And That's a Wrap

After all kinds of set backs (X having court, rain, more rain), X and I went out on Saturday morning the 22nd of October with the with 11 locations to shoot. The stress of getting the project done had my face looking like a acne studded teenager's. We had to finish that day or it was all a bust. I managed to put off install at the MoCP until Monday. I had to print 30 images, shoot these 11 locations, color correct them, print them, and cut them all down all before the end of the day.

X picked me up at 6:30 a.m. We wasted no time with coffee or breakfast. Instead, we headed straight for the Woodlawn neighborhood on the city's South Side. We previously passed over this area because X said it was extremely rough. He wanted to make sure it was our first stop so that we could beat everyone out of bed. Our first location was at the CTA bus stop at 600 East 63rd Street where a masked gunman shot 15-year-old Shonele Gregory to death on the evening of December 12th at about 6:48 p.m. Gregory was waiting at the bus stop when a dark-colored vehicle pulled up. A passenger, who was wearing a half mask, jumped out and shot the boy several times. He was found dead on the scene when police and paramedics arrived. The bus stop was at the corner of 63rd and St. Lawrence under the Green Line. The was still rising behind the elevated structure. The warm yellow autumn sunlight was refracting off the train tracks, creating long dramatic shadows. Behind the stop was a large empty lot that spanned the whole north side of the block. While the grass was tightly kept it still served as a repository for garbage to accumulate. The dewed grass was brimming with alcohol bottles, plastic bags, soda bottles, chip bags, and various other refuse. Across the length of it was a well trodden thin dirt path. X stayed behind me as I photographed, mentioning how strangely serene it was there save for the occasional car speeding down 63rd under the tracks.

The next location was just a half a block west on the opposite side of the street. It was here that a fight in The Inflation Lounge escalated into the fatal shooting of Keonte Barney and the wounding of six other people early in the morning on October 31st. At about 1:45 a.m., police were called to the address where they found Barney unresponsive on the scene with multiple gunshot wounds. Police said that two people had a verbal argument inside the lounge before a person took out a gun and began firing. After the person left the club the person shot into the crowd again. Officials did not know if Barney was the intended target. X turned around and parked across from the now defunct lounge under the el tracks. The words Inflation Lounge were painted on the window and the curtains were drawn. Above the door was a large Old Style sign. As I pulled together my camera equiptment, a young woman got pulled over right across the street from us, one store front away from the location. As I photographed, three more cop cars pulled in front and beside the young girl's car. It seemed like overkill. One of the lady cops came over to talk to X and I. She was curious about what we were doing there. X explained the project to her then they proceeded to talk about Rahm Emmanuel and new police policies as I finished up shooting.


From there we went to an apartment building at 6712 South Halsted Street where at 11:29 p.m. on New Year's Eve, Michael Pope was stabbed in the abdomen in his residence in the city's Englewood neighborhood. The stabbing occurred during a fight between Pope and a 19-year-old man whom he knew at a party at his apartment. The 19-year-old was arrested at the scene. We pulled up to the three story brick building. The sun was peaking through the trees leaving the upper levels swathed in intricate ligth patterns. Through the top floor windows I could see tattered shades pulled down where blankets were not hung to block out the sun. On street level, there was a sign above the door that read "Affordable Quality Real Estate." There were two storefront churches abubtting each other just to the south. Halsted seemed like it should be bustling with morning traffic, but the only movement was from a young boy a half a block north of us waiting for the bus.

The next site, at 7000 South Emerald Avenue in the South Side's Gresham neighborhood, was where 20-year-old Bryant Howse was shot at about about 4:40 p.m. on November 5th. A friend took him to the hospital where he later died. Police say he had known gang affiliations. On the southeast corner of 70th and Emerald where the incident took place, there was a large lot that was surrounded by a white iron fence. It seemed to belong to a white house pone lot to the south. Staked in the grass between the sidewalk and the street was a weathered wooden sign with a large shark-bite-like chunk missing from the top. There was no discernible writing on it, but it looked like a very weathered block club sign. Everything was quiet save for a van that pulled up around the corner on 70th and sat parked with its music blaring as I photographed.

From there we to the West Englewood neighborhood. It was there that at 7:29 p.m. on December 11th, police responded to a report of a teen shot in the buttocks and leg. Police said the teen heard shots and felt pain. 16-year-old Frank Hart was just a block away from his home in the street at 7133 South Paulina when he was shot and killed. The site was smack in the middle of a quiet residential street lined with vinyl sided houses, some were lived in and some were boarded up. Hart was killed on the street in front of one of the abandos. Just up the block, an older gentleman was working on his garage. He had all its contents pulled out on the sidewalk. Among the items was a weathered maroon punching bag.

Just a few blocks away at 2030 West 70th Street, David Goodson and Oscar Harris were found dead with multiple gunshot wounds in a vehicle parked in front of a fire hydrant. They were discovered when police made a well-being check at that location about 6:45 p.m. on November 13th. The location was This was another sleepy residential street. The only sound was the loud din of rushing water echoing through the sewage drains.

That same rushing sound could be heard coming from below us at the site where Jerrod Benton, 22, was shot shortly after 10 p.m. on Halloween at 6954 South Wolcott Avenue. Officers responded to the scene and found Benton fatally shot with a head wound. He was found laying on the sidewalk in front of a red brick bungalow. While I photographed the site, a muscular white pitbull paced along the fence in the yard next door. It would occasionally stop to bark at X and I. The lamp post in front of the house the dog belonged to had a busted large white globe atop it. I wondered if the glass was broken by a bullet.

The colorful abando house across the street from where Jerrod Benton was killed

Random Lincoln head on our travels

After leaving there, we headed towards 6608 South Marquette Road where Solomon Dunwoody, 38, was shot to death while in his truck in his behind a home. The incident was reported at 10:34 a.m. on December 9th. When officers arrived, they found Dunwoody shot in the head and unresponsive. X and I visited this site once before. The report said that Dunwoody was found in his car and the location code told us that it was in a driveway. On our first visit, we couldn't figure out where the incident happened since there was no front yard or driveway. The building at the address sat three stories tall just barely set back from the sidewalk. There was no sign of a driveway. We assumed that it must have been a mistake and decided to photograph as though he was found in his car in front of the address. Just to be sure there was no "driveway" in that back, we drove through the alley on our way out. As it turned out, there was a small three-car landing pad behind the building nestled between two free standing garages. Unfortunately there was a Comcast truck parked in the drive and a worker was going in and out of the house. While the fronts of the buildings on this block reflected different stages of decay from peeling paint to boarded up windows, the back side made it look like we were behind a row of nice condo buildings. This time, we drove through the alley to find two of the three parking spots filled with shiney Hyundai vehicales. Oddly, one of the cars had a CPD hat resting int he front window. The third empty spot made something seem to be ominiously missing from the scene.

At this point, X and I only had three more locations to photograph. One of the locations was on the far south side in the Roseland neighborhood and two of them were on the west side. We decided to head south first and then wrap up out west. Rather than make our way back to the highway, we took Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard all the way south until we got to 113th Street. Reports say Kiley Murray, 38, was walking to his house shortly after 9 p.m. on December 13th when a white vehicle pulled up and two male suspects jumped out. One of the suspects shot the Murray. He was pronounced dead at the scene on the sidewalk at 11316 South 113th Street. This residential block although only 1 block away, seemed tucked away from the busy Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. As we drove up to the site, a car full of people in front of us pulled over to the side in front of the house just north of the address. A whole family, dressed for church, got out and made their way into the house. X and I sat in the car on the opposite side of the street until the car left and all the family members were inside before we got out to photograph. There were equally as many beutifully tended gardens and houses on the street as there were houses that looked abandoned. There were also a row of houses with brightly colored accents toward the south end of the block.


