Hundreds Push Chicago's 110-Ton Bean Seven Inches to the Left: A Social-Media Call Becomes a Real Crowd and the Sculpture Does Not Budge
On Sunday afternoon, November 8, at Millennium Park in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, hundreds of young people answered a social-media call and put their hands to Cloud Gate, the 110-ton landmark sculpture nicknamed The Bean, to push it seven inches to the left. The outcome was never in doubt: the sculpture did not budge, but the dead-serious joke became the liveliest street scene in Chicago that day.
According to the event page on Partiful, the gathering was set for 12:30 p.m. on November 8 at the sculpture's address, 201 E Randolph St, with 176 people marked as going. The stated reason was itself a joke: rumor has it a man is trapped inside the Bean, new findings suggest there might be a latch door under its right side, and moving the sculpture about seven inches to the left might open that door and let people give the man inside some resources. A printed flyer circulating on social media was more specific: move the Bean seven inches to the left, with the first push at 12:47 p.m. on November 8.
According to a November 8 evening report by Chicago's WBBM NewsRadio 105.9, after social media put out the call, hundreds of young people converged on the Millennium Park landmark and hundreds of hands pressed against the Bean. One participant told the station it was about principles of freedom and liberty, things he stands for dearly, adding that pushing beans is part of his rights as an American citizen. The report confirmed that, of course, the Bean did not really get moved. Host Terry Keschner closed the segment with a joke: what do you do with the rest of your life after you push the Bean? You push it back.
CBS News Chicago also posted footage from Millennium Park under the title Move the Bean, with a description saying the event took place on Sunday afternoon and the goal was to move The Bean seven inches to the left. Instagram posts documenting the stunt drew tens of thousands of likes the same day, and commenters likened the crowd pushing in unison to the SpongeBob SquarePants scene in which the residents of Bikini Bottom try to push their town.
Cloud Gate was designed by artist Anish Kapoor, built between 2004 and 2006 and formally dedicated on May 15, 2006. Made of 168 stainless-steel plates welded together and polished until the seams disappeared, it stands 33 feet high, 66 feet long and 42 feet wide, weighs 110 short tons, and earned its nickname from its bean-like shape. It stands in Millennium Park and is one of Chicago's best-known pieces of public art.
The push grew out of the long-running man in the Bean joke in Chicago. During the 2025 Lollapalooza festival, a group calling itself the Man in Bean Coalition handed out flyers near Cloud Gate claiming, in mock earnest, that a man was trapped inside the sculpture and demanding his release. According to the Chicago Sun-Times at the time, the office of Alderman Brendan Reilly, whose 42nd Ward includes the sculpture, received about 200 emails and phone calls about it, and replied that it was happy to confirm no man had been trapped inside Cloud Gate for 21 years, adding, in the spirit of the joke, that the man had in fact been freed years ago. Sunday's push turned that old gag from a flyer into an in-person gathering of hundreds.
Related: Chicago's 113th City Christmas Tree Lights November 20 at Millennium Park, Free with Fireworks
Source: CBS News Chicago
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：芝加哥千禧公园云门（Cloud Gate）与周围游客的资料图（Eric Esma摄，Pexels免费图库），非当日齐推现场画面。/ File photo of Cloud Gate (The Bean) and visitors at Millennium Park in Chicago (by Eric Esma, via Pexels); not a photo from the push event.
