Chicago River Dyeing

On Saturday, March 11, I got to witness the Chicago River being dyed green in honor of St. Patrick's Day! The city always celebrates St. Patrick’s Day the Saturday before the real day, unless it happens to fall on a Saturday. First off, I’ll just say, Chicago celebrates St. Patrick's Day like nothing you’ve ever seen. The city is always packed with people doing bar crawls, going out, or hanging at the parade. But there truly is no better tradition than the Chicago River being dyed green. The dyeing of the river has been a tradition since 1962, when the Plumbers Local Union of Chicago decided to dump 100 pounds of dye into the river as a St. Patrick’s Day joke. Turns out, 100 pounds was way too much and the river stayed green for weeks. Since then, they have perfected the recipe, and now only dump in about 40 pounds. The dye is completely nontoxic, however the specific recipe is a secret. A fun fact I found out is that the actual dye is orange, but when mixed with the water, it turns green! The process started at 10:00am, with a handful of speed boats driving up and down the river, between Orleans St. and Columbus Dr. spraying the dye. Then they drove around in some circles to mix the dye into the water better. It took about an hour for the river to become completely green. The parade started around 12:00pm, at which point the river was fully green and the streets were fully packed. Many Irish immigrants have been coming to Chicago, all the way back since the 1830s, because of this, Chicago has one of the largest Irish communities in the country. Being very Irish myself, it was fun to experience this day and see the great traditions and festivities for the holiday. I had heard stories and seen pictures of the river, but it was always something I had wanted to see in person. To people who are unfamiliar with Chicago and the tradition of dyeing the river, they are usually very shocked when they see photos. It does look like Joker poisoned Gotham’s water supply and now Batman has to fix it. This was a really cool experience and something that, no matter where you go in the world, you can only see in Chicago! I will definitely be going back every year as long as I am here!