With that we headed north and then west to photograph the last two locations. The first site posed a problem for X and I. The location was a few houses down from a large, busy dope spot. X and I drove by there a few times on previous trips out and couldn't stop for safety's sake. This time X had a plan. We pulled over on Chicago Avenue just west of Kedzie across the street from Kells Park where X called one of his buddies that was working the day shift. About 10 minutes later, a white CPD SUV pulled up next to us. Our escort had arrived. X followed the cop car west on Chicago and north on Springfield. Reports say Dimitry Ratcliff was standing outside on November 10th when someone approached and fired several shots at him, striking him in the legs and the left shoulder. Police officers and paramedics responded shortly after 9 p.m. to the 1048 North Springfield Avenue and found him laying on the sidewalk with multiple gunshot wounds. As we pulled up to the site the dope boys shrunk back into gangways. One bold young man stood in the yard next door to where I was photographing watching the police officer the whole time. X and the officer chatted away while I freely moved about to photograph the now desolate sidewalk area in front of an abando that had each of its 6 windows shattered. On what was left of the shards of glass there were white painted clowns and pieces of CeaseFire stickers. The front door and window above it were boarded up with new looking ply wood. The house abutting it to the south was also an abando. All the windows and doors were boarded up, but two red crates that appeared to serve as seats were on the front porch. A young woman walked by while I was photographing and yelled out to ask if we were going to buy the building. We all laughed and said no.

X told me that there was a Latin King funeral going on just down the street at 3400 West Chicago. This was not Latin King territory so the authorities were a bit distressed about what might go on. He turned on his radio so I could hear the dispatcher callign for cars to go there to keep an eye on it. X drove me past so that I could see the group gathered outside the funeral home. The only thing that indicated that this might be a gang banger funeral was all the cars parked out front with shiney, crazy rims.

Our last location was a bit of a conundrum for us. It was left for last for a reason. We had to decide how we would photograph it. Francisco Favela was kidnapped at about 1:45 p.m. on December 11th from 2237 South Keeler Avenue. He had been rehabbing the building when he was abducted and his red Chevrolet Blazer was stolen. The kidnappers had pretended they wanted to rent the building. Favela, 45, was found dead a few days later inside a vehicle in a garage in the 1100 block of North Springfield Avenue. He died from blunt head trauma and stab wounds. The problem this posed was that he was abducted from one location and found in another, but it was assumed that his body was dumped (in a garage just a block from the site of Ratcliff's death). Where was he killed? What would most accurately depict the "site"? We decided to go to the address that he was abducted from. We headed south on Pulaski, turning west on Ogden before coming to the location.

Some pants on top of an auto mechanic's shop

The building that Favela was working on when he was abducted was a brick 6 flat with an empty lot that served as a yard on its south side. X and I sat in the car for a few minutes before we decided that this was what we were going to shoot. While we were sitting there, two men in a Mustang pulled up in front of a house just south of us. They scanned the property and pointed a to the upstairs window then drove off. X thought they may have been casing the house. He was mad he didn't write down their license plate number. We finally got out. The whole place had an aura of something gone awry. A cat seemed to be stuck in a tree in the yard, but made its way down slowly. The building looked as though it had not been touched since the man was taken. Above the teal blue front door was a hand painted sign indicating that the property was managed by Mr. Favela.

We did it! We finished just under the wire! Now I was off to process, print ad trim all the images for install on Monday.

Early Morning Dope Spots, Etc.

X picked me up this morning and we headed to the West Side. We are getting very short on time so X came prepared. He had his radio and his gun so that we could stop and photograph the places we had to pass up the other day even if they were a bit sketchier than we would like.

X picked a route for us to take that went to the busiest spots first. The first was 856 North St. Louis Avenue in Humbolt Park. This was the address where Marcus Bassett was standing just after 5:30 p.m. when someone approached him on foot and began shooting. We pulled up to find three young boys running a dope spot on the corner just across the street from the site. X took a good look at them then gave me the go ahead to get out and photograph. As we walked across the street the boys started to walk off. One of them yelled out to ask what we were doing. X told him it was none of his business, then asked if he wanted to be on camera. As they walked away, a car pulled up to the corner. They waved him down to an alley on the side street. We watched them serve him. X made a comment about how much more he would see if he could drive around in a regular car instead of a patrol car. After we got back in the car, the kids began to make their way back to their corner.

Active dope spot looking very quiet

Next we headed to 1048 North Springfield Avenue where Dimitry Ratcliff was killed on December 19th of last year. X and I had to pass up this spot last time because it was a busy dope spot that was manned with 5 to 6 people. We pulled up this time and thought we were clear, but as we got closer, we saw a lone young man standing on the corner. X pulled back to park and a maroon van sped around us. It stopped in front of the man with the driver side window open. We watched a hand come out, an exchange, then another exchange, and then the van drove off. The man on the corner made no secret of the money he was counting. X decided we shouldn't stop, especially since he knew we just saw him sell drugs.

We headed a few blocks away to 918 North Harding Avenue to photograph the site of Johnny Washington's death. 16-year-old Washignton was killed in a shooting incident on December 19th. He was shot in the abdomen just before 6 p.m. and was pronounced dead 6:47 p.m. at Stroger Hospital. This address also fell just a stone's throw from a dope spot. After surveying the scene, X thought we would be fine if I got out. I photographed the area keeping a close eye on the group of young boys on the corner just a few lots away. After taking a few images, one of the boys began walking our way. He had his arms inside his white sweatshirt and his hood up over his head. I hurried to finish taking my last set of pictures and got int he car. Evading any trouble photographing at 3 dope spots this early in the morning made me feel pretty lucky. I didn't want to push it.

From there we headed south to 4134 West Wilcox. We also passed by this location last time, but couldn't stop because there were people in front of the building. We rounded the corner past a huge memorial that we saw last time. I was able to get a better look this time and saw that it was for a woman. After researching who she might be, I came up empty. The sheer size of it was amazing. See for yourself.


Wilcox was quiet except for a few old men that were raking leaves and sweeping dirt off the sidewalks. A lone man swept the curb in front of the site. He wished us a good morning and never looked back up at us. I pointed my camera at the mid-sized yellow brick apartment building where 21-year-old Erik Thompson was shot and killed by his aunt's boyfriend while he was trying to break up a fight between them. He was shot with a shotgun. There were several signs over the boarded up front door. One announced the management company, one stated that there were security cameras on the premises, and the last warned not to trespass. The man that was sweeping the curb wandered in and out of my frame, seemingly uninterested in why I was photographing the building he was cleaning up.

Our next site was a bit south and west. On the way there we passed 5 or 6 sites that we photographed last summer. X also pointed out the area under the viaduct in "K-Town" where all the hookers gather looking for tricks. I spotted a few walking on a side street as we passed.

We approached the next location from the south. Parkside was on a side street just off of Columbus Park that wound around an elementary school before it shot straight north. The top of the block was capped by the adjoining high school. Isaiah Carter, 18, was walking down the street at 24 South Parkside when he started talking to a group of people. One of them turned toward him and shot him in the chest. The shooting happened about 12:25 p.m. on November 13th. The exact location fell in front of a stretch of 2 lots that were gated and seemed to belong to the owner of a beautiful blue victorian home. As we pulled up, a woman with blazing red hair opened the front curtains and peered out at us through her window that's cracks had been repaired with masking tape. Beyond the large green gated yard was a trailer park walled off bby a tall wooden fence. It seemed to only take up one lot, but was a strange sight to see amongst all the houses in the area. Wind had blown garbage that got caught in the grass between the sidewalk and the street. I found the plastic casign to a toy gun in the debris.


