Lincoln Square’s Pigeon Man
It’s a sad twist of irony that Joseph Zeman, better known as “the pigeon man of Lincoln Square,” spent his last moments at St. Francis Hospital after he was accidentally struck by a car last December. The man resembling a modern day St. Francis of Assisi could often be found sitting on a fire hydrant at Lawrence and Western with a flock of pigeons perched over his body for hours at a time. A man of few possessions and a quiet existence, he had only a laminated copy of his Chicago Tribune profile story when the accident took his life.
Best of Chicago 2008