Two guys got to talking about bicycles. One fellow had grown up on the North Shore, the other in Chicago. Country mouse and city mouse.
Then country mouse said to city mouse: “When we were kids we’d ride over to Linden Street, leave the bikes and hop the train (CTA Evanston line) to the ballpark. The bikes were always there when we got back. Never had to lock them.”
“Whoever heard of such a thing? That’s crazy,” snapped city mouse, a veteran of the urban rat race. “You’re the kind of guys used to get baited with cream cheese.”
“No way can you not ever lock up your bike,” he sniffed. “Not even when we was kids. When bike rhymed with Ike.”
All of which raises a question: Is it possible these days to leave a bike at a CTA stop, or any very public place around Chicago, not lock it, walk away for hours, even days, and expect to find it when you return?
Like Diogenes “the cynic” with his lamp, we bought some bikes at thrift stores and went out into the city and beyond to see where the truth of the matter rests.
The experiment began on an early Monday morning last month.
Going downtown to catch a speech by Jack Kemp, former secretary of Housing and Urban Development, we rode a Sears 26-inch Free Spirit bike, a coaster-brake model, to the CTA’s Jefferson Park terminal.
Entering the causeway, we passed through two dedication plaques: One to Thomas Jefferson, commander of his country; the other “in reverent memory” of Maurice K. Begner, who was commander of the Summerdale (now Foster Avenue) police district at the time in the ’60s when the Summerdale cops were shaking down burglars and hauling away loot in squad cars.
The bike was police blue and white in color, so we parked it on Begner’s side of the causeway to the right of the large Transit Information sign, front wheel pointing toward Milwaukee Avenue. The kickstand scraped concrete at exactly 6:57 a.m. Anyone could ride it away.
More than 10,000 people pass through Jefferson Park twice a day, according to the CTA. Twelve hours latter, at exactly 6:57 p.m., we peered into the causeway. Was the bike still there?
Yes.
Next morning, a vintage three-speed black Schwinn Deluxe Racer with chrome fenders and generator light was left at the northwest corner of Michigan Avenue and Wacker Drive. That is the site of old Ft. Dearborn, where the bridge popped up like toast.
There it remained under the watchful eye of a Northern Illinois University student, Colleen Blackburn, who worked through the summer as a ticket seller for Mercury sightseeing boats. She picks up the story.
“About 10 a.m. a homeless man, 5-foot-tall, red vinyl jacket, picked the bike up by the seat and turned the crank spinning the back wheel. His eyes were closed real tight-looked like he was in ecstasy. Then he put the bike back down and ran into Michigan Avenue, laughing to himself.
“A few older people-you know, like in their 40s-stopped to admire it. At noon the bridge construction crew moved it out of people’s way and spent the lunch hour talking about women’s shoes.
“In the afternoon three guys in cutoffs surrounded the bike. They were ready to take it but backed off.
“The rollerbladers came by later. They too started to take it but for some reason left it alone.
“And in the evening, one of the Michigan Avenue shoeshine guys, the mean one, sat on his milk crate staring at the bike like a cat at a canary but finally he went away too.”
The bike was locked up at 10 p.m. It had survived 14 hours.
47th and Prairie
That same evening we went to a rib barbecue and political fundraiser in the South Shore neighborhood, officiated by Martin Strahan, who for years ran Lang’s Ribs, now defunct, at 47th Street and Prairie Avenue. If saints in heaven wanted barbecue, they’d call Strahan.
We brought along a Polish-made Tyler 20-inch, single-speed bike, maroon, high handle bars, and left it at the Illinois Central Gulf station at 71st Street and Exchange Avenue at 5:32 p.m. Then we walked away.
We looked for it again at 5:47 p.m. It was gone.
But we did spot it westbound on the north side of 71st Street at Ogelsby Avenue. A kid about 12 years old was doing “wheelies” on it.