The site we went to next was way west at 5754 West Chicago Avenue in Austin where Brian Moore, 29, was shot in the stomach and killed at about 8:20 p.m. on January 15th of this year. From the map below, you can see how close this address is to the line between the poorer neighborhood of Austin and the wealthy suburb of Oak Park, one of the most bizarre drawing lines I've ever seen. The line is even apparent from it's treatment on google maps, Austin is dusty and unclear and Oak Park is crisp and green.

drawing lines between Oak Park and Austin

Because of the location of this site, we passed some beautiful old homes that were in varying states of decay. They must have been part of the wealthy area at one point and been neglected as the rich moved even further out west. The spot where Briam Moore was killed was in front of Coleman's #2 Ribs & Tips. The storefront was in a long, low building that was painted red. The windows were covered in a black iron mesh. Across the street was a beautiful old banquet hall that looked like it had been abandoned years ago.

Cool old banquet hall

On the way to North Lawndale

We wrapped up there and headed to 1511 South Ridgeway in North Lawndale where 26-year-old Varick Hines was shot in the street multiple times just before 9 p.m. on December 20th. The street was lines with mostly single-family homes with the occasional multi-family unit. When we got there, school kids were coming out of many of the houses and walking north. It appeared to be a working class neighborhood full of families that cared about their houses and made sure their kids got to school. The only thing that stood out was a house about half way down the block where, at 9:00 a.m., a group of young men sat on the porch talking loudly and blasting rap music. If there was trouble on this block, that appeared to be the source.

Before continuing on, X and I decided to stop for some coffee and breakfast at a nearby Duncan Dognuts. Armed with caffine and food, X took me to see a few memorials that he thought were more impressive than the one we saw earlier in the day. The first was already cleaned up, but he explained that they built a race track with hundreds of henessey bottles. Not far from there on the 1500 block of South St. Louis was a massive memorial of Patron and Don Julio bottles that took up the whole front lawn of a brick three-flat. X said we couldn't stop because it was a big dope spot, but I took this picture as we drove past. I am conservativly estimating that there were 1,100 bottles on the lawn there.

1500 block of South St. Louis

We went by another memorial that X said must have been cleaned up and rebuilt because it was not as big as the last time he passed. It was still impressive. Who can afford all that liquor and who can drink it all?

Another impressive memorial

After touring me around to see all the massive memorials nearby, we headed to 2314 South Albany in Little Village where Jonathan Gonzalez was shot less than 100 feet from his home. The 19-year-old was shot about 7:30 a.m. on the street and taken in critical condition to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. X and I were here about a month ago to shoot, but they were doing construction on the house at the address. This time the block was quiet save for a few workers downt he street clearing brush from a yard. After a while, a car pulled in in front of the house and honked loudly. When there was no response, they yelled out the window to someone in the house. When we left, we passed by the Camino Club. The facade, which had previously been covered in gang graffiti was freshly painted.

We had also visited the next location before, but had to pass it up because there was a group of young men in front of the house that followed us into the alley where we were tryign to photograph. The last time, we drew their attention because we drove down the street slowly looking for the address before turning into the alley. This time, X thought we should go straight for the alley and see if we could figure out the address without going by the front of the house. We found the spot with no problems. An unidentified teenager was found there fatally shot in the alley at 4741 South Ada Street. The gates behind the address had a crushed modello can spiked onto one of the spears and there was a pair of white sneakers on top of the garage next door. A door that had been repurposed as a gate to the backyard of one of the houses across the alley had a hand written note warning to beware of dog. After leaving, we decided to go around to the front to make sure we had the right spot and to see if the boys were out. The block was empty. All that stealthiness for nothing. Better safe than sorry though.



The next location was a re-shoot at 928 West 50th Street in Back of the Yards where Ana Rosa Gonzalez and two other people were shot while in a moving vehicle. The car came to a stop after crashing into a fence at that address. Two of the victims lived, but Gonzalez was killed. The last time we shot here, we were on 50th place rather than 50th Street. It was the end of our day, so we decided to come back. There must have been so much damage to the fence that they removed it because there was no longer one in the yard although many of the other bungalow style houses on the block had them. A small group of people stood in front of a house a little east from the location and the occasional person walked by. As I photographed an old lady peeked out of the house nextdoor. X said that it was as if people can sense my camera. As soon as I start to photograph people look out the windows or come outside to ask what I'm doing. I wonder what made them come to the window in the first place?

We took 51st Street west to the next site, passing a soup kitchen that was flooded with people waiting in line outside for breakfast. 16-yea-old Jesus Monreal was shot and killed on Thanksgiving Day not too far from there at 1916 West 49th Street. Police say the shooting appeared to be gang related. The site was onthe sidewalk on front of a garage and backyard across the street from the elevated Metra tracks. The gated backyard was mostly brown from the wet dirt. A spring of grass came up here and there. There was a ripped up old easy chair leaning against the wall of the garage and some kids toys strewn on the ground. There were two DISHs on the garage roof. I could see through this yard to all the backyards down Winchester. After photographing, I looked at the light post that was covered in writing to find gang graffiti. As we pulled away I could see a woman inside the house through a side window decorating for Halloween.

The pitchfork is a symbol for the Folks gang. An upside down pitchfork is meant to show them disrespect

Next we headed to 5610 South Ashland where officers responded to a call for shots fired, found Demarion Brewer shot outside of a lounge at about 12:55 a.m. on December 2nd. There were utility men working in the sewers on the block which made me feel safe there. There was a Harold's Chicken that took up two storefronts and then a boarded up building. None of them had addresses on them. We peered into the windows of the abando to see if it looked like it was a bar and it looked more like the inside of a house. Stupefied, we began looking for other doors. X found a big black wooden door between the two storefronts of Harold's. He pushed on it and it opened. The door lead to a staircase. X put his hand on his gun and ascended the stairs. When he got to the top, he looked back down at me and shook his head. There was no bar up there. Back on the sidewalk, we debated. A man came up to unlock the metal shades in front of Harold's. He would know. I asked him about the bar and he pointed to the abando. He told us it had been closed for a couple of months. I thanked him and began photographing.

From there we went to the site where 19-year-old Arthur Burgess was killed, also on december 2nd, the same day as Brewer. 1805 West 56th Street led us to the street beside a large neighborhood food mart. X backed into the alley so that we could survey the area. As he was looking around, he remembered that he was on the call when Burgess as killed. He wracked his brain to remember where Burgess's body fell. After a few minutes he pointed to the ground in the street to the left of the car. That's exactly where his body was after he was shot. A delivery man was bringing cases of soda into the store as I shot. Every once in a while, I saw a head peak around the corner. Suddenly there were two young men trying to covertly watch me, but they were not very good at keeping themselves out of view. At one point one of them said loudly, "They got a camera." We finished up quickly and moved on to the next site.

Next we visited 5718 South Damen where Titus Mitchell, a 23-year-old man from Wisconsin was found shot in the head and chest in the gangway of the address. The house was not in great shape and the yard was over grown. There was a plastic bag hanging from the gate of the fence in front of the gangway that was filled with garbage. X pointed out the slatted mini-blinds on the first floor that make for good spying from the inside. On the way back to the car we saw a sign int he window of a hair salon announcing that they sell exclusive Indian hair.


The next spot was also a re-visit. The last time we drove by, the residents of the address were outside decorating for Halloween and doing yard work. This time it was quiet in front of 5706 South Mozart Street where Jacinto Crisanto lived. He was standing in the front yard of his house at about 7:30 p.m. on the day after Christmas when he was shot and killed. I don't know what Jacinto was like, but if these were his parents that lived here, they seemed like a hard working, nice family. It's always sad to visit these locations, but some strike me harder and this was one of them. As I photographed, I could hear the echo of hammering comming from behind the house. I peered down the gangway and saw that there was a man there working on fixing something.

