Giant flames shooting up from the stacks…like big candles in the sky.

For 32 years, Cynthia Klidaras has run her family's café across the street from U.S. Steel, feeding mill workers and everyone whose livelihood orbits them. She lived within Gary’s city limits as a child and has since spent three decades working behind the counter, maintaining a deep connection to the community she still considers home.

To her, steel is simply "the bread and butter to NWI". Walking in to work each morning, she catches the same sight: "those giant flames shooting up from the stacks... like big candles in the sky." 

She's hopeful that updates to the mill, paired with the city's push into tourism around the lakefront and more visitors to nearby Indiana Dunes National Park, could make Gary "more of a tourism hub" than people realize.

Photos: Tyrell Anderson / Decay Devils