NEAR WEST SIDE — For more than 15 years, World Discount Auto has brightened the corner of Polk and Western with its vivid blue wall and dealership banners.
But shootings on the block have gotten worse in the past few years, the dealership's owner said Friday. Now, he wonders if it's time to close up shop after the most recent shooting — across the street from his dealership — left a 14-year-old critically injured.
"My wife said, 'Maybe you should just close and get out. It's not worth your life,'" said the owner, Rick. "And it's true. It could be any of us. It's not just me."
On Thursday afternoon, gunfire between teenagers sent a bullet flying into that bright, blue wall. On the opposite side, a mother of two was working at her desk.
Rick — who asked to be identified by his first name only — and two employees were at the dealership when a 14-year-old was critically injured in the shooting just after 3 p.m.
The teenager fled into Sam's Quick Stop, and Rick said he saw others run down Polk Street. No arrests have been made as of Friday. Ald. Jason Ervin (28th) did not respond to a request for comment, and police said no additional information is available.
After he called police, Rick went over to Sam's Quick Stop, where he saw the injured teenager on the ground, bleeding from his leg and abdomen as he waited for an ambulance.
As he returned to his office, he noticed a dent in his wall and a bullet on the ground nearby.
"Just a little further in, and someone [in the office] could have gotten hurt," Rick said. "It makes you think twice about being here."
A bullet grazed the wall of a nearby auto dealership in a Thursday afternoon shooting that left a 14-year-old critically injured at Polk and Western. [DNAinfo/Ariel Cheung]
Just four months ago, two men in a car pulled up to that same corner and shot a 22-year-old man in the chest.
Mia Dirito, 20, had moved in to an apartment across the street that same month. While she said she liked living in the neighborhood, she's moving to Bucktown this week.
While unrelated to the shootings, the move is "good timing," Dirito said.
"I always felt safe, but to have this happen twice since May has me a little sketched out," she said."
There have been 14 shootings over the past five years on the strip of Western Avenue between Harrison and Taylor Street and the surrounding blocks in the 28th Ward, according to DNAinfo's data-based map of shootings since 2010. Four have been in the past year alone.
Near Tri-Taylor, the block sees less gun violence than the streets north of Harrison or a little farther west in Garfield Park.
But Rick said the situation has worsened over the past two years, and other neighbors are also fed up with bouts of crime that break out in the area. Last year, a 21-year-old woman was shot while driving in Tri-Taylor. A few blocks north, a 12-year-old boy was shot as he ate in a restaurant with his family in May 2016.
"Houses are selling for half a million dollars, but there's no safety," he said. "Everybody has a gun to the point where you're scared to say something if somebody cuts you off in traffic."
Rick himself leases a condominium nearby on Lexington Street, usually to medical students who commute to the nearby Illinois Medical District. But tenants have moved out after shootings in the area scared them away, he said.
Two years ago, he was walking past the Subway at Taylor and Western when "someone shot toward the Subway, and I saw a kid drop right in front of me," Rick said. "Until that moment, I was totally against having a gun, but this neighborhood has just been crazy."
While he's contemplated moving his business, "Where do I go?" he asked. "Downtown? There's shootings downtown. It's spreading. Everywhere you go there's shootings."