The next site was just off Damen at 1945 West 63rd Street. On the way there X warned me that it was a bad area and that we might not be able to stop. Damen was busy, but around the corner in the abandoned lot where Luis Salvador was shot and killed on November 28th, I was protected from the chaos. The lot was flanked by the two tall brick walls from the surrounding buildings making the lot seem like a tunnel. There was a red car parked towards the front. On a fence across the back alley, it said "63rd BITCHES" in black spray paint. X called me back to go when he saw a man walking down the block suddenly change course twice. It appeared that he was shadowing someone a few blocks away. He would look down the block and suddenly turn around. Something weird was going on and we decided to get out of there just in case.

Not too far away from there, Montreal Montgomery, 17, was slain near his home at 2557 West 65th Street on November 21st at about 6 p.m. Police said he was shot in the head. The site was on the sidewalk along side a large red brick apartment building on a quiet residential street. X said that it was a good area and that most of the residents were working people. The area smelled horrible. X thought the smell may have been eminating from one of the abandos.

X and I were hitting a wall, so we decided to go to one more site before calling it a day. We went to 2638 West 71st Street to photograph the location where Marcus Miller, 18, was shot and killed on November 28th. The site was on the sidewalk on the north side of the street in front of an ice cream shop. There was a medical center next door. The ice cream shop was next to an empty lot that housed a big Vienna Beef cart that I assume comes out in the summertime. X asked me to be quick here because a group of young men were idling on the opposite corner. He didn't know what they were up to and wanted to be safe.

After today, X and I only have 12 more sites to visit.

Striking Out

Last Monday morning, X and I set out with the goal of photographing 10 sites on the West Side. It was not as successful as we hoped. We got 7 photographed and had to pass up at least 4 locations for various reasons. The indian summer we were experiencing had everyone out of their houses making it difficult to make photographs in many places.

When X picked me up at around 7:30, the sun was already up and the temperature had already reached about 65 degrees. We looked at the map to figure out how to tackle the days locations. X suggested that we start on the northern most site on the West Side and work our way south. The last time we went out, we started with the easier locations and went to the harder ones. By the time we reached some of the more dangerous spots, we had to pass them up because they were too busy. After reminding him of this, we changed our plan of action. We would start due west, just south of I-290 and work our was north from there, hitting the more problemed areas first in hopes that they would be quiet this early in the morning.

First we headed to 4134 West Wilcox Street in West Garfield Park where 21-year-old Erik Thompson was fatally shot after he tried to break up an altercation between his aunt and her boyfriend in his aunt's residence. When he tried to break it up, the boyfriend shot him in the head. When police arrived, Thompson was already dead. The shooting happened about 11:32 p.m. on the 10th of January. When we rounded the corner from Keeler onto Wilcox, there was a huge memorial on the south east corner. There were about 40 empty Patron bottles perfectly lined up in a rectangle on the ground. A t-shirt with a photograph of a teenage boy hung from the wrought iron fence the bottles stood before. I did lots of investigating into who was killed there. The only thing I can find is that 21-year-old Martece Colston was shot and killed at that address in December of 2008. I wonder if the memorial at that corner is still the one built for him 4 years ago. After passing the memorial, we turned on to Wilcox. There were several people hanging out in front of the address where Thompson was killed. We had to pass it up. Strike one for the day.

From there we haeded just north and west a few blocks to 3849 West Flournoy Street where Vernell Anderson, 23, was shot and killed at 11:54 p.m. near the front steps of a gray stone on December 16th. He was found with multiple gunshot wounds to his body. As we neared the location, X explained that there is a turf war going on between two seperate gangs. One of the gangs runs drugs on Polk and the other on Flournoy. They made an agreement that no one would sell on Lexington, the street between them, but someone violated that agreement. Now they are at war with each other. One cannot step over the boundary without risking getting shot. The block didn't seem to live up to the danger X prefaced it with. It was still early, so no one was out. The streets were lines with beautiful old gray stones, a few of which had been abandoned. The sidewalk where Anderson was killed was in front of one of the abandos. Interestingly, when I looked on Google's streetview, the house was not yet abandoned. There was a lot between it and the next gray stone that oddly had half of the grass cut creating a perfect bisection of the yard.


The next site posed a small problem. We were headed to what we thought was 5327 West Lake Street where Alfred Reese was shot and killed in the stairwell of the building. When we arrived at the location, the address was no where to be found. The entire 5300 block was a huge red brick old factory building. The lowest number on the building before the side street was 5333. This was impossible. We mulled it over for a while doing laps around the block to see if we could get a look at the sides of the building. There was no 5327. I looked up the article on Chicago Breaking News and saw that it said that Reese was killed on the 5200 block. We had the wrong address by 100. The actual address was 5227 which was in a strip of storefronts abotu a block away right next to a day care. This was also the only building on the block that appeared to have a stairwell like that described in the incident. We stopped and photographed quickly. Our rounding the block a few times drew attention from a close by drug corner and a few of the young men were walking in our direction. I made my pictures as fast as I could and hopped back in the car.

The next two locations were strike outs number 2 and 3 for the day. It was barely 9 o'clock and we were already having problems. We passed by both 1048 North Springfield and 918 North Harding because they were both very active drug corners that were in full swing. The Springfield address brought us to 5 men stationed one on each corner and one in the center of the round about in the middle of the street. As we passed there, I actually watch ed a man in a black pick-up truck get served by a young woman that counted the money as she walked away from his car. A young man in a gangway just a few lots down stared at us as we passed. He was holding a white plastic bag that he appeared to be trying to hide before we saw him. On another block nearby, we passed a group of men sitting on folding chairs on the sidewalk in front of a house. One of the men seemed like he wasn't paying attention. When he saw us pass in the car, he braced his seat as though he was about to take off running. As soon as he saww that we were just passing by, he returned to the relaxed pose in his seat.

We were finally able to stop at the next site. James Daniels was stabbed in the neck with a broken bottle by his 18-year-old niece during an argument at 1740 North Sawyer Avenue in Logan Square. The address was a two story home with white siding and tall wrought iron gates surrounding a large concrete front area. There were two chairs in the front. The most striking thing was that, posted on the front facade in multiple places, there were signs saying "Keep Off." This was a location that I had a hard time approaching. I knew that the family most likey still lived in the house and that it was probably not something they wanted to be reminded of. I tried to take my photographs with out being intrusive. As guarded as I thought the family must be and as the hosue seemed to be showed in the photographs. The view inside is blocked by massive iron gates and blaring red signs.

Next we headed to 2100 North Laramie Avenue where 41-year-old Bacilio Flores was stabbed to death in an apparent home invasion on November 13th of last year. The neighborhood was very nice in comparison to the sort of hell we just left. The block was lined with houses that had yeards and flowers and manicured lawns. 2100 sat on the corner and appeared to be a three flat with one of those apartments being a garden. There were cleaning supplies in the ground floor window that sat at sidewalk level on the side of the building. A house plant climbed its way up the pane of the inside of the front first floor window. Leaves blew all around us as I photographed in silence. As we returned to the car, a utility van drove by with the windows open leaving the pungent smell of marijuana in the air.

We went from there to 2424 North Marmora Avenue where Ryszard Koineczny was killed on November 11th. This was a homicide that I found out through the police that never showed up on the homicide trackers. As we neared, X pointed out that we had been here before. Last summer I was just across the alley photographing the site of a homicide that was a robbery gone awry. Here is that story:

The owner of a Northwest Side pawn shop called Fullerton Pawners at 5900 W. Fullerton Avenue in the city's Belmont Cragin community shot and killed one of three men who tried robbing his business at gunpoint shortly before 1 p.m. on June 8th. Michael McMillan was dead at the scene, while a second of the robbers may have been wounded before he and a third man fled on foot. McMillion had a prior robbery conviction in 2006 and had been sentenced to the Cook County Sheriff's boot camp program.


