Car towed? Listen to this on your way down to Chicago’s Central Auto Pound

Curious City

WBEZ Chicago

Society & Culture, Education, Public, Chicago, Arts, City, Radio, Curious, Investigation

4.8 • 642 Ratings

🗓️ 22 May 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

If you’ve had your car towed in Chicago, there’s a decent chance you had to journey down to Lower Lower Wacker Drive — likely not in the best of moods — to open your wallet and recollect your vehicle. “It's supposed to be a happy process,” said Michael Lacoco, the deputy commissioner of the city’s bureau of traffic services. In our last episode, we answered some of your many questions about Lower Wacker Drive, a.k.a. Chicago’s basement. Today, we try to demystify a notorious Chicago landmark within: the Central Auto Pound. Lacoco is a 33-year veteran of this department, the perfect person to help us on this journey. He explains why you shouldn’t try to steal your own car from the lot, why that white inventory number they draw on your window is so hard to wash off, and what you can do if you think you were wrongfully towed.

Transcript

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0:30.2	What's up, Chicago? I'm Erin Allen, and this is Curious City.
0:34.5	Last episode, I took you on a tour of Laura Wacker, aka Chicago's basement.
0:39.3	And we learned that the city built this double-decker street to alleviate traffic
0:43.3	and keep all the beautiful parts up top and all the more mechanical and waste-managey parts hidden down below.
0:49.3	Now, although you might find yourself navigating that subterranean part of the system to get
0:54.6	from point A to point B, there's a certain part that you definitely don't want to end up in.
1:01.8	It's on lower, lower, Wacker Drive.
1:03.8	And if you're here, your day just got worse because your car has been towed.
1:10.1	I'm talking about the central auto pound.
1:14.4	Sadly, I have been here before.
1:16.8	My car was parked in the West Loop until it wasn't.
1:20.6	Apparently, I missed the sign announcing that all cars must clear the way for a street parade.
1:27.2	Stress.
1:28.3	A bus ride and an Uber ride later, I ended up at the Central Auto Pound.
1:34.3	At night, in some murky corner I didn't even know existed,
1:39.3	with wrecked cars sprawled about.
	...

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