ROSCOE VILLAGE — Chicagoans in love with the Roscoe Village rat hole have a shot at naming the beloved landmark.
Earlier this week, local artist and comedian Winslow Dumaine shared a photo on social media of what appears to be an imprint of a rodent on the sidewalk that’s he dubbed “the Chicago Rat Hole.”
After the post went viral, the Lakeview Roscoe Village Chamber of Commerce decided the infamous landmark could use an additional affectation and launched a survey Thursday asking neighbors to pitch their ideas.
“We saw the article yesterday popping up and we were excited that they mentioned one of our local businesses, Transistor, because that’s where the artist was on his way to,” said chamber executive director Becca Girsch. “We just thought it’d be kind of fun.”
Residents can submit names via the survey through Jan 18. The top five names will go through another round of voting to select the most popular name, Girsch said.
“After we posted the survey [to Instagram], I think within the hour, we had 350 likes. And then we started seeing the comments that people posted and we realized that he’s been in the sidewalk for a while,” Girsch said.
Some of the suggestions in the chat included Flat-a-touille and The Roscoe Rat — but one name that neighbors kept sharing was Lil Stucky, Girsch said.
“It sounds like he had been informally named a Lil Stucky, which I can’t even say with a straight face,” Girsch said. “But we will leave the naming of the rat hole to the neighborhood.”
Since Dumaine posted about the rat hole, Chicagoans have been joining in on the fun, including State Rep. Ann Williams (11th) posting a video celebrating “the Chicago rat hole” as a landmark on the same scale of importance in her district as Wrigley Field.
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