UPTOWN — Residents of Uptown were delighted this week as one community-minded homeowner took advantage of the winter wonderland outside and created what some are calling “an absolutely epic ice skating rink” on the sidewalk in front of his home.
Tim Lunt, 44, has owned his home on North Beacon Street since 2002, and is widely considered to be a neighborhood institution. He says that in past years, he’s always hired a snow removal service to come remove the snow and ice from his section of the sidewalk, but this winter, he thought he’d try something different.
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“I was thinking about how much my friends and I used to love ice skating on the frozen pond near my house when I was growing up in Ohio, and that’s when it hit me,” Lunt told Chicago Genius reporters. “I thought, if I don’t remove this snow on the sidewalk, not only will it enhance the natural beauty of winter in the Midwest, but eventually, it’ll all freeze over into the perfect skating rink for everybody around here to use and enjoy!”
Lunt watched with a satisfied smile as several neighborhood children slid down his skating rink on their way home from school, their shrieks echoing through his front window.
A few houses down, Lunt’s longtime neighbor Sheila Effers, 58, says she’s unsure why Lunt suddenly decided to stop shoveling his part of the sidewalk, and has already fallen down on it several times this week. “I’m on my way to work in the morning just trying to get to the damn train station, and this situation with the sidewalk is a complete menace,” said Effers. “I’m almost 60 years old, I can’t deal with this. What is wrong with him?”
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Another neighbor, William French, 35, says that he sprained his knee falling on the ice, and has been leaving notes on Lunt’s door, hoping to avoid having to take the issue to small claims court.
Lunt says it feels great to be providing a bit of fun and excitement to the community in the doldrums of winter. “Oh, it’s just been awesome to watch folks having fun skating up and down out there every day. A few of them don’t quite seem to have their ‘skater’s legs’ yet, but that’s okay. They’ll get there soon enough!”
Lunt also mentioned he’s received several snow-removal citations from the city, but he’s not letting that deter him from continuing to maintain the rink. “I know my neighbors would be so disappointed if I got rid of it, so I’m pushing back on those citations,” Lunt said as he turned on his garden hose to add a fresh layer of ice to the rink. “I want Beacon Street to know, the skating rink isn’t going anywhere anytime soon! If I have anything to say about it, it’ll be here for the whole rest of the winter.”
