had been banned from the more upscale north of the city. The houses were often makeshift dwellings built by speculators. Typically they housed a family, several boarders, and various farm animals raised for food. Most inhabitants came directly from their home countries – predominantly Serbia, Poland, and Croatia. U.S. Steel initially ignored the living conditions, saying "we are not in the summer resort business." In the 1920s the city's population doubled and conditions deteriorated further. At last, in 1923, the city ordered all substandard housing to be evacuated, leaving 1500 people temporarily homeless. Nonetheless the Patch persisted as a largely blighted area. Eventually it became predominantly African-American as European immigrant workers moved further south. As the city became more segregated by race, the Patch came to be viewed as the "black district". After the decline of the steel industry, the Patch ceased being atypical in its relatively low quality of life. Today the area is known as "Midtown".

The outline here shows the limits of development in 1913.