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 these sidewalk bears. Started taking photos in November 2023, and started mapping them in June 2025.

Four sample sidewalk bears

Have found 92 total sidewalk bears so far (mouse over a marker to see the intersection):

Street map showing locations of 92 sidewalk bears

There are four colors of stenciled sidewalk bear in the area. Dark red bears — lower right quarter of the map — were apparently the original set^[1], 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

Brighter red bears appeared January 2026:

Example new red bear

No idea who’s making these. They all seem to be in Chicago: none jump out after crossing Canfield into Park Ridge or Milwaukee into Niles. The Reddit thread mentions some in the South Loop, but I haven’t made it over there.

1. 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. ↩

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

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