{"id":655582,"date":"2026-03-14T17:52:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T17:52:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/655582\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T17:52:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T17:52:18","slug":"time-lapse-shows-the-chicago-river-turning-green-for-st-patricks-day-nbc-chicago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/655582\/","title":{"rendered":"Time-lapse shows the Chicago River turning green for St. Patrick\u2019s Day \u2013 NBC Chicago"},"content":{"rendered":"

St. Patrick\u2019s Day celebrations have officially kicked off in Chicago, and the party started with the dyeing of the Chicago River on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The iconic event takes place on the Saturday prior to St. Patrick\u2019s Day, with the Chicago Plumbers union putting a special dye into the river to give it an emerald green color.<\/p>\n

Thousands of residents turned out for Saturday\u2019s river dyeing, which takes around 45 minutes to an hour to complete.<\/p>\n

Fortunately for our viewers, we have a time-lapse that shows the entire process in a matter of seconds, with the river taking on its distinctive hue in just 30 seconds.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAs the 2026 river dye celebration wraps up, take another look at the moment the Chicago River transformed into its iconic bright green color.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The story of the Chicago River being dyed green began with a happy accident. A man by the name of Stephen Bailey — the business manager of the plumbers union — was approached by “one of his plumbers who was wearing some white coveralls,”\u00a0a post by Local 130 says<\/a>. It was then the union says, that Bailey noticed the overalls had been stained or dyed with “a perfect shade of green,” or “an Irish green to better describe it.”<\/p>\n

When wondering how the coveralls could have turned such a tint, the tale continues, Bailey and his plumbers discovered that it was from to the dye used to detect leaks in the river.<\/p>\n

Originally the idea was floated to use the dye to turn Lake Michigan green, but the ambition was tempered slightly and was turned to the river instead.<\/p>\n

The recipe of the dye is a closely guarded secret, but city officials always emphasize that it is environmentally friendly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St. Patrick\u2019s Day celebrations have officially kicked off in Chicago, and the party started with the dyeing of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":655583,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,5386,1818,268280],"class_list":["post-655582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago","tag-chicago","tag-il","tag-illinois","tag-st-patricks-day"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116228806955044685","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}