In 40 years as a journalist, I visited every Chicago neighborhood. For the first time, I now fear for my safety.

Chicago police work the scene where a 37-year-old man was shot near the Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile hotel in the 500 block of North Rush Street in River North in October 2023. (Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times)

As a 21-year-old college dropout working at a children’s psychiatric hospital in Hyde Park, I frequently took the CTA Red Line from the mostly empty 55th Street station to the Fullerton stop near my Lincoln Park apartment at 2 a.m.

I would occasionally share the platform and train with a few sketchy folks, but it was routine.