This Lincoln Square Fountain Was A Soapstravaganza This Weekend
By Mae Rice in Arts & Entertainment on Sep 26, 2016 5:46PM
The fountain in Lincoln Square's Kempf Plaza looked like a descending soap angel over the weekend. Redditor mah_ree snapped the shot above, of the fountain spiked with detergent, on Saturday at midnight, they told Chicagoist.
"Smells really good," mah_ree commented on their own photo. We bet! There was an entire Dear Prudie question recently about how to get a house to smell more "distinctly" like clean laundry.
Though quite fun compared to other recent Chicago events, the soap prank has some downsides. mah_ree commented that the night wasn't windy, and the suds remained "self-contained," but reports on similar incidents suggest that it's expensive to get fountains up and running after soap shenanigans. Cleaning the soap out of a fountain cost one Wisconsin parks department tens of thousands of dollars, WEAU reported in 2014.
In the overall scheme of things, we give this fountain a pass. Honestly pays for itself, if you count whimsy as a form of currency.
We reached out to 47th Ward alderman Ameya Pawar's office for details on how often the fountain gets soaped and what it costs the city, and will update this post if we hear back.
[H/T Reddit]