Two for the suburbs
Two mornings later, we rode into Oak Park and cased the village mall, where many communters lock their bikes and catch the beleagured Lake Street “L” into the city. But there’s about as much life in the mall as on Pluto, so we opted to leave a blue Sears 10-speed we were riding by the Marion Street CTA entrance. That’s across from Lucca Deli, 1103 South Blvd., and just around the corner from the sign warning that it is a violation of Oak Park’s dietary laws, punishable by $1,000 fine, to feed the pigeons.
An hour later, at 10 a.m., we left the Sears bike at the end of the CTA Douglas Park line in Cicero, at the exit gate at 54th Place.
Returning to Cicero that afternoon we moved the bike to the bus platform between the “out” turnstyle and a very rusty Chicago Tribune honor box, where the bike remained unbothered through the evening rush hour.
And at 7 p.m. we returned to Marion Street in Oak Park and threw a lock on the 10-speed left earlier in the day. Not even the pigeons had messed with it.
Universities North and South
Now, would an unsecured bike be safer inside the quadrangle of a Catholic university or one founded by Baptists?
A Sears three-speed was left by Cortelyou Commons on the McCabe Hall side of DePaul University, 900 W. Belden Ave. Meanwhile, an English-made Raleigh Sports three-speed was taken to the University of Chicago.
We passed 100 or more bikes on Ellis Avenue, all chained and otherwise hooked up to bike racks in a frenzied lockdown that warns, “Don’t Touch My Bike!!”
Unlike these nervous children of privilege, we left ours freestanding in front of-where else?-Goodspeed Hall.
95th and the Dan Ryan
Next stop 95th Street and the Dan Ryan CTA.
We rode the blue Sears into the causeway there and were promptly ushered out by a patrol officer Watson. The CTA at 95th Street is a very orderly place, though it could use a little paint. But it’s cleaner than Jefferson Park’s terminal, which is a little raunchy some mornings.
More than 20,000 people pass through the terminal each weekday. It also has 24 pay phones, compared with seven at Jefferson Park.
The kickstand of the Sears bike went down just before noon, along the railing nearest the 95 W bus stop.
During the afternoon one guy stopped and tied his shoe on the bike. Another leaned against it. Someone placed a briefcase on it.
Many young people, some carrying high school football gear, walked by it on the way into the neighborhood.
About 4 p.m. a very little guy, about 5 years old and wearing a faded Detroit Lions T-shirt, started playing with the bike until his older brother, about 17, tapped him on the head admonishing, “Get away from that bike, boy!”
Having survived at three CTA terminals for more than 26 hours, thousands of strangers passing right by it, we took the police blue and white Sears out of service at 6:15 p.m.
We returned to the U. of C. and to DePaul to find that after three days and nights, the bikes we left were still there.
Skokie and Wilmette
Several days later, we left a metallic brown Sears three-speed by the pay phone nearest parking spot No. 516 at the Dempster Street terminal of the Skokie Swift in Skokie. It was there for two days and nights and wasn’t taken.
End of the line: Linden Street Over the Labor Day weekend we left the same bike at 4th and Linden Streets in Wilmette, the end of CTA’s Evanston line. This was our final stop. We hopped on the train, along with Bears fans heading to the home opener, and returned to the city.
We returned two days later. The bike was gone.
The summing up
We had thus crossed through Chicago from Wilmette to 95th Street and Harlem Avenue to 2400 East and lost only two bikes in 10 chances.
And that didn’t count shorter periods in which we left bikes unlocked in front of public buildings in the Loop and coffee shops elsewhere. Not one was stolen.
For instance, a black Schwinn Traveler (circa 1950s) was left unattended for about an hour at the CTA’s Ravenswood “L” stop in the Lincoln Square neighborhood as we dropped by to say hello to Nicholas C. Philippidis, editor of the Greek Star.
It’s not certain if this endeavor was about cultural ethics, human pyschology, family values or plain dumb luck. Maybe some of each.
While all this may suggest that Chicago is a pretty honest place, it always a place to be realistic.
So we advance for our readers a little practical advice gleaned from city mouse that should still serve well in the long run:
“Don’t go ’round leaving your bike unlocked. Some guy’s gonna come by and snatch it.”