Now I was standing just a few 100 feet away photographing another death. As you can see from the google street view, the house at 2424 North Marmora was kept up nicely until very recently. When we arrived, the front yard was over grown with weeds and tall grass, the first floor windows were boarded up, there was a huge orange sticker on wood piece over the front door declaring that the water was to be tunred off, and there was a mattress on the second floor porch. The house was in poor shape. It's been interesting to see how many of the houses where someone was killed are now abandoned close to a year later. Visiting the sites this far from when the incidents actually happened gives a whole new outlook on what transpired in these places because I get to now see the transformations (or lack there of) that took place over the course of a year.

The next location we photographed was at the busy intersection of Diversey and Austin where Cesar Salgado was driving his red jeep when he was struck by gunfire. The incident happened at 10:44 p.m. on December 30th. We parked on the north west corner in front of P & S Auto Repairs. Salgado was shot while traveling east just before the intersection in front of a bar that had beer and music written on the windows in Spanish. It took a long time to get a few peopleless images at this location. It was extremely busy with traffic, people waiting for public transportation, and a bustling Dunkin Dognuts across the street.

Before we left there, X looked at the map to see if there were any other places he thought might be possible today. We picked the alley behind 3121 West Homer Street where an unidentified woman was found at 7:35 a.m. on the morning of November 27th. She had been strangeled to death. The house that she was found behind had a gated backyard where there were several chickens clucking. From behind the buildings I could see that there was an interesting smattering of both old vinyl sided houses and new concrete and brick condo buildings. It was an odd location to think that someone found a body, but seemed like a good enough place to bring someone to kill since the alley was oddly convoluted, ending abruptly just off the main street on one side. It also appeared that there must have been a car fire there recently. Many of the garages had melted siding, with no signs of damage to any of the structures.

chickens

melted siding

After photographing there, X and I decided to call it a day. We didn't get the 10 sites we hoped for, but we got 7. Only 28 more to go.

North Side

I bartered with E to get her to come with me to some of the more familiar homicide sites on my list on Saturday morning. The deal was I would buy her coffee and she would get up and go with me. A smattering of the murders were on the North Side. Of the four that were up north, two were just blocks away from my former residences. The other two were close to where E used to live before we met. I felt comfortable going to these locations without X.

At about 8:30, we headed to Starbucks. With a giant latte in hand, we drove north to Wrigleyville where just weeks after several people were shot at a the Taco Bell at 1111 West Addison, Norberto Velez was shot and killed just down the street in the hallway of his apartment building at 910 West Addison. The building is just steps away from the old Town Hall Police station to the east and about a block from both the Addison Red Line stop and Wrigley Field to the west. 31-year-old Velez was shot in the chest. His body was discovered at 7:20 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day. I knew exactly where this address would take us. For a year and a half I lived at 915 West Cornelia, which is juts a block south. The apartment building was on a busy section of Addison, but it was pretty quiet this early in the morning. The residence was a three-story brick building that was in the middle of several others just like it. The front wrought iron gate was open and a bike was locked to the interior of the fence. There was a dreamcatcher in the window of the first floor window. The small communal area in the front of the building had two well-worn chairs and a small white plastic table. On the table was an ashtray brimming with cigarette butts. Several empty beer cans were strewn on the ground. I set up my camera and photographed with no disturbances. As we walked back to the car, I glanced down the alley where I could see the livingroom window of my old apartment.

Uptown Theater

From there we headed to 4556 North Magnolia Avenue in Uptown where 23-year-old Brian Green was shot and killed on January 4th of this year. The address led us to a small mini mall that housed a convenience store, a chinese take-out, a ghanian restaurant, a chiropractor, one empty storefront and a Subway. Just across the street was a Starbucks. The exact address indicated that Green was shot in the parking lot in front of the Subway. I was intrigued by the disparity a photograph of a homicide site that had a Starbucks in the background would show, so I made sure to angle my camera appropriately. In my experience this is very telling of what Uptown is like. Here is a link to some thoughts on Uptown from last summer's photographing.

The next site was also in Uptown. At 6:20 p.m. on Halloween night, 35-year-old Marlos Canteberry was shot in the head on the sidewalk in front of 1010 West Sunnyside Avenue. Canteberry was identified by neighbors as “a neighborhood man who sold movies.” Earlier this fall I was at this location by fluke with a point and shoot camera as part of a team building exercise for a CCAP program I am working with. The photograph is on google maps if you look up the address and click on the images (See below). I liked the photograph I took that day because it was overcast and gloomy, which seemd to fit the feel of the location well. Saturday it was bright and sunny, but since it was further into the fall, the colors of the leaves on the nearby tree and were extrordinary and leaves dusted the ground. The site was about 1/2 a block from the intersection at Broadway where a new Target was built in the last few years. The looming structure, which I could see from the site, was an interesting juxtaposition with the large abandoned apartment building that it stood across the street from.



Our last location for the day was in Edgewater at 1111 West Hollywood Avenue. On January 1st of 2011 at 3:38 a.m., officers responded to a domestic battery call at the address to find 37-year-old Henry Jones stabbed in the neck by his wife. The woman called 911 after her husband allegedly attacked her. She stabbed him before the police could arrive. He died about an hour later from sustained injuries. 1111 West Hollywood is a huge apartment building that's white columned entrance faces quiet North Winthrop Avenue. The back side of the building is just across the alley from the elevated Red Line. The side that faces busy Hollywood Avenue is mostly windowless save for the small indent in the center where each of the interior apartments might have one reprieve from the inside. E sat in the car in the alley as I walked around the building, photographing from every angle.

Edgewater

I looked at the addresses and maps to see if there was anywhere else I felt comfortable visiting on my own and decided not to risk it since I was unfamiliar with all the remaining locations. I decided to wait for X to take me to the rest.

South (East) Side

For some reason, after a good night’s sleep last night, this morning necessitated coffee. After X picked me up, we swung by Starbucks. I got my latte and I got X an old fashioned donut...typical. We decided to visit the homicide sites on the south side that were to the east of the expressway. Beginning at around 35th Street, there were 8 sites, one just south of the next, all the way down to 63rd Street.


The first site we visited was at 3520 South Lake Park Avenue where Zohntil Lemon was shot and killed at 1:35 in the afternoon on November 4th of last year. Lake Park is the furthest street you can go to before you hit Lake Shore drive in this area. Just to the north of the site was Douglas Monument Park where Stephen A. Douglas’ tomb is. Just inside the gates of the park I could see a small caretaker’s house. X was puzzled by how he never even knew the park existed. The site was on the sidewalk outside of the iron gates of a parking are that was attached to a large retirement home. On the opposite side of the street, right on Lake Shore was a branch of The Archdiocese of Chicago. The building was adorned with arched windows and ample surveillance cameras. They had to have caught the shooting on video.

The next location was just a few blocks to the southwest at 3950 South Vincennes Avenue. 18-year-old Michael Frazier Jr. was with a friend standing on the sidewalk when someone ran out of an alley firing shots. Frazier was hit in the chest and died within an hour. The sidewalk was along a huge vacant area that was about 4 lots big. The chain-linked fence that once surrounded it was gone, but the vertical poles that held it in place were still standing. The building to the corner on the southwest side of the street had a big sign on it announcing “luxury apartments for rent.” Ironically the building was flanked by two abandos, one a boarded up gray stone and the other the now defunct Holy Angels Elementary School. To the north at the corner of Pershing and Vincennes, three older gentlemen were chatting on the corner. One of the men was selling newspapers at the red light.

