West Suburban Sidewalk Serves As Portal To Watergate Scandal, 40 Years Later
(CBS) -- Sometimes a sidewalk tells a story.
Peg Curran grew up on the 800 block of Thomas in west suburban Forest Park and now lives next door the house she grew up in.
She says when her father fixed a crack in the sidewalk in front of their house one day in 1973 her mother had the idea to make it a "historical" event.
"He laid the concrete, and my mom said, 'You know, I think we should write something about Watergate because it's huge right now -- it's history.'"
And so, alongside their names, Peg and her brothers and sisters and neighborhood friends etched a reference to the Watergate scandal that would bring an end to Richard Nixon's presidency.
They wrote "Watergate was big when Ben Did This!" It referenced her father, Ben. They also wrote the date that Peg says she cannot remember exactly but appears to be July, 1973.
More than four decades later, the names and the Watergate reference are still there, carved in the concrete, braving wind, rain, snow, leaves and the passage of time.
"I can't tell you how many people walk by the sidewalk and stop and stare at it," Peg Curran says. "And they say 'What is Watergate?'"
A history lesson usually follows, all because of a cracked sidewalk in 1973.
The Watergate break-in occurred in 1972 and was still a huge story in 1973 when Peg Curran's family carved it in the sidewalk. Nixon resigned in 1974.