From the Center for Investigative Reporting in PRX, this is Reveal. I'm Alexi.

When Daky Nichols was a kid growing up in Chicago in the early 90s, he knew that lurking

near his home was an evil rabbit.

It was an evil rabbit up there. It was a grown rabbit. He was the chase key and we're

re-adding. I still remember that. We were looking for a wed day, but we never see that evil

rabbit. This evil rabbit roamed the hills where Daky and his friends like to play.

We played up there everything. Play how go seeing when it snowed we get sleds and

slad down them. In the summertime you ride your bikes up and down the hill because

there was that big of a hill. That was fun.

They could look down onto the roof of their elementary school and see all the

basketballs that had gotten stuck up there over the years and they could look east

towards the horizon and see all the skyscrapers downtown.

Now Chicago's built on Prairie land. It's pretty flat. So you might be wondering

about those hills and how they came to be just six miles from downtown in the west

side neighborhood of North Laundale. There's an explanation.

Daky remembers one time in the fourth or fifth grade. He was running up the

side of the tallest hills, a mountain almost and his foot dislodged something,

something big, a boulder or piece of concrete. It rolled down the mountain towards

his brother. I mean it rolled over his finger and it was hanging off.

So I had to hold it together and I had to walk him holding his finger on until

we got to the hospital. They had to reattach it. He had to spend about two

or three days in the hospital. The mountain was actually a giant illegal

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