Calls for safety measures after cars plow into two storefronts in Bronzeville -- neither for first time
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Dash camera video captured a dramatic crash as a car went barreling into a storefront this past weekend.
It was one of two similar crashes over the past weekend alone – and it was not the first time it happened in those same locations.
As CBS 2's Charlie De Mar reported Tuesday night, no one was injured in the crashes – but the damage has kept the doors shut for a business, and has caused a major setback for a community organization.
That organization says the severe damage was not only disappointing, but also preventable.
On Sunday night, a car crashed through the front door of what was soon to be a restaurant incubator at 51st Street and Prairie Avenue in Bronzeville.
"The car swerved; was going east – it came in right through here," Bernard Lloyd, president of Urban Juncture, said as he showed CBS 2's De Mar a fully boarded-up front entryway at the storefront at the northeast corner of the intersection.
Remains of both the front entryway and the car – including its front bumper and license plate – were still in the building Tuesday.
The Bronzeville Incubator is just one of the initiatives of Urban Juncture – an organization focused on revitalizing the neighborhood.
"Unfortunately, this is not the first time that there have been major accidents right at this intersection," Lloyd said.
It happens so often that Lloyd said he has started documenting car crashes at 51st and Prairie. Last November, a tree stopped a car from hitting the building. On another occasion, a Ford jumped the curb and slammed right into the front.
The shop across the street is also now boarded up because of a car accident.
Lloyd raised his safety concerns to Ald. Pat Dowell (3rd) back in 2018. But he said no improvements have been made to the intersection.
De Mar asked Lloyd what he would like to see done.
"We probably need some sort of mechanisms - whether that's bollards or something else - to actually protect the buildings," Lloyd said.
Lloyd is also advocating to make the intersection a four-way stop.
Storefront crashes injure more than 16,000 people and kill 2,600 a year, according to data collected by the Storefront Safety Council.
"It happens more than 100 times a day," said Robert Reiter of the Storefront City Council.
Benita Phipps is still cleaning up her consignment shop, A Lotta Good Stuff Upscael Retail Furniture & More – also in Bronzeville at 47th Street and Vincennes Avenue. A car also plowed through her storefront over the weekend.
Dashcam video showed the impact.
"It was the most beautiful showroom you could imagine," Phipps said.
Phipps said she asked Ald. Dowell's office for bollards in 2015, after a car crashed through her front door the first time.
"I would like to see pillars," Phipps said. "I don't want to have to pay and go through this again - to miss money; to miss business."
Dowell said a traffic evaluation will be conducted at both intersections where the cars went into the buildings over the weekend.
At 51st and Prairie, in front of Urban Juncture, the city will be looking in particular at whether or not a four-way stop is needed.
