Chicago’s famous sidewalk ‘rat hole’ has been removed, but its legacy lives on

Winslow Dumaine doesn’t believe Chicago has seen the last of “the rat hole.”

The slab of concrete sidewalk with a rat-shaped imprint had become both a source of both pride and consternation for residents.

Officials removed it on Wednesday, and the sidewalk landmark is now in storage as the city decides what to do with it. 

“They buried Christ for three days, and he came back even stronger,” Dumaine, the Chicago resident whose viral social media post helped turned the rat hole into a must-see destination, told As It Happens host Nil Köksal.

“So, I’m not in mourning.” 

‘The rat hole guy’

Dumaine says he never meant to become “the rat hole guy.”

In January, the comedian was walking with friends in the North Side neighborhood of Roscoe Village when he came across the oddly shaped hole. It looked as if a rat — or, as many locals have argued, a squirrel — had fallen into the pavement when it was still wet.

Dumaine says neighbourhood residents told him it had been there for more than two decades. He posted a picture of it on X, formerly Twitter, not thinking too much about it.

But the post blew up and, soon, news organizations were running stories about the rat hole. Chicago residents and tourists alike made pilgrimages to see it, leaving a shrine of offerings at the site, including candles, stuffed animals and a plaque.

City officials removed the concrete slab, along with other portions of the sidewalk, because it was damaged and needed to be replaced, said Erica Schroeder, a spokesperson for the Chicago Department of Transportation.

“The alderman’s office has definitely received complaints from neighbours about people gathering and people placing a bunch of different objects in the public way there,” Schroeder told The Associated Press. 

Alderman Scott Waguespack’s office had been receiving complaints for several months, said the politician’s chief of staff Paul Sajovec.

“It was just a combination of the fact that the sidewalk was uneven, and also that people would show up at various times of the day and night and make a lot of noise,” he said. 

End of an era

Dumaine says he also received some of the backlash that plagued the alderman, mostly from strangers online.

“A few people were threatening to sue me. But it’s just, like, what are you talking about? That doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “I’m an adult. I’m not going to be bullied by some losers on Twitter.”

He’s skeptical of the complainers. 

“We live in, you know, one of the biggest and greatest cities in the world,” he said. “There’s going to be people outside. There’s people outside my house right now. There’s people outside all the time. That’s living in a city.”

But he says being the rat hole guy was, by and large, a positive experience. 

“It was a bunch of fun. A lot of  beautiful things happened there. Some people got married, some people, you know, proposed there,” he said.

He also harnessed the hole’s power for good, he said, by making plaster casts of it and sending them to anyone who provided proof they had donated to a local homeless shelter.

The rat hole’s future, Schroeder says, will be determined in “a collaborative decision between the city departments and the mayor’s office.”

Dumaine says it belongs to the people. 

“The experience of just seeing it on the ground is such a beautiful, silly thing. I want that to be preserved for everyone,” he said.

“Wherever it ends up … just make it free and available for everybody.”