The mysterious protractors of Pittsburgh

One of the oddest things I've seen since coming to Pittsburgh was a protractor superglued to the stone in my neighborhood. It turns out that there are hundreds of them cropping up, sealed to surfaces so securely that authorities intend to charge whoever is doing it with a felony. Each is penned with a unique number, and tracking them down is becoming a local mystery. One blogger created a map of them, but took the post down after it hit the news:

if you're interested in the protractors, do yourself a favor: Go look for them. In the process, you'll discover that we live in a special city, full of back alleys and secret passageways, theatrical vistas and hidden nooks, and anonymous people making beautiful things for everyone to enjoy -- treasures that can only be enjoyed on foot (or on bike).

There's plenty more discussion threads on the 'net, for sleuths and curious locals to enjoy: Vannevar Bush wonders at the culprit; there's a lengthy discussion with photos at Bike Pittsburgh; and this Livejournal thread appears to be one of the earliest public WTFs. Here's a CBS story.

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narrowstreetsLA

I SAW SLEAZE like this on the news, too. They look great from the RIGHT ANGLE. I watch the news while soaking my feet. I SOAK A TOE A day, every day.
(sorry, sorry)
- emmdeeaych
  
  I see what You Clid there.
AncientScot

It’s the Al-Gebra organization! They have loci all over the globe! Weapons of math instruction! Aieeee.
- Anonymous
  
  Funny, but of course the word algebra does come from Arabic: al-jabr.
CountZero

â€œIt’s the Al-Gebra organization! They have loci all over the globe! Weapons of math instruction! Aieeee.â€
Boom, tish!
Anonymous

Not to be oblique about it, but this sounds like an acute problem.
JoshP

don’t care, brilliant…
pepsibookcat

Obviously, it’s Oscar placing the protractors. And, I bet when the police catch him, he’ll be wearing a hat.
hassenpfeffer

That’s one of the nice things about Pittsburgh; you can always view it from a different angle.
t3knomanser

I’ve only noticed one of them on the already highly “decorated” Highland Ave. bridge. I’ll have to keep my eyes open more.
Anonymous

This degree of vandalism will not be tolerated. We must have a protracted law enforcement operation to stamp it out.
- Anonymous
  
  Anon- are you the culprit?
Anonymous

A felony?

A FELONY!?
Karnuvap

Looks like this is going to be a long and drawn out campaign. In fact, you may go so far as to say …
- Anonymous
  
  Sorry, that cliffhanger was a bit too obtuse for me.
  - Karnuvap
    
    I thought it’d be obvious.
    
    Looks like this is going to be a long and drawn out campaign. In fact, I may go so far as to say it is going to be protracted.
capl

Reminds me of the bridges.
- emmdeeaych
  
  rather a lot.
  
  I love that it’s a felony. GO ART!
Anonymous

Ha ha. I now have one on my power meter too
creesto

Actually, I think the stubby “legs” make it look more like a stylized bridge icon than a protractor, and Pgh is ALL about the bridges
- Anonymous
  
  Some protractors are made with little legs. I believe so that the 0 and 180 degree marks can be measured more easily.
Anonymous

drop the address of the map post… http://ericlidji.wordpress.com/2011/06/17/the-protractor-map-digitized/ into la google, then click on the cached version from which you can continue to the google map that was made. voila.
- Anonymous
  
  because google caches tend to disappear with time (and because the google map has already disappeared), here is a pastebin with the “master list” compiled on eric lidji’s blog.
  
  http://pastebin.com/qWntZZH8
Anonymous

Not Protractors… Bridges… All the major bridges in Pittsburgh downtown are painted yellow… welcome to da Burgh
capl

I will guess that we will find 446 protractors when all is said and done.
Anonymous

Has anyone (or perhaps everyone) mapped the location of these protractors and drawn lines from those points, angled as the numbers on the protractors indicate, let’s say from North, to see if they intersect in some fashion? (or outline a large middle finger or somesuch?)
codesuidae

Perhaps the number on each protractor indicates a heading from that location?
- Chloramphenicol
  
  Hmmm… Interesting hypothesis. The question then becomes, is that a heading off of north or relative to something else? If it’s a relative heading, then finding the direction you’re supposed to face as the reference could be quite challenging. I can think of quite a few notable buildings and other landmarks that are visible from many parts of the city and that could be used as an artificial ‘zero’.
  
