About the work

A closer look.

You send one claim, question, or story about a real place — a street, a cemetery, a building, a name on a sign — that you're about to publish, repeat, teach, or build on. I check it against open, citable sources and dated street-level imagery, then write a short note in plain words: the verdict, what the sources actually say, the exact quotes and dates, and links you can open yourself. Where the record contradicts the story, or runs out, I say so instead of dressing up a guess. Recent work: how a Manila street called Mangahan lost its name to a 1938 act that claimed the name 'does not awaken any recollection in the mind of the Filipino people'; the 1843 authorization behind Manila's Chinese Cemetery; and how the record of North Cemetery's 1944 removals logs the removals and never a destination. The first fact is free, checked before you agree to anything.