Sidewalk Mechanically Heated

May 8, 2012

Spotted this on the NW corner of Jackson and Clark, downtown Chicago. Assuming it’s something for wintertime, to prevent ice from building up… but in all my years living in the city, this is the first time I’ve seen any kind of sign like this.

Now I’m really curious what this means, and how this actually works. I wonder if the maintenance guys in the nearby building would know more. Might have to go ask.

Funny that the first thing my mind did when seeing this was say mechanically? As though the adjective was a necessary part of conveying the message? Maybe things weren’t consistent enough, back in the days when the sidewalk was manually heated.

// Interesting sidenote: I realized I posted this without looking anything up on Google. Got to work, fired up my computer and the first search result is this post. Ha!