The Rock of Roselle: Thousands of Facebook followers and dozens of unhappy motorists
There's a rock in a parking lot in Roselle that has a fan club.
It has a Facebook page and a follower base of 11,244 as of Monday morning. It has an address, sort of. And it attracts paparazzi almost as well as it attracts cars.
It's called the Rock of Roselle.
On "The Rock of Roselle OG page," former resident Mario Panzeca posts pictures several times weekly, or as often as someone snaps a shot of a vehicle perched atop the rock, which sits on a strip of grass guarded by a curb outside a Pizza Hut.
He's seen small cars, minivans, police cars, a Tesla, a Mustang - if it has four wheels and it moves, it can and sometimes has ended up atop that rock, Panzeca said.
"It's not even a big rock," he said. "I really don't understand how people keep doing that."
Panzeca, who grew up about a mile from the rock's address - actually the Pizza Hut's address - at 1326 Lake St., created the page three years ago before he moved last year to Pingree Grove.
As a truck driver for a pipe wholesaler, Panzeca knows better parking lot etiquette than to drive over a landscaping rock. So he found it amusing how often he'd pass by and see other cars stuck, wheels off the ground, undercarriages on the rock.
He created the page thinking only his friends would view it. Then social media did its thing and the stone became, yes, a rock star.
The rock's fan base expanded more when WGN Morning News discussed it May 29, and now no car can drive atop the rock unnoticed, Panzeca says. A maroon Nissan, for example, got snagged Sunday evening.
"At this point, I get around 10 pictures for every time somebody runs it over," said Panzeca, who is the only administrator of the Facebook page. "I'll post whatever is the best picture that was taken that day."
Manager Steven Lowry and other employees at the Pizza Hut are among the photo contributors, since they've got a front-row view.
"Sometimes we're just watching out the window and people just go right up over it," Lowry said.
One morning heading into work, Lowry said he almost became one of them.
"You don't pay attention to it, and it's there," he said.
The legend of the rock began, as far as Lowry knows, when property management placed it on a strip of grass parallel to Bryn Mawr Avenue to help stop drivers from running into nearby parked cars.
And it continues as companies including Golf & Busse Towing and Bloomingdale Towing get business when they're called to come to the rescue.
"People go to make their turns, and they get stuck on it quite frequently," said Alexis Ferruzza, office manager of Golf & Busse Towing. "It's just like an oddly placed rock."