After more than 20 years living on North Magnolia Avenue in Uptown, Victoria McGhee had had enough.
“I felt like every time I hear gunfire, I have to run outside and check where my kids are,” she said. “I can’t get comfortable sitting on the porch.”
In September 2013, McGhee, 40, and three of her four children relocated to South Shore. On Monday, her second oldest child, Christopher McGhee, 22, was shot and killed steps from his former home, in the 4500 block of North Magnolia Avenue, according to Chicago police.
“He was a hardworking young man trying to get his life together,” McGhee said of her son, who she said was studying for a GED and working at a grocery store. “He loved his brothers and sisters, he was always there for them.”
Christopher McGhee is survived by two sisters, 24 and 18, and a 16-year-old brother. On Tuesday evening, his mother attended her youngest son’s high school football game, which he dedicated to Christopher.
“He would be at the game now,” she said of Christopher McGhee. “He loved sports. He played basketball before work or after work. He went to the YMCA all the time. And he was just happy. It’s hard to describe. Anybody that was friends with him says that he was walking with a smile.”
This is not the first time Victoria McGhee has faced a family death due to gun violence. Two of her brothers were killed in Indianapolis about 15 years ago, one by a gang member, she said—an experience that left her acutely aware of the dangers of living in a community with gang violence.
Christopher McGhee had a pending felony drug case from winter of this year, according Cook County court records. Chicago police also said he was a suspected gang member, but Victoria McGhee said that is not true.
“He was not perfect, but he was not a gang member,” she said. The shooting underscores the neighborhood’s need to address gang violence more seriously, Victoria McGhee said.
“He was meeting his friends who live over there,” McGhee said of why her son was in Uptown on Monday morning. “He was at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
About 11 a.m. Monday, a man exited a dark vehicle on Magnolia and opened fire—fatally shooting McGhee, according to Chicago police. Victoria McGhee and her family held a vigil for Christopher in Uptown on Wednesday evening, near where he was shot.
McGhee’s death is the third homicide of the year for the lakefront neighborhood. Though Uptown is celebrated for its cultural attractions and affordable housing, the community has struggled to shake its reputation as a battleground for rival gangs. Still, some community members and public officials are hopeful that the North Side neighborhood finally is beginning to see the turnaround for which longtime residents have been waiting.
Uptown, sandwiched between Lakeview to the south and Edgewater to the north, has a history as a swanky entertainment district with venues, such as the Aragon Ballroom and Green Mill Cocktail Lounge, that still draw tourists. Close to the lake and the CTA’s Red Line, it has a reputation for being more affordable than surrounding neighborhoods.
But long-standing concerns about violence that police officials largely say is caused by local gangs—including gang initiations, drive-by shootings and less severe “quality of life” crimes like public drinking and marijuana possession—have brought sporadic attention to the neighborhood’s struggles.
Local crime data from the Chicago Police Department suggests that Uptown’s turnaround already is underway. Though violent crime spikes during the summer in Uptown, as it does in most Chicago neighborhoods, year-over-year crime rates have decreased steadily since 2010, according to a Chicago Tribune analysis of police data. In July, 24 violent crimes were reported in Uptown, compared with 31 in 2013 and 38 in 2012—a rate that puts Uptown’s safety on par with Lakeview’s.
Uptown was marred by several shootings this summer, including a Racine Avenue drive-by shooting that left three wounded, and a separate fatal shooting, both in July. Uptown has had three homicides this year, compared with one by this time last year and six by this time in 2007. The beginning of a new school year brings with it the possibility of gang initiations, according to police officials, and not everyone says they feel safe.
Sean Battle, 38, is another longtime Uptown resident who, after nine years of living a stone’s throw from Clarendon Park, started looking for a safer place to raise his family.
Battle was attracted to what he calls the “rough around the edges” neighborhood for its affordability and proximity to the park and the lakefront. But once his daughter was born in 2012, the occasional sound of what he presumed were gunshots became too much. His family moved to Lincoln Square this month.
“It’s getting really bad,” he said. “I’m looking around and thinking, ‘Holy crap, I have a 2-year-old daughter,’ and it’s to the point now where I won’t take her to Clarendon Park.”
In the weeks before his move, Battle began using a camera phone to film what he perceived as an upsurge in gun violence from his apartment balcony, which overlooked Clarendon Park. A man was shot in the shoulder Aug. 24 in the park, according to Chicago police, who said the incident was likely gang related.
“I heard something like 10, 20 gunshots ring out in the park,” Battle said of incident. “I had a bird’s-eye view.”
Jackie Keophet, 22, who also lives by the park, said a bullet shot through a patio door window of her North Clarendon Avenue apartment just after 11 p.m. on June 14. “I was really upset about that and wanted to cancel my lease,” she said. “I had people over, we were sitting right there. The park has the potential to be a great place, but there’s too much going on.”
Ald. James Cappleman (46th) said that while violent crime is on the decline, his office is working with neighborhood groups to address remaining issues, for example by holding closed, task force-type meetings.
“The reality is that if any violent crime happens in your neighborhood, it makes you feel unsafe,” he said. “Until parents feel comfortable with their child walking to school or the park without concerns about their safety, we still have work to do.”
He attributed the decrease in crime, particularly in hot spots like the corner of Sheridan and Lawrence avenues and the corner of Sheridan and Wilson avenues, to joint efforts by the 19th and 20th police districts and local neighborhood organizations.
The neighborhood’s checkered reputation hasn’t necessarily slowed down the real estate market, with median and average home prices rising in recent years at the same pace as the overall Chicago market, according to Chris Chesne, a North Side real estate agent.
“I even got a listing under contract one-and-a-half blocks away from the shooting at Wilson and Sheridan, two days after it happened,” he said. The buyer “was very aware of what was going on.”
He said the median home price in Uptown has jumped from around $191,000 in January 2013 to $236,900 in August of this year. According to data provided by the apartment listing website apartments.com, the average rental cost of a one bedroom apartment in Uptown and the neighboring community Andersonville has risen from $934 a month in 2010 to just more than $1,000 in 2013.
“It’s a very attractive area for some people,” Chesne said. “There’s a lot of draws to Uptown because it is less expensive. There’s a lot to do. There’s the Target on Wilson. It’s close to the lake. Blocks of Uptown are part of the National Register of Historic Places.”
The neighborhood’s strongest selling points—diversity, culture and location—should prevail over worries about violence, said D’Angelo Boyland, 27, a tenant organizer who has lived in Uptown for most of his life.
“I know a lot of people who travel where they want to. They don’t have a fear of violence,” he said. “The fear that’s been expressed to you is something that isn’t true for the community as a whole.”
Victoria McGhee said she hopes her son’s death will spur local police to “crack down” on neighborhood gangs.
“They’ve got to know where these guns are coming from,” she said. “Somebody is supplying these guns and that’s where [police] need to start.”
rcromidas@tribune.com | @rachelcromidas