Chicago Snowpocalypse 2011 – Still digging out three days later
This isn’t unique to Chicago by any means, but whenever people have to dig their cars out of snow, they leave chairs, milk crates, random pieces of wood, and other sentries to guard their spots so no other motorists will poach them.
© 2011, Kevin DuJan. All rights reserved.
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Wow. The ice here (north of Cincinnati) is still very bad and we still have about 13,000 people without power. I had major damage in one tree and moderate damage in another. Luckily we didn’t get the intense snowfall…the is is bad enough.
I took the 151 last night instead of walking to the Brown line and saw the funniest sight: apparently Burling St. @ Diversey has now become a cul-de-sac until further notice. The poor little street has been abandoned and blocked off. I saw other streets that are either clear or use at your own risk. The sunshine today should help.
I always wondered if this was a general Chicago thing, or specific to the South Side.
While I understand the desire to not have some selfish idiot take the spot that YOU spent two hours clearing, it’s also true that no one really owns the street.
Seeing all that crap out there looks so ugly and tacky. I hate it!
So, does the chair thing actually work? Sorry to say, down here in the South, we’d just get out of our vehicle, move the obstruction and park there anyway.
But I do feel for you folks having to dig out from under all that snow.
my thoughts exactly! And we’re supposed to be polite down here!
I don’t drive, so I don’t have personal experience. It seems to, though. I haven’t personally witnessed any fights over a parking space! (Although I have heard they do happen.)
The practice of leaving lawn furniture out in a cleared parking space originated in Chicago during the great snow of 1979. Beginning on New Year’s Eve, Chicago was hit with a succession of storms, that the city (under Mayor Bilandic) was seemingly incapable of handling. And, between each storm, it was so cold that salt couldn’t melt the ice. Cars that were parked during the first storm were snowed in, and then the double-parkers were snowed in by later storms, and so on. Four lane streets dwindled down to two (at best), making public transportation via bus crawl. The trains tested everyone’s patience, since they would stop unpredictably and let everyone out to the mercy of the bus lines.
With no plows coming through the side streets, people who cleared a parking space laid claim to it with lawn furniture and other barricades. (Remember, snow-blowers were not common in the city then. Clearing snow was by shovel.)
There was snow-rage that winter. One person, who spent all that time clearing out a space, ran, got a hose, and “iced in” a car that gleefully tried to park in his newly cleaned out area. Another person, returning from the grocery, smeared fruits and vegetables all over the invading vehicle. Everyone who had to shovel their own spot went wild with righteous indignation at the interlopers. No one should ever question the validity of “lawn chair rule” during questionable performance of the city’s snow cleaning efforts.
Jane Byrne won that election over Bilandic.
I was a kid during that storm so I vaguely remember it, but I was not aware of the history! I didn’t know that tradition started then.
I really cannot imagine being so rude as to take a space that I knew someone else had worked for hours to clear. But people do, hence the chairs.
Burn these photos in your brain. This is how the union does their jobs – NOT!!
Privatize them all and watch our taxes go to 3 bucks/year.
They are the end of America if we let this continue
it,s just so strange to get snow like this in FEB..
What hacks me off is when people use cones/chairs during the summer. (I’m talking to you, you jerks who have a garage on 3800 N Karlov and still block off spaces).
Pittsburgh Parking Chairs are a big deal! And it’s said that the size of the chair is directly proportional to what will happen to you/your car if you decide to move that chair and park there anyway. Do NOT move the big honkin’ recliners, folks!
I’ve never officially put out a chair, but I almost did last winter after coming home with 4 kids and groceries and finding the that the spot I’d spent a good hour clearing was taken, leaving literally nowhere to park within a couple of blocks of my house. I actually had to leave the car in the middle of the street while I got a shovel and spent 20 minutes hacking another crude spot out of the ice in order to park it somewhere.
Oh! Good to know it’s not just here. I’ve always wondered about that.
You can’t do that in the south. Some redneck would pull up in a pickup truck, look the recliner over, and if the driver liked it, would toss it in the back of the truck and take it home.
You where obviously leaving it out for trash collection…
Oh yes, here in Pittsburgh the chair-in-the-parking-space is a year-round phenomenon
Here in Steeler Nation you RESPECT the chair! Or else…
Looks like you guys are having soooo much fun!!!!
the real problem is this stuff is not going to melt. 10 day forecast is freezing.
Isn’t it sad how something so beautiful can turn so dirty overnight? Seems analogous to the hopes and dreams of the Obamabots. Look what he’s turned into.
I guess most of you folks are too young to remember the blizzard of January 27/28 in 1967. We had SNOW back in those daze.
Our record year locally (Northern L.P. in Michigan) was 1972. 172 inches of snow that winter.
Whoa… yep, I remember all kinda Chicago snow… which is one reason I’ve moved to New Zealand…
75 and partly cloudy today
If Sarah becomes POTUS, I may consider coming back…
cheers mates
Oh, is it as beautiful there as I’ve heard? How I’d give anything to see it one day. (Even with my hatred and terror of flying!)