There was a lot of changes on our street, when I got home after work. I’d heard that they would be doing some restoration work (replacing the curbs and repairing all the concrete along the street)… but I wasn’t quite prepared to see the state of the street.
On my way in to work this morning, I saw this at my Metra stop. I immediately muttered to myself “That’s not right.”
Spotted this while walking home with Liz the other day. Once more, my heart is breaking with the knowledge that somewhere, a child is still waiting and hoping for Bobo’s safe return.
It’s no small amount of water, so to have it rush down here, pool and swirl around, and then just seemingly disappear is kind of baffling. I kept expecting it to overflow and rush out, but it just gets here and… goes away.
There are two huge mounds on either side of our driveway, and a heavy, metal plate lining our driveway to the street. Guessing there’s a sizable hole underneath there.
I like the approach here – it’s definitely subtle, understated. The yellow on black text of “LIT” catches your eye, but not in an obnoxious way. It’s ambiguous enough to pull you in, to want to read a little more.
My guess is that wherever there’s a manhole cover, there’s enough space for a person to actually go down a ladder… with space under the street for standing. I’m not sure what happened, but in my mind that cavernous space is full to the brim with water, and spilling out topside.
Every time I’m standing in line at the grocery store, the same thought pops into my head: this is so grossly inefficient. As someone who is a mediocre programmer but a really excellent lazy person, I crave streamlining things – figuring out a way to stop repeating similar tasks, over and over again.
I felt a little weird sneaking these photos, but I couldn’t get close enough to get his attention. At every intersection, he’d zip away before I could say anything… and one block later he’d be caught at the light, with me getting just close enough to snap a photo.
Poor Bobo. The fact that the kid who drew this out referred to him as “hand sized” is just heartbreaking.
When it was still up, I wondered how many other people saw it – and how many still stopped to read it. Now that it’s gone, I wonder if anyone else in Chicago notices it’s missing. Or if it’s just me.
As I got closer, instead of a bicycle in each slot… there was a (fake) military-style gun. On each stand was a sticker that said “Unlock and load.”
I’m assuming that, at some point in time, someone decided to plug in a hotplate and began cooking up some bacon and eggs. And maybe the resulting grease splashing around caused some burns?
I wandered near where a lot of hoses and wires were located, and spotted this station. When I asked a security guard nearby what was going on, all he said to me was “Rainbow.”
I started thinking again about fixes and problems, and how in some situations we get better at our workarounds… while still not addressing the root cause of our problems.