Chicago sidewalk bears

While taking walks around the Chicago neighborhoods Edison Park and Norwood Park, a few years ago I started noticing cartoon bears spray-painted on street corners here and there. As I took different routes, I spotted more and more of them. Started taking photos in November 2023, and started mapping them in June 2025.

Four sample sidewalk bears

Have found 152 total sidewalk bears so far (mouse over a marker to see the intersection[1]):

Street map showing locations of 152 sidewalk bears

There are five colors of stenciled sidewalk bear in the area. Dark red bears — middle right section of the map — were apparently the original set[2], all getting quite faded:

Example faded old red sidewalk bear

Green bears, the first ones I noticed, were already there late 2023:

Example green bear

Blue bears appeared early 2025:

Example blue bear

(A Google Street View scene from August 2024 shows a green bear but not a blue bear across the street from it.)

Brighter red bears appeared first half of January 2026, and then a new batch first half of April 2026:

Example new red bear

First spotted some faded yellow (dirty white?) bears in March 2026 — bottom left of map — but they look like they’ve been there a while:

Example faded yellow bear

(Apple Maps “Look Around” shows the yellow ones in scenes labeled May 2025, and Google Street View shows them August 2024.)

Closest three bears of different colors, near Devon & Overhill and Olympia & Oneida:

Map of closest green, blue, and red bears

No idea who’s painting these or how they pick the boundaries of where to place them. (Apart from the green bears and the red ones added April 2026, the different colors seem to be in distinct areas.) They all also seem to be in Chicago: none jump out after crossing Canfield Ave. into Park Ridge or Milwaukee Ave. into Niles. (Many of the yellow ones are in Norridge, still part of Chicago.) The Reddit thread mentions some in the South Loop, but I haven’t made it over there.

  1. Don’t know which street to list first when describing an intersection: east–west then north–south, larger street then smaller, or what?↩
  2. See this Reddit r/chicago thread from August 2023 that mentions both red and blue bears. Many of the red ones mentioned in the thread comments are gone — along with a few on the map above — apparently from sidewalk/curb construction. The blue ones mentioned in the thread must be from a different neighborhood, since the blue ones here weren’t around until late 2024 or early 2025.↩

Geo data sources
Wolfram Knowledgebase (https://www.wolfram.com/)
OpenStreetMap contributors (https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright)

[ home ] || [ 2026-04-18 ]

www.robertdickau.com/chicagosidewalkbears.html