SubX.News®Street Report | June 1, 2026
CTA Fires, Empty Streets, Locked Exits, West Side Shootings, Fentanyl Zombies, and South Shore Takeover Chaos During Another “Recovery” Day in Chicago
Monday in Chicago started with smoke rising from beneath a CTA Orange Line train during the morning rush, only hours before politicians and transit officials spent the afternoon celebrating a new billion dollar transit rescue package.
Around 9:34 am passengers boarding at Roosevelt Station reported a strong smell of smoke before it became clear the tracks beneath the train were on fire.
The train conductor evacuated the cars as the Chicago Fire Department responded within minutes.
On Facebook, “mrsouthloop” described the scene:
About an hour ago, I boarded the Orange Line at Roosevelt Station on my way to Midway. As soon as I stepped into the front car, I noticed a strong smell of smoke. It quickly became clear that the tracks beneath the train were on fire.
Hours later, radio stations and political leaders spent the afternoon promoting a billion dollar CTA, Metra, and Pace funding package while talking about improved service, cleaner stations, and a city supposedly “turning the corner.”
On the street, the day looked very different.
Two Fewer Murders
The shift starts in the car with public radio and commercial news.
The lead story: murders dipped slightly in May, and the city is supposedly making “progress” on violent crime.
They said, we have two fewer murders.
That’s not statistically significant.
First of all.
Secondly … if you had 36 murders, that’s one per day. So we have a one per day murder in Chicago.
A flip of the dial brings another report: people robbed in River North that same day.
We went from BEZ to BBM.
The facts are against the mayor, and he can’t stop it.
We heard, they just robbed a bunch of people in River North, so crime ain’t down.
It’s far from being down.
That’s what happens when you try to manipulate the narrative when the facts are against you.
And that’s what’s happening now.
Even the heavily promoted $1 billion for CTA, Metra, and Pace sounds less like rescue than timing.
Politicians just gave us a billion dollars for transportation.
It must be an election year … Where’s that billion dollars been the last few years?
With that question hanging in the air, the drive heads north.
Cabrini Row Houses, Public Land, No People
By early evening the car is rolling through the old Cabrini Green footprint.
The towers are long gone, replaced by low rise row houses and scattered public units sitting on some of the most valuable dirt in Chicago.
Many of them are quiet.
Some are boarded.
The density that once defined the area is gone.
Visually, it looks like a development board emptied of people while the surrounding neighborhood keeps moving upscale.
On a day politicians and radio stations spent talking about recovery and investment, this stretch of public land looked more like an asset being held than housing for working class Chicagoans.
A few minutes later the emptiness became impossible to ignore.
Orleans and Walton, Empty Core
At Orleans and Walton, what used to be one of the busiest corridors near downtown looked abandoned.
This just used to be a really busy street here. People going back and forth.
What do you see here?
Ain’t no one here.
There’s no traffic, there’s no commerce, there’s no nothing.
The timestamp mattered.
It was 6:30 pm in Chicago.
Not 3 in the morning.
Not during a blizzard.
Not during lockdowns.
There’s supposed to be people here.
Instead the streets were nearly empty.
The city says it’s rebounding.
The core of the near North Side was hollowed out.
The Buy In, $150,000 a Year to Live Here
Still moving through the old Cabrini area, the camera turns toward the housing replacing what used to stand there.
Brick buildings, new construction, rehabbed units, expensive apartments.
A listing comes up showing roughly $22,000 a year in property taxes and mortgage payments pushing close to $10,000 a month.
Roughly $150,000 a year just to carry the property.
The point wasn’t the exact math.
The point was who gets written out.
Who from the families that once filled Cabrini could realistically move back on those terms?
By the time the car leaves the near North Side, the picture is already clear.
Public land emptied of density.
Commercial corridors with barely anybody left on them.
A price of admission disconnected from the people who used to live there.
Pothole for the Cameras
Next stop was Evergreen near Hudson, Cleveland, and Sedgwick, a residential block already featured in earlier reporting as a “moon surface” of deep potholes.
Two months later the block still looked chewed up.
See this pothole here …
There’s a messed up pothole there.
That’s a deep pothole.
One thing changed.
The specific pothole featured in the earlier video had been repaired, so the mayor and his team definitely watch the videos.
Everything around it still looked wrecked.
We did a video here about two months ago.
We did the moon video.
Are we on the moon?
There’s deep potholes, right?
That’s when they put out the wolf pack.
See the pothole right in front of us …
Look at that, it’s fixed …
But a block behind us that pothole ain’t fixed.
That means what?
Someone came out here and fixed that pothole, but didn’t fix anything else.
In a city claiming it’s getting back to basics, one neatly patched square of asphalt in the middle of a ruined block felt less like policy and more like a reply.
1365 N. Hudson: Locked Exits
By around 7:10 pm the drive stopped at 1365 North Hudson, focused on a different kind of danger.
A padlock hung from an exit gate in a residential building.
It’s locked there, man.
It’s a padlock.
That’s on an exit gate.
That’s a fire door there.
You should be able to get out.
The camera zoomed tighter toward the doorway.
If there’s a fire here, and you can’t get out this way.
Guess what, you’re locked in.
Very, very dangerous.
Whoever does that is putting all these people in danger.
In less than an hour the Near North Side had already produced an empty downtown corridor, luxury pricing most Chicagoans could never touch, selective infrastructure repairs, and a building where tenants could literally be trapped during a fire.
Then the scanner pulled the car west.
Person Shot, 3600 Block of West Grenshaw
Citywide dispatch put out the call for a person shot near the 3600 block of West Grenshaw.
The address went into the mental notebook.
The drive headed deeper into the Westside.
Close to 8 pm the alley announced itself before police did.
Alley of Death was painted across the wall near the crime scene.
