The Gallery of Altered Red Eye Boxes

last updated: April 12, 2009

Wow. It's been over a year since my last post here. I figured now would be a good time to introduce "The Gallery of Altered Red Eye boxes.

For those of you unfamiliar with Chicago's local culture, the Red Eye is a free daily paper made by the Chicago Tribune, and there are boxes all over the city where you can grab 'em; there's also a Saturday edition that's subscription-only, providing you can grab your copy before someone swipes it. The Red Eye is considered a pretty hip paper to read during your morning commute.

But anyway, on both sides of a Red Eye box you will see the word "FREE" spelled out in individual stick-on letters. Now, in a city of nearly three million people, you're bound to have some wiseasses among the population, and those wiseasses realize that stick-on letters plus wacky sense of humor equals fun. I like to take pictures of these alterations, especially because many of them can disappear at any given moment.

Please let it be known that I merely photographed these altered Red Eye boxes; I personally have never altered any. Just too much effort for a guy who has a life. Having said that, let's get on with the Gallery:

"PEE" is a common alteration. It's simple: you just remove the "F" and chop off a leg of the "R." The alteration pictured here is outside the Walgreens where Broadway, Ridge, and Bryn Mawr meet. The best "PEE" I've seen so far was on a box by the Blue Line station at UIC. It was beautiful. It read, "PEE???" Sadly, that alteration was gone the next time I walked by with my camera.

Here is a slightly more thoughtful variation of "PEE," reading "I PEE." I don't remember exactly where this box was located, but I think it was on Broadway in or near the Edgewater neighborhood. Or it might have been on Lincoln Avenue in Lincoln Square. Don't remember for sure.

Another one whose location I don't recall, but I think it was somewhere in Lincoln Park, most likely near Fullerton. Any ideas who "JAK" is?

This is an example of what I call a "botched alteration." I don't know what happened here. Perhaps the glue wore off on the letters. Maybe the alterer was spotted and subsequently ran away. Or maybe whoever did this just found it too hard to be worth the effort and gave up.

This is probably what the previous botcher was trying to accomplish: "REEFER." This is a tough job: you need BOTH of the "FREE" stickers on the box to do it. Thankfully, I had my digital camera handy that day! I believe this one was on Armitage somewhere between Clark and Halsted.