The West Side caught the train: Inside the viral CTA experience bringing Chicago together

The Damen Green Line station became the backdrop for a moment of surprise and celebration on Saturday thanks to a Bronzeville resident known for his social media content. 

Charlie Clerk led about 30 participants in football jerseys and purple and yellow colors through Catch That Train, a community video where people raced all in good fun to catch an arriving Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) train.  

Clerk runs the @Sidequesttre account on social media that brings Chicagoans together through community-driven experiences. Participants in costumes, masks and inflatable outfits rush to catch a CTA train while creating a fun and memorable scene set to music. The fun is open to anyone who wants to join. People from across the city take part in the viral-style moments, including the mannequin challenge, a viral internet trend where groups of people stand frozen in place like mannequins as a moving camera captures the scene.  

“The train connects people all over the city. North, south, west, all over the place and even to the suburbs through Metra,” Clerk said. “So it’s really easy to get from one side of the city to the next. A lot of us experience that every day, going from the South Side to the West Side and having to do it in a short amount of time. So it’s really relatable, no matter what neighborhood, project, or suburb you’re in.” 

For Clerk, the experience resonates across all forms of public transit, creating a shared sense of connection among riders from different neighborhoods and suburbs. 

According to Block Club Chicago, Catch That Train emerged during one of the most difficult periods of Clerk’s life. In October, he lost his job in legal services and was still grieving the death of his younger brother, Corey Adams, an 18-year-old freshman football player at the University of Mississippi who was fatally shot last year in July. 

“He played for Ole Miss and I believe he was a four-star recruit in the nation. His life was taken from him a year ago tomorrow at a party in Memphis, Tennessee. That was a really tough time for me. It still is. I don’t even know how I get through my day-to-day life, but every day I come out here, enjoy my time with complete strangers, and create an experience where they can feel that same sense of joy,” Clerk said. 

The Catch That Train series at the Damen Green Line stop encouraged participants to wear football merch and the colors of purple and yellow as its theme colors which were chosen to honor his high school colors and his lifelong connection to football, as he and his brothers all played the sport growing up.  

Similar to Reesheda Nicole Berry’s Love Is On The Green Line, a community arts initiative that transforms the CTA Green Line spaces into places for music, storytelling and connection between Chicago’s West and South Sides, Clerk’s Catch That Train series uses transit as a way to bring people together. 

While Love Is On The Green Line uses art and performance to activate transit spaces, Catch That Train builds community through a shared public transit experience, with both initiatives challenging negative perceptions of Chicago’s neighborhoods.  

“I have lovely people who participate. The CTA, everybody loves it. So it is completely fighting the stigma and that’s the goal, you know, to bring positivity, to bring unity to people, no matter the language, no matter the skin tone, no matter the neighborhood, no matter anything. It doesn’t matter. So that’s really what it’s all about,” Clerk said.  

Clerk and Berry both have connections to Bronzeville, with Clerk currently based in the neighborhood and Berry sharing that her identity and work have been shaped by her experiences growing up in Austin on the West Side, as well as her time spent in Bronzeville and other South Side communities. 

When asked why bringing Catch That Train to the Damen Green Line stop was important for the West Side, Clerk responded that it is the most beautiful station he knows in the entire CTA system. 

“I love this station so much and a lot of people don’t even know that this station was recently built in 2024. So it shines a light not only on the CTA, but also on the fact that you can have pockets of beauty in places where everybody thinks there is nothing but negativity and ugliness,” Clerk said.  

Luann Dang and Madison Cowartland are two friends visiting Chicago from Houston, Texas, who came out to experience the Catch That Train event after seeing videos of it online. The pair said they were drawn to the event because of its popularity within Chicago’s online community and the opportunity to be part of a moment they could share with their friends. 

“I think it just makes me appreciate public transportation more because we’re from Texas and we don’t have public transit. Everyone needs to get by, and it’s kind of cool because everyone needs public transportation because we’re just driving everywhere, so it feels very isolating. When you get to go out and see different people, it makes a difference,” Cowartland said. 

Clerk started the Catch That Train series because missing a train by just seconds is a universal experience shared by people around the world. 

“People miss the train by this much everywhere, every day, all the time. And so I missed it once, and from there, I vowed to never miss it again,” Clerk said.