Easter Sunday In Gary Indiana

Tonight in Chicago at Elegant Mr.Gallery in Wicker Park.

On Easter Sunday, 2010, Matt Messner and Tom Harris photographed the interiors of two abandoned churches in Gary Indiana.  In the morning, while Easter sermons were given across the country, these two photographers captured the scene in two of Gary Indiana's abandoned churches.  Two places in which memories were made, children were baptized, and many were married, now stand quiet and alone, forgotten in Indiana.

The two churches differ greatly in size and architecture. Gary Methodist Cathedral, with its stone arches and massive columns, also contains dozens of classrooms, a basketball court, and a full auditorium with balcony.  Its sanctuary stands five stories tall with a bell tower that reaches four additional floors to the sky.  Trees grow from its roof, and large slate tiles from fifty feet above lay smashed on the sanctuary floor.  The church was abandoned in the mid nineteen eighties and was badly damaged in a fire in 1997.  Much of the stonework remains, but the much of the roof has disappeared.

Life With Hope Ministry is a church with broad wooden beams and a brick facade pierced by stained glass.  This church has only recently been abandoned and has thus far been spared by vandals and the elements.  Only time and gravity have had a chance to start pulling at the interior of this church since it went derelict in 2008.  Pianos still stand, blackboards still covered in Sunday school bible verse lessons, and the blue gowns of the choir still hang neatly in their closets.