Fuzzy ^[1] over at Chicago Metblogs ^[2] did a post on Chicago’s site today about Toynbee Tiles, which have been spotted again recently in the Windy City.

Before I read Fuzzy’s post and read this NPR article ^[3]from Saturday, I wasn’t familiar with the license plate-size tiles that have shown up in the asphalt of several US cities including Detroit and three South American cities, but I feel like I have a faint memory of coming across one while downtown and thinking, “What on Earth is that?” and then just dismissing it as street art.

Has anyone seen any Toynbee Tiles ^[4] around town lately? Apparently they get paved over quite often.

Minimalistfan on Flickr has pictures of the Detroit tiles ^[5] – uploaded and taken in May 2005, but he credits them to someone else.

From what I’ve learned at Wikipedia on the subject ^[6], there have been about 130 tiles in all; each has some variation of the following message, which most believe refers to historian Arnold J. Toynbee and filmmaker/director-Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odessey:

TOyNBEE IDEA
IN KUbricK’s 2001
RESURRECT DEAD
ON PLANET JUPiTER.

Other tiles have a second message implying a conspiracy between John S. Knight of Knight-Ridder and the U.S. government.