PRR Abandonment: EC, Whiting, & Tolleston (1)
CAUSE AND EFFECT
In the early 60s, East Chicago was showing early signs of contraction. Public school enrollment was up only by 70 pupils. While not enough to panic, it made the papers. In subsequent years, registration had been up into the hundreds. Now a sharp decline threatened the school system.
Extreme lag in East Chicago’s urban renewal programs was blamed for the decline in enrollment, which was approved in 1956. However, East Chicago was slow getting zoning and city ordinances changed to meet federal grant qualifications — especially in West Calumet.
As for what was being done — East Chicago was feverously tearing down the poor slum sections of Indiana Harbor near the Pennsylvania Railroad right-of-way without building replacement housing to hold displaced families.
East Chicago has always had a problem housing its poor or “third class” citizens next to industries or relegating them to slum villages.
Though poor dwellings were being dismantled as requested, the city’s main focus was building luxury condos and townhomes in neighborhoods like Prairie Park. As a result of the lack of affordable housing, 40% of all displaced families moved out of East Chicago to Gary and Hammond.
As such, their children attended school in said cities instead of East Chicago — thus, the enrollment problem.
East Chicago mayor John B. Nicosia blamed the Purdue-Calumet Development Foundation. For some reason, this Foundation was in charge of East Chicago’s urban renewal program and saw little to no oversight or cooperation from the city.
The Foundation placed the blame on Nicosia in return. However, it’s clear that East Chicago was not majorly concerned with urban redevelopment in poor sections of town, nor was it in the know concerning the progress of urban renewal in general. The council was unaware of developments as such information was not passed on to the people.
This was to be remedied by constructing new low-income housing in the Harbor. East Chicago had negotiated with Pennsylvania Railroad — before 1961 — to obtain the property that the low-income housing would be built upon. These negotiations failed.
To dig a little deeper, East Chicago always had a strained relationship with the Pennsylvania Railroad.
In 1961, PRR wanted to install automatic safety gates at Michigan Avenue and Watling Street. However, East Chicago balked at the idea, saying that eliminating the current manned gate system would “put people out of work” and violate city ordinances regarding using automated gates within city limits. So it is not surprising that the negotiations for the city to obtain the right-of-way from Watling Street to Cline Avenue between Guthrie and Cline went nowhere.
KINDRED FAILURE
Also, in 1961 New York Central Railroad and Pennsylvania Railroad were both hemorrhaging money quickly. Communities in which these railroads operated were only half conscious of the future which was about to manifest. It was predicted that local communities would have to pay to keep commuter trains up and running through direct subsidy or tax relief. However, what was given to the railroads had to be gained back.
Since WWII ended, taxpayer subsidies had increased 10-fold every five years — from $8 million in 1945 to $50 million by ’61. With projects in the works, such as the construction of I-90, 80/94, and various other road improvement initiatives, the stage was being set for the trucking industry to overtake the railroad industry — and that would occur quicker than they thought would be possible.
East Chicago initiated eminent domain proceedings against PRR in November 1961. However, progress was slowed because PRR and New York Central were discussing merging. In the summer of 1962, PRR asked for a change of venue. It was granted.
PRR next applied for a permit to construct a loading ramp and freight house along the right-of-way in the Harbor planned for low-income dwellings — between the tract of land of Guthrie Street and the PRR tracks. They claimed the freight house would be used for its piggyback operations — where truck trailers would be mounted onto and off their flatbed freight cars. This was to be a nearly $200,000 economic investment.
East Chicago denied PRR the permit because it violated the city zoning ordinance — the one only just changed for the area in question in 1960. Yet another legal battle broke out between the two entities. The condemnation suit against PRR was already in Gary Superior Court, headed by Special Judge Robert Richardson.
However, the “readjustment of two lines” was of “little consequence” to the merger of PRR and NYC, according to the New York Central vice-president E. C. Johnson. They anticipated the closure of the Ft. Wayne between Clarke Junction and Whiting to occur soon.
At least in the case of NYC, they were optimistic that the merger with PRR would create opportunities to eliminate redundant routes and the “retirement of multi-track main lines.” In addition, they were sure that the merger would alleviate their current financial woes by making it possible to move more trains, increase the frequency of service, create faster schedules, and reduce operating costs.