Artfully placed beer bottels

From here we went to 4343 South Michigan Avenue. Interestingly, the four-lane road that runs straight through downtown Chicago turns on way in this part of town. All four lanes push traffic south. Derrick Dowdell was found stabbed to death in the first-floor hallway of the apartment building at the address. The building has since been abandoned. The first floor door and windows were covered in plywood stamped with “Chicago Board-Up Service” in red ink. There was an eviction notice posted on the wood over the front door along with a “Keep Out” sign and a notice of foreclosure by the Bank of America that was dated July 11, 2011. Two beer bottles in brown paper bags were placed artfully on the front steps. As I was photographing there, a young man with identification on a lanyard around his neck came up to talk to me. His name was Keify K. He handed me a CD and asked if I knew anyone that made videos. X told him that I was a still photographer. He expressed interest in photographs as well. I told him I would listen to the music, made sure his contact info was on the disc and told him I would let him know if I found anyone that might want to help him. He smiled, thanked us, and went on his way.

My personal favorite song title = Happy Birthday Facebook

As we drove to the next site, we passed the Swift Mansion at 48th Street and Ellis Avenue. The mansion was built by the famous meatpacking giant Gustavus Swift in 1898. It’s now owned by the Chicago Urban League and is covered in signs that were both handwritten and printed on vinyl. On the very corner of the lot, on a big pole, was a 1950s style motel sign announcing the presence of the mansion.


The next site was just 1 block south of the Swift Mansion at 4947 South Michigan Avenue. It was here that Steven Billups was found with a gunshot wound to the head in his apartment. There were no signs of forced entry so the circumstances of the murder were unclear. The building was a typical Chicago style brick 6-flat. Directly across the street was an abando, but the rest of the block looked similar to the building Billups lived in. It was very quiet there except for the sound of cars speeding by Michigan Avenue.

We drove further south on Michigan Avenue to the vacant lot at 5331 where 44-year-old Kara Murray was found dead from multiple trauma and assault on November 13th. There were a few vacant lots on the block where she was found, but they were all gated. The site she was found was open both to the street and to the alley in the rear. A black Range Rover was parked in the front of the lot closest to the street. When we pulled into the alley to photograph, a man was walking his pitbull on the lot. We watched him and waited in the car. He must have thought we were al little suspicious when we jumped out of the car as soon as he stepped off the property. The trees from the surrounding lots were overgrown forming a kind of tunnel that seemed to trap all the neighborhood trash.

After this, X took a look at the next few locations and said that we would have to skip them today. It was too nice out and people were coming out of the woodwork. The places he decided to skip were within a block of each other jut off of 63rd and Cottage. As we drove down Cottage I could see the neighborhood changing. The increase in people out on the streets was directly proportional to the number of boarded up buildings. X pointed out an apartment building where he picked up a guy with an Uzi this past year.

We skipped down to 6608 South Marquette Road where Solomon Dunwoody was shot and killed while sitting in his car at 10:30 a.m. on December 9th. The location code I had was residential yard/vehicle so I was expecting a driveway and a yard, but the location turned out to be a building that sat flush with the sidewalk. I photographed the street in front of the address thinking that I must have had something wrong. After finishing that, X went around the back of the building just to double check. We found a landing pad in the rear. This was where it happened. Unfortunately there was a Comcast truck parked in the drive and a worker was going in and out of the house. We would have to come back to this one again.

My favorite random find of the day

After that we headed way west to 6103 South Sacramento where 18-year-old Daniel Delorean was shot and killed while on his way to his sisters house. Before he was shot he made a call to his twin brother telling him that he thought someone was following him. The block was mostly single-family homes with a few smaller apartment buildings. When we pulled up, a young man who was on the corner walked back down the side street. He returned a few minutes later when a girl pulled up to pick him up. Up about a half a block X watched a young lady get into a maroon van that had a city impound sticker on the back window. He pointed it out and told me that it was illegal to drive the car if it had the sticker. When we pulled away from the location, the woman in the maroon van pulled out in front of us. The car had no license plates and I could see where she had peeled the sticker off the back window. X commented that he would love to be able to patrol in his own car. He would see much more interesting things.

The next site we visited was at 2509 West 51st Street where Kirk Orellana was shot in the neck and killed in the alley off a busy thoroughfare. The site was behind a row of houses that all had tall fences cordoning off their backyards. One of the gates had a big sign that read, “Beware of Dog.” While I was photographing, X noticed some ribbon that was still tied around the handle of one of the garbage cans. He thought it might still be there from a memorial for Orellana if there was one.

The last site we went to today was at 928 West 50th Street. Ana Rosa Gonzalez was shot and killed while driving her car. The car came to rest at this address after crashing into a fence. We found the address and I photographed. As we left, X asked me if the address was 50th Street or 50Th Place? I told him it was street. We photographed the wrong location again! We turned back around and drove to the right location. X was weirded out by the block so he said we’d come back. I will always trust his intuition.

Fallen police and firefighter memorial in Back of the Yards

We tried for one last spot, but were unsuccessful. It was too nice out and getting too late in the day.

Broken Homes

Splitting, Gordon Matta-Clarke, 1974

At about 2 a.m. on Friday morning, after walking home in the pouring rain, I received a text from X saying, “Hey. I’ve slept like 8 hours in the past 3 days. I’m not going to set my alarm so call me if this weather breaks and we’ll go shoot.” Between X’s court dates and the six straight days of rain we had, we hadn’t been able to shoot for 10 days.

I woke up at about 6:30. It looked dark outside, so I put on a robe and went to the window to see if it was still raining. It had finally stopped. Excited, I called X to wake him up, but he didn’t answer. Defeated, I anxiously got back into bed. A few minutes later my phone lit up with a text from X. He picked up my call on the last ring. He was up and was getting ready to come pick me up.

X pulled up in front of my place at 7:15 dressed much more appropriately than the last time we shot. It was a cold, windy and overcast morning so we were bundled up. I handed X my maps and asked where he wanted to go. We decided to go to the southern most location and work our way north again.

We hopped on the highway and headed for our first location at 9226 South Ashland Avenue where 22-year-old Derrick Ross was shot at about 4:20 p.m. on Sunday the 9th of January while he was riding in a vehicle. Reports say that someone pulled up along side of him and fired several shots into the car, striking him in the head. This stretch of Ashland is a wide and well-traveled road. The long, low, glass store fronts are interspersed with vacant lots and storefront churches. Ross was shot at a part of this stretch that fell in front of a huge old used car lot that was now obsolete. The gated gravel lot was now filled with construction materials, bulldozers, and U-Haul trucks. The big wooden signs that I imagine used to be painted with the name of the dealership were worn down to the grain of the wood creating stark blocks of color against the ominous sky. While the stretch here had lots of car traffic, it was not really a place that many people seemed to walk. Only a few people passed the whole time I was photographing. I took several photographs from across the street and then wanted to get in the median and shoot from there. X brought his car around and parked it in the center of the street blocking me from oncoming traffic.

The next site was just a few blocks away at 9110 South Laflin Street where Vickie Myers was discovered dead with trauma to her facial area at her residence on the morning of December 26th. Her apartment was in a beautiful old brick building with limestone detailing around the doors and windows, a style of apartment building that I have often seen on the South Side of Chicago. The building was the only one of its kind on a street full of single-family homes. As I photographed, a worker came out of the building, got in his white van, and drove off. The only other person we saw while we were there was a young lady crossing the street at the corner wearing a pair of stiletto heels that we couldn’t believe someone could even walk in. It was still early and the streets were still quiet.

From there we went another few blocks to 9020 South Ada to the site where 22-year-old Justin Handcox was shot and killed. Handcox was standing on his porch at around 9:13 p.m. on December 1st when attackers came up and shot him in the head. The house was a beautiful brick single-family home with flowerpots on the porch, a manicured front lawn, and a stunning decorative brass grating over the glass storm door. By the time we arrived here, the clouds had cleared and the sky was blue over the picturesque scene. A sense of uneasiness came over me. It seemed like such a contradiction that someone died there.

