Car spins out in front of ABC 7 Chicago’s studios
Adds to numerous incidents at or in the station over the years
You can add this to the “weird things that’s hapened at 190 North State Street” file.
On Monday night around 10 p.m. – minutes before ABC 7 (WLS-TV) was set to go on the air with its nightly newscast (delayed due to Monday Night Football), a car was doing “donuts” right in front of the station and the iconic Chicago Theater while people on the street watched, as caught on camera by what appears to be an ABC 7 employee.
ABC7 captured the chaotic scene around 10 p.m. as a car did donuts right in front of the Chicago Theatre near State and Lake streets. https://t.co/zbG70F2R7o
— ABC 7 Chicago (@ABC7Chicago) October 3, 2023
The bizarre incident is part of what police says are “street takeovers”, where drivers perform dangerous stunts including drag racing and cars doing those “donuts”. These takeovers have grown nationwide over the years, especially in Chicago and in the suburbs though mostly confined to the Northwest Side and Southwest Side, and 87th and the Dan Ryan on the South Side. But this is the first known instance of a takeover occurring right on State Street downtown, once closed to vehicular traffic from 1979 to 1996.
Street takeovers are also common in other cities across the country, from Houston to Indianapolis and Oakland to Los Angeles, especially in South L.A. and nearby suburban Compton. Drag racing has basically been around forever, popularized in the 1950s through film.
This adds to a list of bizarre incidents taking place near or inside ABC 7 at 190 North State, as illustrated in a recent piece this site featured on WLS-TV’s 75th Anniversary. Chaos and anarchy descended on downtown Chicago one morning in August 2020 as looters broke into the Potbelly restaurant next door to the station while ABC 7 was live on the air. In December 2007, a driver purposely crashed his Mazda into the studio during the station’s 10 p.m. newscast. And in August 1990, WLS-TV was forced off the air for two consecutive nights after a murder suspect somehow got into the building and hid there.
Earlier this year, Disney CEO Bob Iger hinted he may sell ABC and its owned stations in mostly blue states as linear TV continues to decline. You wonder if the driver doing donuts in front the station was sending him a message.