Oh man …
There you go.
Alley of Death.
Police tape cut across the alley entrance.
Squad cars sat near boarded apartments and dark windows while a few lights still glowed behind curtains.
An 18 year old male had been shot in the alley.
No offender information.
No arrests.
Later the shooting would get summarized in a few short lines.
On scene the judgment felt simpler.
This looks like an extremely dangerous area.
The Alley of Death.
Don’t think people should be hanging around there.
The city spent the afternoon talking about two fewer murders and a city supposedly turning the corner.
By nightfall another teenager was bleeding in an alley whose nickname already told everybody what happens there.
Domestic Standoff, Kedvale
Multiple squads jammed into a narrow block near 14th and Kedvale in North Lawndale for what sounded like a domestic disturbance.
There’s a female out in the middle of the street.
They’re talking to a gentleman behind a door.
Officers stacked outside the building while neighbors stood around watching from the sidewalk.
The whole block felt one bad decision away from turning into another shooting scene.
Nothing about the scene would ever make a political speech or a press conference.
For the people standing on that block, though, what happened behind that door mattered a lot more than another CompStat presentation on television.
From Kedvale the drive bent southwest into Little Village, one of the few neighborhoods that still felt alive.
Little Village: Real Neighborhood, Real Damage
The route continues south into Little Village, a neighborhood that still feels like a working Chicago neighborhood.
If you want to grow up in a regular Chicago neighborhood, Little Village is where you want to live. It’s the best. It’s getting crowded, and it’s more expensive … but it gave me a good foundation.
Businesses still sit inside residential blocks.
People are outside.
Traffic still moves through the side streets.
They still have businesses inside the blocks. That’s how every neighborhood was when I grew up … You can’t beat Little Village if you want to grow up in a regular Chicago neighborhood.
A few blocks later another side of the city comes into view.
One man stands folded forward near the sidewalk in what gets described as the fentanyl bend.
That dude’s jacked up … that’s the fentanyl bend … He’s not drunk. If you’re drunk, you lay out. See how his knees are bending … that’s the fentanyl bend.
Drugs are all over the city … it’s a shame. Drugs ruin people, ruin the city.
The scanner keeps spitting out calls.
More disturbances.
More shots fired.
More people in trouble.
Southside Alley Homicide
Before the overnight takeover chaos near South Shore, another violent scene unfolded farther south.
Around 9:25 pm firefighters and police responded to an alley near 8034 South Ellis where an unknown age male was found stabbed multiple times.
The victim was pronounced dead on scene.
No offender information was released.
Another alley.
Another homicide scene.
Another overnight investigation stretching into the early morning hours.
South Shore Takeover Gunfire
Just after midnight more gunfire broke out near 77th Street and South Shore Drive during reported takeover activity near the lakefront.
Police said an unknown age male was walking in the 2800 block of East 78th Street around 12:51 am when a white sedan pulled alongside him and multiple offenders opened fire.
The victim suffered a graze wound to the knee but refused medical treatment and went back inside his residence.
Scanner traffic and witness reports described four to six people firing shots from a white vehicle with tinted windows as additional gunfire echoed through nearby blocks.
Officers responding to the area reported hearing more shots north of 78th and Muskegon while another white vehicle connected to the chaos was later located near the Rainbow Beach entrance.
Despite shell casings scattered across the scene, scanner traffic indicated detectives and evidence technicians initially were not responding to process the crime scene.
By around 2:15 am officers cleared the area after shell casings were collected.
Hours after politicians and media figures spent the day talking about recovery, cleaner transit, and Chicago supposedly turning the corner, the streets delivered a very different record.
Empty downtown corridors.
Boarded buildings.
Locked exits.
Teenagers shot in alleys.
Street takeover gunfire near the lakefront.
And neighborhoods still trying to survive while fentanyl bent people on the sidewalk.
By the end of the night, the words painted across a Westside alley wall probably summed up the city better than any press conference or television segment could.
ALLEY OF DEATH.
Image Alley of Death Shooting Westside Chicago 18 year old shot in the ass 3607 Grenshaw alley 720pm June 1, 2026 SubX.News®
Editor’s Note: This report is based on a live video drive, broadcast radio traffic, and independent police scanner feeds.
Train on Fire Monday Morning Rush … Mrsouthloop 934am June 1st 2026 https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1DYqZJ5Vua/
Chicago economy crime and migrant update 4pm June 1st 2026 https://youtu.be/UcgH9ZuWQSc
Empty City Orleans Street there’s no traffic no commerce and it’s 630pm June 1st 2026 https://youtube.com/shorts/wLvdXgS6RwY
Mayor Watches Our Show and Still a Bum … Pothole Scammers Evergreen and Hudson 650pm June 1st 2026 https://youtube.com/shorts/R669otLeakI
Extremely Dangerous 1365 North Hudson building 10 padlocked 708pm June 1, 2026 https://youtube.com/shorts/c8_C-ANg5dE
Heading out west its supposed to be shooting someone on grenshaw about 727pm June 1st 2026
https://youtu.be/6tQjK4vavDE
Alley of Death Shooting Westside Chicago … 3607 Grenshaw Alley https://youtu.be/dZABMTVD8lE
Looks like a possible domestic issue down here in North London 1354 South Kedvale 830pm https://youtube.com/shorts/643oA4z4ykk
Homicide, Man Found Stabbed to Death in Alley … 8034 S Ellis Ave on June 1, 2026 at appx 925pm https://x.com/SubxNews/status/2061726235378544693
White Sedan with Six Shooters Open Fire Near South Shore Car Takeover Chaos … Person Shot … 2800 block of E 78th St on June 2, 2026 at appx 1251am https://x.com/SubxNews/status/2061744963302379791
SubX.News® On-the-Spot Reporting
