St. Paddy's Day In Chicago

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day I told Josh that I wanted to be the one to share about how to celebrate Chicago style. So this week you get to hear from the biggest Irish fan of all, Me!

As part of a more than fifty-year-old Chicago tradition, the Chicago River is dyed green for St. Patrick’s Day. The actual event doesn’t necessarily occur on St. Patrick's Day and is scheduled for the Saturday of the closest weekend. The tradition of dyeing the river green arose by accident when plumbers used fluorescein dye to trace sources of illegal pollution discharges. The dyeing of the river is still sponsored by the local plumbers union. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) outlawed the use of fluorescein for this purpose, since it was shown to be harmful to the river. The parade committee has since switched to a mix involving forty pounds of powdered vegetable dye. Which looks like a rust colored powder. Though the committee closely guards the exact formula, they insist that it has been tested and verified safe for the environment. Furthermore, since the environmental organization Friends of the Chicago River believes the dye is probably not harmful, they do not oppose the practice. Fun Fact; In 2009 First Lady Michelle Obama, a Chicago native, requested that the White House fountains be dyed green to celebrate St. Patrick's Day.

As soon as I heard about this time honored tradition I HAD to experience it first hand. This event attracts approximately 400,000 people to the city. If any of you know Josh at all,  you would know that any crowd is not his favorite so I knew he wouldn’t be up for this adventure. So I enlisted my Chicago Bestie Steve and his partner Jeremy to take a train downtown at 7am on a Saturday to get first dibs on front row seats. The majority of the Chicago river dyeing happens between Columbus Drive and Michigan Avenue. So this is where we had to be…. an hour before, I meant it when I said front row seats. We were freezing since that morning it was a ‘feels like’ temperature of 8 degrees. But we stuck together and watched the crowds shuffle in to watch. At this point we were happy to have our orange, green and white beanies to keep our heads warm.

A large barge with people cheering floats down the river with what I can only describe as what looked like fire hose nozzles flowing with Ninja Turtle Ooze. Men in white coveralls start scooping orange vegetable dye and dumping it over the sides. It is spectacular to watch the dark water turn fluorescent green in a matter of only 10 minutes. Courtesy of the small speed boats manned by the plumbers union. They continued to circle up and down the river to stir the mixture completely. As the bag pipes played and the barge floated right in front of us the crowd cheered on and Steve and I waved our Irish flags with pride! It was really something special.

Next was the parade. After such a fantastic spectacle of a color changing river the parade left me wanting. The floats were frankly simple and really didn’t impress. I did enjoy the one single float with Irish dancers. Other then that it was a let down. Amid the now hundreds of thousands of people we continued to hope there would be something impressive about parade route, there wasn’t. Honestly we spent more of our time at this point people watching. Now that was a sight. I’ve never in my life been in a crowd like this one. I expected there to be drinking but I couldn’t believe the number of people (including high school aged teenagers) smoking pot. If the wind shifted just right I felt like I was getting a contact high. We also observed a couple wasted people throw up everything they had in them. And this was all by around 12:30.

After this once in a lifetime experience I have to recommend EVERYONE watch the Chicago River be dyed green. Not only was it fun to watch but it’s just something you’ll never see anywhere else! It makes me so happy to live somewhere so unique and deep rooted in tradition and history. So for anyone looking for a one of a kind adventure, we have a room for you!

Hope you St. Paddy's day is as green as ours! Until next time.

Thanks

Erin

PS Don't forget to check out Route to Adventure for their take on St. Patricks Day.