Welcome to FTW Explains, a guide to catching up on and better understanding stuff going on in the world. Have you seen some stuff about a hole in a Chicago sidewalk with the outline of a rodent that is. driving people crazy? And you’re very confused about that whole thing? Don’t worry. We’re here to help.
I so wish this were a misleading headline. I desperately want to tell you that The Rat Hole is just some dive bar in Chicago recently made trendy again thanks to The Bear or one of the NBC shows set in the Windy City. Alas, we are literally talking about a hole in a sidewalk shaped like a rodent who once got stuck in wet cement and miraculously made it out.
Over the last few weeks, the Rat Hole has taken on a life of its own, with people waiting in line to see it, dropping in pennies to make a wish and even getting married in front of it.
Let me explain.
Ok, let's take a look at this thing
There she is. Bask in it’s glory. The Rat Hole.
Located in the neighborhood of Roscoe Village, just six miles north of The Loop, the imprint of a rodent on the sidewalk remains.
And this is a new thing?
Ha, oh no no no.
The Rat Hole has been around for years. People have been talking about it on social media since at least 2011. But it gained viral status just a few days into 2024 when Twitter user @WinslowDumaine paid homage to the clump of concrete and began trending.
Had to make a pilgrimage to the Chicago Rat Hole pic.twitter.com/g4P44nvJ1f
— Gatorade Should Be Thicker. (@WinslowDumaine) January 6, 2024
So people just started showing up to see it?
They turned out almost immediately.
When I called this a tourist destination, that was more to say Chicagoans are being tourists in their own city. Much like they did that time a few years back when someone released their pet alligator into a local lagoon and people treated it like the Loch Ness monster.
But with the Rat Hole it was turned up a notch. What started as locals taking shots of Malort with the Rat Hole soon evolved into people planning a marriage proposal at the spot. Then an actual wedding took place there.
An offering of Malört to the Rat Hole.
I live in Roscoe and have never seen so many young people in this neighborhood in my life (though one couple did come with a baby, very Roscoe Village) pic.twitter.com/LKvPmev8sz— Leigh Giangreco (@LeighGiangreco) January 20, 2024
rat hole proposal @bikelanesmn pic.twitter.com/ZgH5vVpNWC
— antifa of cleves (@mollywidstrom) January 20, 2024
It, admittedly, got a tad out of hand.
with love from the Chicago Rat Hole 🐀🍿🌹 pic.twitter.com/r6WOfhDRgI
— Benny (@bennythebull) January 18, 2024
rat. hole. pic.twitter.com/QL5YKNH2qt
— a matt (@thrillhowse) January 20, 2024
The Riot Fest Historical Society would like to pay our respects and honor the great “Chicago Rat Hole.” pic.twitter.com/1sJ7AfLmm2
— Riot Fest (@RiotFest) January 18, 2024
Are Chicagoans ok?
Look, man. It’s the middle of winter. We just got out of a weeklong stretch of sub-zero temps. People are looking for any reason to be outside, and when there’s a meme brewing in your backyard, you might as well take advantage.
Wait, you said this is just on a neighborhood sidewalk. How do the people who live by the Rat Hole feel?
Increasingly not great, to be honest.
Per Block Club Chicago:
About a dozen people were crowded around the rat hole at any given time throughout the day this past weekend, Maggie [a neighbor] said. At one point, a line formed and stretched down the block to Wolcott Avenue.
Maggie said she understands noise comes with living in a big city, but the crowds have been a bit much for a normally quiet block. She doesn’t want to fill the rat hole and hopes people can still have fun with the attraction while not bothering neighbors.
“I think the idea of treating it like a wishing well is kind of fun, and I think that might be the easiest way,” she said. “If you want to toss a coin in, take a pic, I think that’s nice. The leaving of the stuff, it’s just someone has to clean it up eventually. And it’s being put on us, the community.
“I understand why everyone else in the neighborhood thinks it’s great, but the onus is being put on us to take care of it, which is kind of a lot.”
That’s entirely understandable. Another concern neighbors have with visitors turning the Rat Hole into a shrine is that it will attract actual rats. Which is a really big problem in Chicago right now. No one wants that.
None of the neighbors tried to get rid of it?
Someone did actually pour plaster over the Rat Hole a few days after visitors started lining up, but Rat Hole enthusiasts were able to scrape it out before it set.
A true crisis averted.
Don't be offended, but I have to ask...
Yeah, I had a feeling this was coming.
...are we sure a rat made that hole?
Dear reader, we are not.
Experts at the Lincoln Park Zoo Urban Wildlife Institute have serious misgivings about the origin of the Rat Hole. The UWI’s director, Dr. Seth Magle, told NBC 5 in Chicago three solid reasons why it’s unlikely a wild rat ever got stuck in the wet concrete.
In fact, it was most likely a squirrel:
“The first is when we think about what kind of animal could fall from a height and land on wet concrete. Much more likely to be a squirrel with all the time they spend in branches,” he said. “We think of them as really balletic and graceful and they are. But I have seen them actually like just take a header straight out of a tree. So they, they will do that.”
…
“The second reason I think it’s a squirrel is that when we think about when concrete is usually wet, it’s probably gonna be during the day,” Magle said. “It’s probably not gonna be wet in the middle of the night. Rats are active at night.”
The third reason is that longtime neighbors noted there used to be a tree alongside the spot where the rat hole is. Had a squirrel fallen from a branch, the fur on its tail may not have been heavy enough to make an imprint in the concrete, even if the bones did.
One Reddit user has another plausible theory:
Comment
byu/sccerfrk26 from discussion
inmildlyinteresting
'The Squirrel Hole' doesn't really roll off the tongue
No, it doesn’t. But it’s still a rodent, so we can just call it the Rat Hole and live in harmony.
As long as you don't actually live next to the Rat Hole
Well, yeah. That’s true.