  Honestly, this sounds like a pretty fun thing to try and prove/disprove and track down. Who knows what sorts of wonderments and atrocities you could discover simply by trying to walk a straight path 196 degrees off of north from the one in the picture? I suppose a map would be quite handy as well, as it’s very unlikely that the protractors are showing up inside buildings but rather more likely on mostly hidden or hard to get to locations (I would think alleys, preferably right around the corner from a main street).
  
  I haven’t been back to da ‘Burgh in a while, but I have friends who still live there. I’ll have to ask them about it.
  
  Also, this gives me an idea for something to put my pen and paper gaming group through. :)
  - codesuidae
    
    Heading off of north would be the obvious way, so as a puzzle designer I’d avoid it. As a guerilla marketing agent I might use it.
    
    If it is relative then one obvious way to do it would be to make the heading relative to a line perpendicular to the plane of the protractor. This would require careful placement, but wouldn’t be too difficult. It would also imply that the protractors appear on nearly vertical surfaces.
Anonymous

It’s Frank Stella, gone rogue.
Anonymous

Who would you get to remove them? A CONtractor?
Bubba

Some student’s thesis for an arts degree?
Gyrofrog

Well, chalk up another one in the “Pittsburgh” column. My better half and I keep discussing where to take the kids next time we make a road trip. In four hours, we could be in either New York or Pittsburgh.
- Micah
  
  As someone who lives in New York but took a road trip to visit Pittsburgh for our family vacation a couple summers ago (and had a great time), I say you should do both!
  - Gyrofrog
    
    As long as we’re here “back east,” I figure that we should. We’ve gone to New York a few times; I figure one could live an entire lifetime in NY and never see everything. I think Interstate 68 is a prettier drive than 95, too.
Anonymous

I suspect they are using 3M VHB tape. It is undefeatable.
BastardNamban

I am liking the influx of Pittsburgh stories.

I’m with someone above- 446 of these, because that sounds like the number of total bridges that Pittsburgh has. Those look like stylized bridge icons rather than protractors to me.

I’ll admit- I like these, though haven’t seen any here yet. They hold the same mysterious appeal for me now though that the “Andre the Giant has a posse” stickers and Andre faces did a decade ago, before I found out what they were. It’s fun to come across stuff specifically placed in out of the way, odd locations. It’s as if finding them I retraced some old path that one lone person with a strange purpose once tread, like walking in the footsteps of Druids in the woods near Stonehenge or something.

I’ve read somewhere Pittsburgh has the highest bridge density in the world- higher than even Venice, Italy. Not sure if it’s true though.
Elliottw

Um, isn’t Vannevar Bush still dead?
tp1024

Can’t help quoting:

[They] have nuclear weapons, we have a protractor …
- Anonymous
  
  Credit where credit is due:
  
  “‘Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs,’ I said. ‘We have a protractor.’”
  
  From Anathem, by Neal Stephenson. p. 320 in the first edition, hard back.
glatt1

In 4th grade, my daughter had a school supply list at the beginning of school. It was rather extensive, and included a protractor. So she picked out a nice purple protractor for her use that year. When she got to school, the teacher took all the supplies and put them in a communal bin. It still bugs me a little that my girl never got to use that protractor. At the end of the school year, none of the unused supplies were returned, and presumably, the following year the new students were given the same list of supplies to buy. All this is to say that after a few years, this teacher had a couple hundred protractors to dispose of. What could a teacher do with all those protractors?
axlrosen

If only they were as cool as Toynbee Tiles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toynbee_tiles
- t3knomanser
  
  Pittsburgh has a Toynbee tile. Maybe more than one. They repaved the street where one of them lived and someone moved it to another nearby corner.
Crashproof

It may be a bit obtuse, but I still think it’s acute art campaign.
- Anonymous
  
  @Crashproof. I agree. The authorities calling it vandalism are a bunch of squares. They should try looking at things from a different angle. Guerilla art complements the city environment for a right-eous experience. See, Pittsburgh used to be dumpy, but it has been improving by degrees and IMHO now glows with charming radians.
ChickenDelicious

If someone doesn’t step forward soon, this could end up being a protracted issue.
Mark Crummett

I am prepared to bow down to our new geometer overlords.
Anonymous

There is a more up to date master list on the site, I think.
Roy Trumbull

I was in Midland, TX and found I’d forgotten to bring a protractor and I needed to layout some vectors. Going to a variety store in a mall, none of the clerks knew what a protractor was or if they had them. I eventually found what I needed in their stock.