By Jedediah “Jed” Wanderlust
Dispatches from a Map Dot
Dispatches from a Map Dot: Roscoe Village, IL Edition
After last week’s diplomatic failure at the Schiller Woods pump, I vowed to keep moving.
I was halfway to Indiana, chewing on a gas station pickle and a bad mood, when a stranger on the Blue Line whispered, “They buried the rat hole.”
Naturally, I got off at the next stop.
The Hole That Launched a Hundred Candles
In the neighborhood of Roscoe Village, Chicago, there once existed a crack in the sidewalk shaped — loosely, hauntingly — like a rat. This natural anomaly, dubbed the Chicago Rat Hole, inspired such devotion that locals left offerings beside it: string cheese, plastic rats, Malört miniatures, glitter rosaries, and a laminated picture of Danny DeVito from Matilda.
There were vigils. There were live music sets. Someone got married next to it. A man with a ukulele claimed to have heard the concrete whisper his birth weight.
Faith, Infrastructure, and a Missing Slab
Then, in a moment of municipal efficiency rarely seen outside budget season, the city paved over it. No press conference. No ceremony. Just one cold slap of asphalt across a community’s emotional epicenter.
“It was an assassination,” said one woman clutching a plush rat with googly eyes.
“They didn’t pave it — they erased it,” muttered a guy in a cardigan, whom I later learned was a sidewalk folklorist.
A movement began. Protest signs appeared: PUT THE HOLE BACK and FREE RATTY. Conspiracy theories spread like pigeons at Navy Pier. Was the Rat Hole removed to protect national secrets? Did the slab get taken to Area 51 or the Field Museum?
The truth: It was found leaning against a wall at the CDOT yard, “awaiting disposal.”
The Slab Repatriation Movement
I joined a procession of activists wheeling a red wagon filled with rat-themed offerings toward City Hall. They called themselves Citizens for Concrete Preservation and had a petition with over 1,400 signatures — one signed in ketchup.
At City Hall, they asked for:
The original slab to be returned and reinstalled
Landmark status for “any sidewalk blemish exceeding 300 Instagram likes”
A rotating seasonal wreath program for the Rat Hole
Ratatouille-themed public art funding
We were turned away by a security guard who had definitely heard this before.
A Street Musician’s Requiem
Later, a small crowd gathered where the Rat Hole had once been. A man in a harmonica holster played a mournful version of Ain’t No Sunshine while a child gently wept into a slice of provolone.
I spoke. Loudly. Passionately. Possibly too long.
I proposed a monument — something tasteful: perhaps a bronze plaque or an animatronic rat that dispenses sidewalk wisdom. I offered to lead peace talks between the city and the Hole Loyalists.
Someone threw a can of sparkling water at me. It missed, but the message was clear:
This was personal.
I Leave, Unpatched
In the end, I didn’t stop the Rat Hole conflict. I didn’t get the slab repatriated. But I did leave a votive candle and a scribbled poem that read:
Concrete breaks, but memory won’t.
Rats may leave, but dreams don’t.
This hole is gone, but it’s still here.
Chicago’s heart has cracks, my dear.
As always, I left Chicago with more questions than answers — and a sharp new limp from tripping over a different sidewalk hazard.
Next stop: Whynot, North Carolina. Hopefully less rodent-centric.
Republishing Note:
This piece originally appeared in Post Meridiem Post as part of the weekly series Dispatches from a Map Dot by Jedediah “Jed” Wanderlust. For syndication, visit:
postmeridiempost.com/syndicate-dispatches