Fort Dearborn, 1831

Fort Dearborn, 2011

In my experience photographing these sites, I have found that photographing homes where people died is much harder on the psyche. I believe that the land is attached to what once happened there. Drex Brooks’ Sweet Medicine proved that it is difficult to separate a place from its history. This is true in even the places that no longer begin to resemble what they once did. Take for example the historical land markers for Fort Dearborn in downtown Chicago. What was once a fort on a hill next to a river is now demarcated on the sidewalk amongst the urban jungle of skyscrapers and popular shopping by brass plates with its name. We have a need to know what was once there. When someone is killed on a sidewalk or in the street, there is no denying that a life was lost there, but when someone is killed in their home, the life that was lost there seems to have more attached to it. There are histories that intertwine that person with that place that supercede that of a change encounter in an alley or on a street corner. When someone is killed at his or her home, it is as though that home is then somehow broken. It feels different.

Splitting (Interior), Gordon Matta-Clarke, 1974

After photographing Justin Handcox’s porch, we traveled about 5 blocks north to 8525 South Hermitage where Shaun Leeks was also killed at a home just 10 days later on December 11th. Leeks was found dead in the home with multiple gunshot wounds after several gunman reportedly entered the house and shot him. Aside from the one abando across the street from the house, the block was very nice. It was a tree-lined street of single-family homes with nicely manicured lawns. The house Leeks was killed in was a two-story brick bungalow. I could only hear the rustling of the leaves in the wind as I photographed at this quiet site.

The next site was due west at 2952 West Seipp Street. It was here that David Blake, a decorated 15-year veteran of the police department was found dead in his black SUV after being shot several times. Blake's gun and wallet were found inside the SUV leading investigators to believe robbery was not a motive. The SUV's windows were closed and the shots were apparently fired from inside the car. Blake also was found with a cigarette in his mouth. It was not known what Blake was doing in the neighborhood, which is made up of single-family homes. He did not live nearby although many active and retired police officers also live in the neighborhood. As we drove there, X told me about all the suspicious things surrounding Blake’s death including the lack of motive, the cigarette in his mouth, the fact that the shots were fired from in the car meaning it was probably someone he knew. X also knew that the site was in a very odd area. Seipp is just north of 87th Street in a mess of tiny roads that loop around in odd directions or end abruptly. As we pulled of 87th and drove north up Francisco, I saw what he meant. We drove until the road looped to the left. The south side of the street was lined with well-tended bungalows, but oddly, the north side of the street had several stand-alone garages with no drives. The curb was built up and there was just brush and trees between the structures and the street. Since they stood in the backyards of the houses that they belonged to, there was no way of accessing them. X, who has been with me at all the sites where police officers were killed, said that he felt really weird being there. It made him uneasy. He stayed in the car while I photographed. He told me to take my time and that this was a safe place. When I was done, he seemed happy to be leaving.

Weird garages on Seipp

We headed back east and then north to 8027 South Princeton where Erika Greene was found shot to death on January 8th after the sport-utility vehicle she was driving crashed into a parked car and came to rest on a South Side lawn. 40-year-old Greene was shot within a block of her home. The block was lined with cookie cutter bungalow homes that each was a different color brick as far as I could see. They each had matching lampposts and address markers. On the way out, X pulled over to look at the brown circular signs on all the street posts marked the area. They read, “Celebrating Historic Bungalows.”


The next site was about 5 blocks north at 149 West 75th Street where Bryant Glass and Emmit Suddoth, both members of the Hawks Motorcycle Club, were shot and killed outside the Hawks clubhouse. The shooting stemmed from an argument in the club that led a gunman to open fire killing Glass and Suddoth and injuring 5 others. Records indicate that Suddoth was one of seven people named in a federal indictment that alleged a $35 million mortgage-fraud scheme. Federal authorities allege that the group recruited buyers for homes on the South Side and in the south suburbs that were purchased using mortgages based on fraudulent information. We arrived to find that 149 West 75th Street is a vacant lot abutted on the west side by a low brick storefront and on the east by a large grassy lot that was fenced off with chain link. There was still a small piece of yellow tape flapping on the fence. The most interesting thing was that a part of the sidewall to the east was filled with concrete blocks that were painted different shades of gray with white and black writing on them. Interestingly, I was just looking at the article online about this shooting and there is an image accompanying it. In the background of the image I could see a building that said Hawks on it and the address. Knowing that I photographed a vacant lot, I began to worry that I photographed the wrong location. After comparing my photographs to Google maps and looking at the street view, I discovered that the building that used to be the Hawks clubhouse is gone. In the pictures, it looks like the building is in good shape. I wonder why it was torn down.

Hawks clubhouse on google maps

X was getting tired and I had to head to work, so we decided to go to one more site and call it a day. We went another 5 blocks north to 7036 South Morgan where 39-year-old Wartonka Stevenson was shot and killed in a scuffle with three men that broke into his home at 3:00 in the afternoon on January 12th. As we pulled onto the block, X warned me of the dope spot on the next corner. He said to try to be quick. I used his car to block me from their sight as I photographed. Stevenson’s house had since been abandoned. The first floor windows of his house and the house to the north were both boarded up. There was a sign on one of the wood panels that indicated that the bank has repossessed the house and that it was for sale. The second story windows were partially missing and down the gangway I could see that some of the panels were ripped off the lower windows allowing for people to climb into the basement. I photographed quickly here. As I was finishing up, X said we needed to go. I got in the car to see two of the young men from the corner walking towards us. It seemed like a good time to call it a day.

Storefront Churches & Metal Shades

X picked me up on Thursday morning at about 7:15 am wearing shorts and a t-shirt. I looked down at my jeans, hooded sweater, and jacket and started laughing. He clearly hadn’t checked the weather before he left to pick me up. It was a sizzling 50 degrees out. He said he’d tough it out. We decided to head to the Far South Side and work our way back north. We hopped on the highway and got off right before the Skyway to get to our first site, 731 East 130th Place, where Jerome Michaels was shot and killed in December of 2010. He was shot in the head near the entrance to the Altgeld Gardens housing complex. The complex was extremely well tended to and had gorgeous landscaping. There was even a neatly planted row of new trees on both sides of the main entry road. This area of the South Side is low and open so the wind whipped through relentlessly chilling us as I photographed. People drove in and out as I photographed, but no one asked what I was doing or even really looked my way. On our way from this site to the next, I noticed the area was teeming with storefront churches like the one below.


Our next site was 11445 South Michigan Avenue where David Rodgers Jr. was shot and killed on the sidewalk in front of Dolla’s Barbershop & Beauty Salon. The shop was next door to another storefront church called Greater Faith Cathedral. This part of Michigan Avenue is atop a hill that slopes down to the east. To the north of the barbershop, there was an empty lot that sloped down revealing a small community of abandoned buildings below. Since Michigan Avenue is a busy road, it took perfect timing to photograph the site without any passing traffic or pedestrians in the images. We were at this site around the time that all the kids were walking to school so there were echoes of laughter all around us. The sounds were completely incongruous to the reason I was there. It was an oddly uncomfortable tension.

