Wow, is this a Chicago story.
On January 6th, a local comedian posted a photo of what he thought was the impression of a rat in concrete on a Chicago street. (Local residents claim it's actually the death mask of a very unfortunate squirrel that fell from a tree into the wet concrete decades ago.) Quickly dubbed the "Chicago rat hole," it went viral, and so far thousands of people have made pilgrimage to 1918 W. Roscoe St. to see it.
Well, yesterday, some jagoff filled it in with "a plaster-like substance." But fear not! Locals rushed to its rescue in a way one can only hope they rescued the original artist:
NBC5 reported the rat-shaped sidewalk hole near near 1918 W. Roscoe St. was filled in with a “concrete-like material.”
t’s not clear who has a problem with the rat hole and doesn’t want us to have nice things, but Lakeview neighbor Johnathan Howell grabbed his license plate and went to work digging out the hole, NBC Sports’ Alex Shapiro reported. Other neighbors joined in, using other small tools to help.
By early afternoon, the hole looked mostly back to normal, though remnants remained of the filling, melted snow and slush.
The material used to fill in the rat hole appeared to be some type of plaster or modeling clay. Neighbors who had made a pilgrimage to the rat hole during their Friday lunch were relieved the desecration of the landmark was not permanent, they said.
The Lakeview Roscoe Village Chamber of Commerce launched a contest last week to come up with a nickname. The five finalists:
- Lil’ Stucky
- Splatatouille
- Splat
- Roscoe Road-dent
- Dibs
You know, as a student of history, I always wondered why people spent most of the 1920s and 1930s chasing silly fads. (Woody Allen nailed this phenomenon in his 1983 film Zelig.)
So here we are: a beloved Chicago fad, defiled by a spoilsport (my money's on Streets and Sanitation), rescued by neighbors. That's us.