TARGETING CRIME PREVENTION

October 25, 2000

Chicago Tribune

FOR NEIGHBORS, LOT IS A LOAD OF TROUBLE

Dawn Turner Trice, Tribune Staff Writer.

For much of the day, the U-Haul business behind Scott McDonagh's condominium in the Buena Park section of Uptown is in the business of renting trucks.

But some nights around midnight, it starts to serve another purpose, signaled by a familiar rumbling made when the back doors of the trucks are rolled up.

"Homeless people climb up and sleep there," said McDonagh, who lives on the third floor of a building next to the truck lot at 4055 N. Broadway. "Prostitutes take care of their business in the trucks. Sometimes, when I sit on my deck, it's more interesting than watching television."

Still, it is a view McDonagh could do without. And with colder weather on the way, he and other Buena Park residents fear, as in past years, that more people soon will be conducting illicit activity in the U-Haul trucks, or simply taking refuge there.

Once a lakefront neighborhood of pristine homes, Buena Park is now a mixed-income, racially diverse enclave along the southern tier of Uptown that has worked in recent years to shake a rather dicey image.

Representatives of the Town Hall District's CAPS community policing program and the Buena Park Neighbors, the area block club, say the only way to clean up the area is to attack each problem, block by block. They have had some success by holding night patrols that disrupt drug deals and the goings-on of gang members and prostitutes.

But residents call the truck problem one of their most vexing over the past five years.

"We've held night marches, we've staked out the property, and we still catch all kinds of people doing some of everything," said Jeff Eucker, CAPS liaison for the Town Hall District. "We've been lucky that no one's been seriously hurt there, but that could be a matter of time."

Residents are asking trucking company officials to padlock the 40 or so trucks and build a fence around the lot.

"It's a matter of access," said Eucker, a six-year Buena Park resident. "The homeless problem is endemic to the neighborhood. But we're more concerned with the prostitution, drug dealing and public drunkenness that goes on in the trucks. If the trucks aren't open, they can't get in."

Over the years, neighbors say they have witnessed smoke curling from the backs of open trucks and people jumping from trucks into private yards.

Others have "relieved themselves in plain view," said McDonagh, a 38-year-old flight attendant who has lived in the area for four years. He said some nights the trucks have resembled efficiency apartments with pallets made from the quilts movers use to protect furniture.

And a homeless man known around the neighborhood as Memphis Larry has on more than one occasion serenaded the neighbors with a few tunes.

Ald. Helen Shiller (46th) said that, historically, Broadway between Irving Park Road and Montrose Avenue has been a major strip for prostitutes and drug dealers.

"Although there's been much improvement, it's still a problem," Shiller said, adding that she doesn't understand why company officials have resisted properly securing the facility.

Jeremy Frank, manager of the U-Haul lot for about a year, agreed at a CAPS meeting earlier this month to lock the trucks--but he hasn't done it yet. Completely fencing off the property would interfere with business, he said.

"We have families moving into the area at all times of the night, and the families need access when they're dropping off trucks," Frank said, noting that the facility accepts rental trucks 24 hours a day from locations around the country.

In an interview, Frank initially said his staff was locking the trucks nightly. Told a reporter had seen several unlocked trucks on two recent evenings, he said, "We are in the process of getting more locks and locking the trucks."

Frank said he has tried to improve security over the last six months. The company has installed better lighting and security cameras and hired off-duty police officers to patrol the grounds after hours.

Patrolman Bill Baxter, a beat officer in the Town Hall District, said that in the past three months about 23 people have been arrested on the site on charges ranging from trespassing to possession of drug paraphernalia. Two years ago, he said, there could be 20 arrests on and around the property in one month alone.

Though the number of arrests is still high, Baxter said things have improved. He added that Frank has been helpful by going to court to press charges.

"In the past, we would arrest people and no one [from the trucking company] would show up to sign a complaint," said Baxter, who has patrolled the area for 12 years.

Christopher Pries of the Buena Park Neighbors said residents will continue pressing for a fence and the padlocks at the next CAPS meeting Nov. 2.

"All we're asking is that the company be a good neighbor," Pries said.

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