Good afternoon, Chicago. ✶
Hundreds of commuters pass through the Clinton station on the CTA’s Green and Pink lines daily, but it’s easy to overlook the small gap by the escalator — until a pigeon flaps helplessly inside.
For Chicagoan Julia Ekiert, that gap isn’t just a design flaw — it’s a larger problem, one she hopes to solve with a petition that’s quickly gained traction, Rafaela Jinich reports.
In today’s newsletter, we look into CTA’s pigeon problem and what’s being done about it.
Plus, we’ve got reporting on Mayor Brandon Johnson’s $830 million bond issue squeaking through City Council, a decades-old Chicago film finally getting its premiere and more community news you need to know below. 👇
⏱️: A 7-minute read
TODAY’S TOP STORY
CTA has a pigeon problem. Birds get trapped, die on L platforms, woman says
Reporting by Rafaela Jinich
Pigeon problems: Pigeons frequently fly into the escalator tunnel at the Clinton station, become disoriented and fall into the space between the escalator and the window — where they become trapped. Some survive for days without food or water; others die, their bodies left to decompose in full view of commuters.
The risk: The sight of decaying birds highlights what Julia Ekiert, a doctoral student at the University of Illinois Chicago, calls a slow response from the Chicago Transit Authority. “I’ve seen carcasses pile up for weeks. It’s disgusting — and it’s a public health risk. Decomposing birds attract rats and spread bacteria,” she said. Ekiert frequently tries to rescue trapped birds she finds.
The impact: Ekiert created a petition demanding CTA action, which has garnered nearly 2,000 signatures and got the attention of the local alderperson near the Clinton station. By Tuesday, CTA workers were measuring a metal plate to cover the gap between the escalator and the window at the station. One worker said they were “taking care of the pigeon problem.”
Recurring issue: The Clinton station isn’t the only place where pigeons are getting trapped. At the Clark and Lake station, netting installed below the ceiling has posed its own problems. On Tuesday, two dead pigeons were in the netting.
WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?
- $830M bond issue OK’d: The City Council narrowly passed Mayor Brandon Johnson’s $830 million infrastructure bond Wednesday. Johnson was forced to cast the tie-breaking vote for the third time in his tenure.
- ‘Serial killer’ charges: A man now charged with six killings on the Southwest Side in 2020 was labeled “a serial killer” Wednesday by officials who said he didn’t know any of the victims and targeted a car carrying three children in one of the attacks.
- Landlord murder trial continues: Joseph Czuba, 73, is accused of attacking his tenant and killing her 6-year-old son, Wadee Al Fayoumi. Czuba’s trial continued Wednesday with testimony from responding officers.
- Walgreens closing: Bronzeville residents will have one less pharmacy to pick up their prescriptions from without the Walgreens at 3405 S. King Drive. “It’s gonna hurt,” one resident told the Sun-Times.
- ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ in Chicago: The Tony Award-winning Broadway musical inspired by the life and career of Alicia Keys is on its way to the Nederlander Theatre, Broadway in Chicago announced.
NOW PLAYING 🎥
‘Compensation,’ filmed in Chicago, arrives in theaters — more than 25 years later
Reporting by Mitch Dudek
There’s a bit of fascination with the ’90s at the moment, and filmmaker Zeinabu irene Davis said the re-release of her independent film “Compensation” is well positioned to tap into it.
“The ’90s seem to be a nostalgic era before the proliferation of the internet and of cellphones,” Davis said. “I think there’s something about how we communicated and had relationships with one another.”
Davis was living in Rogers Park and working as a professor in Northwestern University’s radio/television/film department when she shot the film in the summer of 1993 at several locations in Chicago and the Indiana Dunes on a budget of less than $100,000, scraped together mostly from grants.
She was only able to devote summers to the project, so it took another six years to complete. In 1999 the film was screened at several film festivals and for university audiences, but it was never released in theaters.
This time around, the film — with visual and audio enhancements — will begin a six-day run at the Gene Siskel Film Center Friday, with an initial screening that will feature a Q&A with Davis.
The film follows the courtship of a hearing man and a deaf woman in 1993, and a twin love story that plays out 83 years earlier.
BRIGHT ONE ✨
Your next new skill: Frosting and decorating a cake
Reporting by Stefano Esposito
In an effort to learn a new craft, Sun-Times staff reporter Stefano Esposito recently headed over to Wilton Sweet Studio in Naperville for a “basics” vintage cake-decorating class. The Wilton cake decorators have been around for close to 100 years.
Not long after Stefano’s arrival, he was handed a sunburst yellow apron and joined a couple of dozen other folks in Wilton’s studio, a gleaming white space — the air perfumed with a sugary sweetness.
His instructor, Casey Puehler, explained that the three-hour class is all about “creative freedom” and that it’s best not to compare your efforts to other people’s in the class.
The class comes with everything you need to decorate your premade, 6-inch rounds of yellow cake, including a big tub of white buttercream frosting, which you slather on the outside with a spatula and smooth out with another tool.
What could go wrong?
YOUR DAILY QUESTION ☕️
Commuting isn’t fun. What’s something you do to make it more enjoyable?
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Written by: Matt Moore
Editor: Dorothy Hernandez
Copy editor: Angie Myers