The rat-shaped footprint on a sidewalk on West Roscoe Street in Chicago has become the venue for a couple's wedding.
In a viral TikTok video, Raj Mahal (@realrajmahal) shared footage of him and his husband getting married under a balloon arch next to what locals have dubbed the “rat hole.” He captioned the video: “My perfect Rat Hole wedding.”
Viewers flooded the comments section of the video, which received more than 230,000 likes, to call the Chicago Rat Hole the gift that keeps on giving.
“Congratulations,” one person cheekily wrote, while another joked: “MARRIED IN SANTA RATRIMONÍA.”
“I'm so happy the rat hole is bringing lovers together,” someone else commented.
Meanwhile, other spectators were entertained by the rat hole ceremony. “Forget the bean. I'll visit the rat hole when I go to Chicago,” one viewer wrote.
Earlier this year, Chicago artist and comedian Winslow Dumaine was walking down West Roscoe Street when he came across a rat footprint pressed into the concrete. “What I found looked a lot like Looney Tunes, I guess. Just a rat hit on wet pavement,” Dumaine recalled. Fox. “I started laughing when I saw it.”
Dumaine took a photo of the strange footprint and shared it on X, formerly known as Twitter, writing above the image: “I had to make a pilgrimage to the Chicago rat hole.”
What he didn't know was that the post would go viral, with 5 million views in just two days.
Since then, people from all over have been making pilgrimages to Chicago's new landmark, leaving behind stuffed animals, candles and cheese in honor of the random rat, who has since been affectionately called “Lil Stucky” or “Chimley.” – that once lay on wet concrete. Some people have reportedly even started throwing coins into the rat hole as if it were the Trevi Fountain.
“The rat hole just exploded. It was time to shine,” Dumaine continued. “It's very universal. There are rats everywhere. There were mistakes everywhere. And this is a rat that makes a pretty profound mistake.”
The local community has become so attached to the rat hole that on January 19, they reportedly even used a brush and water to scrub the shallow hole back to its former glory after coating it with a “plaster-like substance.” “, according to reports. At the time, transportation and sanitation officials told the Chicago Tribune that the city was not behind the landfill.
“Overall, people just appreciate that our wonderful block is getting attention, even if it's to look at a rat hole,” Jeff VanDam told the Chicago Sun-Times. “It's a quirky little feature of a neighborhood that we get used to, care about and want to protect.”
The rat hole attraction is just one of many quirky Chicago attractions that play on the city's wry sense of humor, including Al Capone's vault and a tanned coil of fake feces in a fountain that serves as Reminder for people to pick up after their dogs.
