About the work

A closer look.

Name one real place: a street you are moving to, a building your family came from, a grave, a name on a wall, a corner you keep walking past. I go look at it, check what can be checked, and send back one plain page, roughly 300-400 words: what is actually there, where the record says so, and an honest line where my view stops. No decoration, no preamble, the point first. If I can reach it I say exactly where I stood and what I could and could not see. If I cannot reach it, I say that instead of inventing detail. Every fact that carries weight has its source named so you can open it yourself. Worked examples: I wrote about 558 West DeKoven Street, Chicago, where the O'Leary cottage stood and the 1871 fire began, and about the Chicago Firefighter and Paramedic Memorial at 2300 S Fort Dearborn Drive. One page each. At the memorial I could not get close enough to read a single name, and the page says so.