The merger was being painted as not a big deal. However, this wasn’t the case for the Calumet region’s businesses. The elimination of redundant lines struck fear in businesses that depended on the railroad to deliver goods and merchandise.
Additionally, the loss of jobs was a real threat — either by outright elimination of railroad routes or from reroutes that took the railroads away from the cities.
Next, the combination and elimination of railyards shook the unions. Gone were the days when the railroad industry employed millions of people. Since WWII, 40,000 jobs have been shed per year. With the merger, 10,000 jobs would be wiped out automatically. PRR and NYC employees would be affected, as employees from other railroads, such as Erie Lackawanna.
Suddenly rail and the jobs associated with it that had been around for the better part of 100 years were now in danger of being eliminated permanently. However, saving these jobs would also ensure that more jobs would be lost. PRR and NYC were damned if they did and damned if they didn’t.
As the NWI Times put it:
“In the days when railroads enjoyed a near-monopoly of land transportation, a merger of giants like the Pennsy and Central would have been regarded justifiably as stifling competition. Today, it can be considered only as necessary for survival.”
While businesses and unions sat on the sidelines biting their nails, local municipalities began licking their chops—especially East Chicago and Whiting.
BLOOD IN THE WATER
The City of Whiting has been largely absent in this write-up. However, it comes up big now. East Chicago and Whiting saw the apparent weakness of local industries — specifically Amoco, PRR, and NYC.
1963 wasn’t two weeks old when Whiting city council began discussing expansion. They looked towards American Oil Co (Amoco) and beyond that to Lake Michigan.
The lakefront expansion idea was officially on the menu. With Amoco laying off workers left and right, it was only a matter of time before they could get their hands on some prime undeveloped lakefront property. Whiting City Engineer Robert Grim and others wanted to get the Army Corps of Engineers to fill part of Lake Michigan’s shoreline to create more land to develop. The present Whiting Park was property leased to Whiting by New York Central.
However, all hopes were on the prospective merger of PRR and NYC. The elimination of the tracks through East Chicago would also aid in the elimination of tracks through their city, opening 26 new acres of property at the site of the PRR train station. They called that site the “Holy Grail.”
It was decided that Whiting would aggressively go after the railroads and put their proposals in to purchase their property.
Republicans blasted Whiting’s Democratic leadership. They alleged that it was the city’s fault that Amoco bought the land they wanted to use in the first place. However, after the Standard Oil explosion of 1954, 900 families moved off of it, leaving the property vacant.
The city allowed Standard Oil to purchase, thus creating the pickle of now wanting lakefront property on land Whiting no longer owns and diminishing the city’s tax base. Republicans favored allowing another industry, unconnected to the oil refinery, to occupy the said property.
The War Goes On
Because of the failure to obtain property from PRR two years prior, East Chicago’s urban development program was behind schedule and irritating the city council. Furthermore, City Controller Walter Baran told the committee that trains had the right to block crossings for “unlimited periods because an emergency war provision was never rescinded.”
Once this was discovered, trains began blocking crossings all over East Chicago, especially at the B&OCT and Indianapolis Blvd, where trains blocked the crossing for over an hour — while moving.
The wartime provision lifted the 65-car restriction for freight trains. As a result, freight trains could be as long as they wanted and could block crossings as long as they wanted as long as they were moving.
Yet after the war, the provision was not receded. This was a federal problem. Thus, the city of East Chicago was powerless to do anything about it. That meant city ordinances regulating how long trains could block crossings were not enforceable.
Complicating matters worse was New York Central’s threat to eliminate commuter passenger service between NWI and Chicago.
PRR, which ran its commuter train, offered to accommodate Whiting’s passengers. Still, the city of Whiting found that inadequate, for they planned to eliminate PRR’s station. Their studies indicated that their riders mostly worked in the loop, whereas NYC had a station at LaSalle. PRR’s station was at Chicago Union Station, so it was said to travel too far west to benefit Whiting’s working residents.
BEGINNING OF THE END
Finally, in February of 1964, East Chicago purchased a tract of land called “the strip” for $230,000. It stretched from Elm Street and Lincoln Street on the north side of Guthrie. PRR reluctantly let go of the property as a result of condemnation proceedings.
Stay tuned for part two.