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player ready...A blue shipping container that held the fixings for a holiday party for an Englewood community group has been found after it was towed to a city auto pound, but not before it forced the cancellation of the group’s party.
The container was taken Tuesday from an empty lot on Stewart Avenue just north of 75th Street, according to the group. The Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation confirmed by email Thursday that it had been towed, but has now been returned.
“The Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation (DSS) has returned the storage container belonging to Mother’s Against Senseless Killings (MASK),” the statement read. “A pre-tow notice was affixed to the container on December 9, 2019 and the container was towed on Tuesday, December 18, 2019.”
MASK has been protesting the epidemic of killings of young people in the predominantly black community, including challenging neighborhood gang members by sitting on lawn chairs on the rubble-filled lots that dot the neighborhood. They also run a summer program for school kids and throw a block party or two through the year.
Inside the blue shipping container were the fixings for a holiday party scheduled for next Monday at a nearby church. The group’s organizer, Tamar Manasseh, said Wednesday there were toys and decorations for the party in the container and she feared that even if it were located, the contents may be damaged. The group had at the time canceled the party.
But Marjani Williams, director of public affairs for Streets and Sanitation, said the agency didn’t access the container, so doesn’t know what’s in it.
“We did not open the container so I’m not sure whether it was empty or not,” she said.
The group posted a video on its Facebook page Wednesday night of the container being returned and of a member of the group being unable to access the container, apparently unable to undo padlocks on the container.
Manasseh could not be reached Thursday afternoon.