‘We Don’t Do It for the Glory’: The Workers Erasing Gary’s Graffiti

Bright pink and soft blue bubble letters stretch across the brick façade of the now-closed New Angel of Faith Missionary Baptist Church.

The graffiti spreads across the building’s red brick and glass block windows, facing south toward Fifth Avenue, where cars and trucks rumble along the one-way street.

Graffiti has long been a familiar sight across Gary — sprayed across vacant buildings, storefront shutters, highway overpasses, and utility boxes along some of the city’s busiest corridors. City leaders say the markings can signal neglect, discourage investment, and invite more vandalism if left unchecked.

But on a recent fall morning, two city workers stood side-by-side near the wall. A tray of brown paint rested on the sidewalk beside them.

With slow strokes, the paint began swallowing the bright letters.

“We don’t do it for the glory,” said Tavaris Mertl, a Gary native who works in the city’s public works department. “We do it for the city.”

A woman walking past slowed down and shouted from the sidewalk.

“Good job! I see y’all. Keep up the good work!”

Across Gary, this quiet kind of work has become a daily routine as city crews respond to graffiti appearing on vacant buildings, boarded-up storefronts, brick walls, and other public spaces.

Gary has launched a citywide effort to remove graffiti faster, a strategy officials say can reduce repeat tagging and other signs of blight. (Javonte Anderson/Capital B)

City leaders say the strategy is deliberate. Remove graffiti quickly. Return if it reappears. Pair cleanup with enforcement and community pressure. And divert artists to legitimate canvases. The approach is built on research showing graffiti loses its appeal when it disappears fast.

The answer pointed to Gary’s most visible corridors.

“Fifth Avenue, Fourth Avenue, Grant Street and Broadway — those were the heavy areas,” Smith said.

The effort is part of a broader shift inside city government to address graffiti and other forms of blight. Under Mayor Eddie Melton, Gary reorganized departments responsible for outdoor operations, bringing public works, parks, demolition, and other crews into closer coordination.

“We know we need to be really aggressive in addressing it,” said Rachelle Morgan Ceaser, executive director of Gary’s Board of Public Works. “The science tells us the sooner we remediate graffiti, the better chance we have of stopping it.”

“We are going to win this fight,” Morgan Ceaser said.

Officials say repeat tagging is already beginning to decline along some of Gary’s busiest corridors, including Broadway and Fifth Avenue, where cleanup crews have been moving block by block.

A daily strategy to erase graffiti

Each morning, before trucks head out from Gary’s public works offices, supervisors gather around a table.The day’s targets include walls covered in bubble-letter tags, gang symbols, and colorful spray-painted names scattered across buildings across the city.

Reports from residents, including complaints submitted through the city’s 311 system, are compiled and reviewed. Harlan Smith, deputy director of public works, sits with foremen and staff to determine where crews will go that day.

“We sit around the table with the foremen and staff and look at what we’re approaching that day,” Smith said. “Then we go back over areas we’ve already hit to make sure we didn’t miss anything.”

Graffiti removal is only one part of the department’s daily workload.

Smith said public works provides roughly 10 or 11 services every day, ranging from debris removal and lawn cutting to tree trimming and pothole repairs. The board-up and litter team handles exposed properties and graffiti removal.

“Everything ties into blight,” Smith said. “From cutting grass to removing graffiti. It’s all connected.”

Crews use several methods to remove graffiti depending on the surface and the building. Sometimes graffiti is simply painted over, particularly on abandoned buildings that are already scheduled for demolition or boarding. In other cases, crews remove the paint entirely.

Gary recently added a trailer-mounted pressure washer with a hot-water system and a 200-gallon water tank designed to strip graffiti from brick structures and monuments without damaging the surface.

Gary public works crews paint over graffiti along Fifth Avenue, part of a daily cleanup effort that city supervisors plan each morning using resident reports and 311 complaints. (Javonte Anderson/Capital B)

Before launching the current effort, city crews surveyed where graffiti was most concentrated. Crews began along Broadway and have worked steadily south through the corridor.

“So far we really haven’t seen too many retaggings,” Smith said. “That’s been encouraging.”

Restructuring how the city tackles blight

A series of photos shows graffiti in parts of Gary, Indiana. (Javonte Anderson/Capital B)

Mayor Melton’s overhaul of the public works department was intended to break down long-standing operational silos that slowed the city’s ability to respond to quality-of-life issues.

“Historically, the parks department has been separate. Demolition has been separate,” Morgan Ceaser said. “So what we’ve done is bring everybody who works outside together and break down those operational silos for better efficiency.”

Michael Suggs, Gary’s chief operating officer, said the restructuring has expanded the city’s capacity to respond to blight and vandalism.

“It certainly increases our capacity and our ability to be responsive,” Suggs said.

The city has also worked more closely with police and code enforcement as part of the strategy. In some areas, cameras have been installed after repeated graffiti incidents.

“We’re not just going to keep repainting,” Suggs said. “We want to make sure we solve the issue.”

The role of Gary residents 

Officials say the effort also relies on residents paying attention to what happens in their neighborhoods.

Residents can report graffiti through Gary’s 311 service, either by phone or through the city’s mobile reporting system. Those complaints are routed to public works, where supervisors review them during the department’s daily morning briefing and dispatch crews to investigate and remove the graffiti. Officials say quick reporting helps crews respond faster and prevents tags from lingering long enough to attract more vandalism.

The city is receiving more calls from residents reporting dumping or vandalism. In some cases, neighbors have stepped in themselves to interrupt violations.

In one instance, Suggs said, a resident confronted someone throwing trash onto a property.

“Mayor Melton is trying to get our city clean,” the resident said. “Pick that up.”

Those small moments matter to city leaders.

“The citizens are starting to say they’re not going to tolerate it,” Suggs said.

The city has also stepped up enforcement as part of its broader effort to tackle blight, including illegal dumping. In 2024, Gary collected $2.5 million in fines for illegal dumping, issued nearly 1,500 violation tickets, and made 25 arrests.

For Morgan Ceaser, those moments suggest the effort may begin changing how residents respond when they see blight.

“It’s about shifting culture,” she said. “Among the residents, among the businesses, and even among the folks who work for the city.”

Still, city officials say the strategy will require sustained effort. Graffiti can return quickly, and crews are still working through large areas of Gary where tagging has accumulated over years. Officials say the real test will be whether the early decline in retagging along major streets continues as the city expands the effort to other neighborhoods.

City leaders are also trying to answer a complicated question that often arises when graffiti is discussed: where the line exists between vandalism and art.

Morgan Ceaser said a newly formed Gary Arts Council will help guide that conversation, identifying places where murals and other public art could be encouraged while discouraging destructive tagging.

“There may be a place for that expression,” she said. “But it has to be done in a way that protects the community.”

Back on Fifth Avenue, the fresh brown paint continued to spread across the church façade. The bright pink and blue letters disappeared one brushstroke at a time. Cars and trucks continued streaming down the one-way corridor.

Grady Dunnican, a Gary resident who works in the city’s public works department, stepped back from the wall and looked at the fresh paint where graffiti had covered the building just hours earlier.

“What’s better than that?” he said.