Historic Pullman

Pullman today

From there we drove to Pullman. The Pullman neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago is where, in the 1880s, George Pullman began his railroad car company. His company grew so large that he bought up most of the surrounding area. Dreaming of a small utopia for he and his workers, he controlled the housing, stores and everything else nearby. It wasn’t until 1889 that the town of Pullman became a neighborhood with in the City of Chicago. The Pullman Company closed its doors in the early 1980s, but many of the historic structures still stand. While Pullman was hard to navigate because of all the railroad tracks that cut off big streets in their tracks, our meandering brought us to some wonderful old historic sites like the clock tower shown here. From the signage and images on the fences surrounding it, it looks like they will be doing a historic restoration on it soon.
Next we drove to the corner of 111th Street and South Vernon where 20-year-old Cordero Nash was shot and killed in an incident on November 12th. He was killed in a vehicle right next to a huge parking lot for the True Dime of Holiness Baptist Missionary Church. An off-duty police officer was also fired on in the incident, but was not hit. The church had a huge sign with a scrolling LED screen. The red words that scrolled by as I was photographing not only informed of mass times and community activities, but also looped bible passages that asked not to kill and to avoid living a life of abundance. It was as though the words were specifically attached to the loss of Nash’s life. Where the last site seemed like such a contradiction, this one seemed to chillingly mirror what happened there.

Instead of heading straight north as we had planned, X decided we should go west to the site of a triple murder at 11104 South Bell Avenue in the Morgan Park neighborhood. On November 29th, 43-year-old Stacy Cochran Hill and her two daughters, Jade Cochran, 17, and Joi Cochran, 11, were found stabbed to death in their apartment. Just a few days later, Jade’s boyfriend, 18-year-old Denzel Pittman was charged with the murders. The beautiful brick apartment building was the only of its kind on a street full of single-family homes. It was a chilly morning, but people were out walking their dogs, sitting on their porches, and waiting at bus stops. The fall weather didn’t seem to affect the blossoming gardens and the green leaved trees here. One suggestion that was made to me when I showed Killing Season was to figure out some sort of photographic device that would differentiate between a murder that happened outside on the sidewalk and one that happened inside like this incident. In an effort to do this, I got very close up and photographed right into the shaded window on the ground floor, cropping out any context of place other than the window. It felt very invasive and uncomfortable to do this, but it will be clear among the others that these three women were murdered in their home.

After leaving this site X and I made our way back east and a little north to 10415 South Michigan Avenue to an abandoned building where Yvonne Johnsonhammer was found dead from what was described as multiple injuries. This abandoned building was also next to a storefront church. A man standing in the churches entryway watched as I photographed the building. This was also a site that was inside the building, so X took me around the back into the alley and I was able to get close to the boarded up entryways and windows. Oddly, it appeared that people dumped their trash bags out on the sides on the road in the back here. The overgrown grass was strewn with not just beer bottles and cans, but also what appeared to be household refuse.

On our way to the next site, we passed an area where many of the houses had metal shades that came down over their windows and doors. I remembered seeing this a few times last summer, but was struck by how many houses in this neighborhood had them. X told me it was not only to keep people from breaking in, but also to keep out bullets. It was sad to me that people have to live in that kind of fear. You can see the shade ¾ of the way down on the middle house in the image below.


18-year-old Alonzo Jones was standing in front of his house at 9238 South Dobson Avenue on Halloween night last year when a car pulled up and someone in it opened fire killing him. When we pulled up to the site, there was a young man sitting on the front stoop of the house next door. X wanted to get out first to make sure that the boy wouldn’t give us any trouble. He was unfazed by X so I got out of the car with my camera and set up to photograph. I said good morning to the boy and he said good morning back. He asked what the pictures were for and I told him that they were for a project about violence and that someone was killed here. He didn’t know about the death. I asked him if he lived there and he said yes. I was surprised that he didn’t even know it happened. Aside from him, there was only one other woman out on the block. She was on her porch a few houses up beating a rug, stopping occasionally to watch us. As we pulled away from the site, another young man came out of the house where the boy was sitting. He was much more animated talking with his hands and watching us drive away.

The next site was at 10033 South Calhoun Avenue where Ronald Gillerson was beaten and stabbed to death when someone came to the door of the halfway house demanding money from him. X and I were so busy looking for the address that we didn’t realize that Calhoun was a one-way street. X parked, facing the wrong direction, in front of the house next door to leave me a clear view of the site. I set up my camera to photograph the house and a little old lady next door came out on her porch and yelled over to X. She asked him if he knew it was a one-way street. He looked around and laughed, apologized to her and told her he didn’t realize. I had only taken a few shots of Gillerson’s house when I saw the shades moving inside through the lens of my camera. A few seconds later a man came out the front door and asked why I was taking pictures of the house. Again, I told him it was for a project about violence. He asked how I knew someone was killed there and I told him it was in the news. I asked if I was wrong and he said no. He wanted to know why we chose this house. X told him we were photographing every homicide. The man eased up and smiled. He chatted with us a little more and had no problem with me photographing. We wished him a good day and got back in the car.

From there we went to the garage behind 8140 South Burnham Avenue where Michael Flisk, an on-duty Chicago police evidence technician and Stephen Peters, a retired Chicago Housing Authority police officer were shot and killed after a burglary in the retired officer’s garage. The house was on a block that appeared to have about as many boarded up houses as lived in ones. As we drove through I noticed a plethora of orange stickers on buildings announcing that water service or gas service had been cut. The garage looked as though it hadn’t been opened in a year. Ivy grew over one side of the structure and door and one of the windows was boarded up with a painted white panel. The house in front had metal shades on all the windows that were all pulled down. There were landscapers at the far end of the alley clearing out brush, but aside from them the only sound was the muffled voices of two men talking in the garage behind me.

The next site we visited was at 8644 South Constance Avenue in the Avalon Park neighborhood where Larry Lee was found dead on the sidewalk. This block seemed like a place where everyone knew their neighbors, tended to their yards, and looked after each other. The houses were large single-family homes. It looked like the house next door even had a pool in the backyard. There were people out doing yard work a little ways up the street and directly across from the site, two older ladies were talking to a young man on the porch. Lee was killed here, just a few lots north of busy 86th Street. X seemed eager to talk to people in this neighborhood, but no one asked any questions or even looked our way.

After photographing at the site of Lee’s death, X and I drove up to Hyde Park to get some lunch. X had heard about a good Chinese place called Nicky’s that he wanted to try so we took a break and sat down for a bit.

After lunch we went back south to 2031 East 70th Street where 30-year-old Jason Williams was shot and killed in the street at the corner of 70th and Chappel. I remembered this area from last summer and was none to thrilled to visit again. Last year we had to come back to several of the locations in the area because they were manned drug corners and were extremely sketchy. This corner was a little north of all the activity. There were large brick apartment buildings flanking the south side of the street. We could hear someone yelling from a window about half a block down. I photographed here quickly and got back in the car. As we were pulling away, X told me he felt very uncomfortable there. He is always very calm and cool, so he must have sensed something at the site.

From there we went just a few blocks south to 7145 South Cyril Avenue. Cyril is a tiny street that only runs the one block between 71st Place and 72nd Street. It’s one block off the main drag of Jeffery Boulevard. It took us a while to figure out how to access it because so many of the surrounding streets were one-way. When we did find it, we found the site where Melvin Terry was stabbed to death in his South Shore apartment. The apartment building was a beautiful old brick high rise with ornate stonework around the entryway and first floor windows. Across the street a young man leaned into a car talking to another young man. We hardly caught their attention.

The last site we visited was just one block south and a few blocks east at 7244 South Phillips Avenue where Dennis August was shot and killed in a CHA building on the afternoon of November 11th. As we were parking a group of young men walked past on the opposite side of the street. After taking a few photographs I noticed someone sitting in a parked car a little bit up the street. The boys that were walking by stopped at a building to the north and began shouting up to someone. Meanwhile another person appeared in the parked car. X let me know that I needed to hustle at this site because he wasn’t sure what the people in the car were up to. I took my pictures as quickly as I could and we were off.

X dropped me off at home close to 3 o’clock. It was a full day of picture making. Here is the map of locations I have left as of today.

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