Above: Our Lady of the Fullerton Underpass, 2007. Photograph by Jay Crawford. Below: The site in 2009. Photograph by Jill Grannan.

Since Pope John Paul II’s death on April 2, 2005, the month of April has served as a time when Chicago Catholics remember him. Shortly after his death, Catholics whose daily commute and activities took them under the Kennedy Expressway (I-94) at Fullerton Avenue on Chicago’s North Side, began to notice an image appear in the concrete infrastructure of the underpass between the entrance and exit ramps on the north side of the street. They claimed the image was a miraculous apparition of the Virgin Mary. To others, the mark was logically explained as a combination of salt and water stains resulting from cracks in the foundation. Ignoring the naysayers, Catholics and curious Chicagoans by the hundreds visited the site, where they left prayers and flowers. People made sure votive candles stayed lit. Further evidence to the miraculous nature of the image came after the site was vandalized with graffiti reading “big lie” and then was cleaned—the image remained despite the defacement and subsequent scrubbing.

Call her what you will, the “Virgin of the Viaduct” or “Our Lady of Fullerton Avenue” remains active in the public consciousness. Before playwright Tanya Saracho could make her March 2009 debut of Our Lady of the Underpass, her latest work of monologues based on interviews with worshipers at the site, vandals acted again to more drastic and lasting effect. In late January, a purple devil face covered the silhouette-shaped stains. Staff from the Illinois Department of Transportation tried to remove the paint to no avail, and painted a neutral-colored square over the image to prevent further temptation to deface it. For the first time in four years, the miraculous apparition was covered up. To the devout, the image remains, only concealed by inconsequential layers of pigment—Mary is still there. The site was recently enhanced by a familiar image of Mary in her guise as Our Lady of Guadalupe. People still think of her and still go there. The flowers and prayers remain, the candles still burn. Beneath the roar of traffic, for them it is a place of peace.

Jill Grannan curated Catholic Chicago, the first in a series of exhibitions to explore the ways in which religious communities have shaped the city.

> View Catholic Chicago highlights on Flickr

Tags: Catholic Chicago, community, Jill Grannan, Our Lady of Fullerton Avenue, Our Lady of the Underpass, Virgin of the Viaduct

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 21st, 2009 at 3:47 pm and is filed under Exhibitions, History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.