2012 Chicago Homicide Report

Yesterday's Red Eye reported on the increased homicides in the City of Chicago in 2012. Chicago saw 513 homicides this past year, up from 448 in 2011. The 500th homicide, the murder of Nathaniel T Jackson was on December 28th. Thirteen more died before the clock struck midnight on January 1, 2013, a time period of just 3 days. The Huffington post reported that the rate of 2013's homicides are already outpacing 2012, just 11 days into the new year.

This map, also published by the Red Eye shows the spread of homicides for 2012, the smaller inset is for 2011. Austin, New City, Greater Grand Crossing, Chicago Lawn, Englewood, and Woodlawn were the communities most affected each having upwards of 21 homicides in the calendar year. Austin taking the lead with 37 killed.

Let's hope for less somber numbers in 2013. Don't ignore this information. It affects us all.

Homan & Iowa - Humbolt Park

As of Monday, I had one more location to photograph in order to have an image of each of the 172 sites of a homicide in the City of Chicago between Memorial Day and Labor Day of 2010. Most of the project was completed by November of 2010, but a few more homicides crept into the statistics as the following year proceeded. X and I shot those new locations the following summer and re-shot some of the other locations for various reasons. This last site was one we stumbled upon while fact checking and making sure we covered everything.

The location was at 3359 West Iowa Street in Humbolt Park. The homicide never made it into the media, so I have very little information about what happened there. I do know that the victim's name was Carl Anderson and that he was 27 years old when he was killed. He was shot while he was in a vehicle at the intersection of Iowa and Homen. I do not know if the car was parked or if he was driving at the time.

Having worked on the West Side for a long time, X knew the spot and was weary of going there without an on-duty police officer. We talked about getting someone in a car to come and meet us, but didn't have much luck the past few trips out. We finally cleared our schedules and were set to go and photograph site on Tuesday.

In the meantime, Elizabeth Brackett from WTTW's show "Chicago Tonight" got in touch with me and wanted to do a story about Killing Season. They arrived and filmed at my apartment on Monday. As I was telling Elizabeth about the project, I mentioned having one more site that I would be photographing tomorrow. Her face lit up. She asked if it was possible to go and shoot it while they were with me. I explained to her that we hadn't been there yet because it was a pretty rough corner, but that I'd check in with X and see if he could help. It was overcast and was beginning to rain, so X told me to go over there and see what it looked like. If it was busy, he told me to go out to Chicago and Pulaski and he'd call someone to come in and meet us.

I got my camera and tripod and got in the car with Elizabeth. The camera man followed in his van just behind us. As we drove further west, the rain began to come down harder. When we arrived at the address, it was very quiet. I noticed a few men sitting in an open garage just out of range of the rain. As we walked up to the site, one of the men came out and walked along side us. He told me that we should be careful and that this was a dangerous place. He told me that there were lots of drugs and that people were getting killed. I nodded and told him I knew. I asked him if he lived around there. He pointed to the building on the corner behind him and said he'd lived in the neighborhood for 57 years and in that building for 30 years. As he was saying all this a young boy no older than 10 walked by all alone, wet from the rain, sobbing to himself. I set up my equipment and began to photograph while they filmed for the show. The man stood on the corner in the rain and watched the whole time. After we were there for about 10 minutes, people began to come out. A few people seemed to be neighborhood residents interested in what we were doing there and a few appeared to be hypes coming out to buy drugs. Whether we were there or not, the corner was coming back to life.

X was concerned for us, so I texted him and let him know we were back and that everything was fine. We set up a time to go back there the next morning so that I could properly photograph the location.

We headed there at about 10:30 the next day. It was a beautiful morning, so everyone was out enjoying the last of summer. The block that was so quiet in the rain yesterday was bustling with people. There were 3-4 young men across the street sitting on chairs just off the sidewalk chatting. One of them was getting his hair done, there were several young men on the porch of that house as well. Up the street a group of teenage boys flooded out onto the sidewalk from another front porch. The three men that were in the garage yesterday were in the backyard of the same house today.

X pulled up across from the location. When he got out, the man that I talked to yesterday walked up to him and said, "You're not here to buy drugs, are you?" X said he was not and told the man that he worked here. The man told X he would call the police. X, who had his badge and gun showing told the man he was the police. The man finally noticed the badge and laughed, thanking X. He said that the police had been doing a good job cleaning the area up and that things were getting better, but it was still a bad corner. He chatted with X about the neighborhood while I photographed, and mentioned that he did remember someone being killed there. As I was finishing up, a man and a woman were walking down the street and they stopped to talked to the man talking to X. They were really friendly and asked what I was doing, and then tried to buy a cigarette off of the man. The man, knowing X is a cop and knowing that selling individual cigarettes is illegal, volunteered to just give them a cigarette. I was happy to see that in this place that was supposed to be the most dangerous corner that we visited were a lot of nice, friendly people and that there were only a few bad people around.

Almost

You are now entering a time machine that is going to take you back to the morning of May 5th 2012.

X (via text message): I'm awake. Should be there right around 7:30.

Me: Cool. We're up.

X (at 7:30): Okay I lied. I'll be leaving here shortly.

Me: All good. See you soon. 

X arrived to pick L and me up at about 8 o'clock. Armed with the short list of remaining sites to photograph, we headed south. We hopped on the Dan Ryan and got off at 75th Street heading west to the site where Credale "Sandy" Woulard was killed on June 21st of 2010. 28-year-old Woulard was a transgendered woman who went by the name Sandy. She was found shot near a church on 75th and Halsted. When X and I originally shot this site, we shot 801 East 75th Street, the address that was in the news as well as other sources that we came upon, but after looking over the images and the story again, I realized that we couldn't have been in the right place. Sandy Woulard was killed in front of a church. Our location was on a busy corner in front of a currency exchange with no church in sight. After some investigation of Google earth, I figured out that Woulard was killed at 801 West 75th Street, where there was a church that matched the description in the news release, not at 801 East 75th. The address brought us to the 1st Corinthian M.B. Church. The church was a circular brown brick and glass block building. Above the front entrance on Halsted was a mosaic, with a scroll that read, "It's All in his hands," flanked by two hands in prayer, and a torch. The church sat on the corner of busy Halsted and quiet residential 75th Street. Just to the north up a grassy hill were train tracks with freight cars awaiting use. Cars careened south under the viaduct that had a colorful mural welcoming us to the Auburn/Gresham neighborhood. As I photographed, L took video and X told her stories about the area. After photographing from several different angles, I spotted a white metal cross nailed to one of the trees along the sidewalk next to the church. It was made of two pieces of scrap metal and looked like it was weathered from age. I imagine that it was a memorial in rememberence of Woulard. 

Our second location was 6252 South Ashland where 30-year-old Andre Tucker was shot and killed at 3:55 am. It's hard to tell from the data that I've collected, but another man by the name of Devonte Patterson might have lost his life in this incident as well. The address brought us to a sidewalk in front of Pak Submarine Shop on Ashland just a half a block north of the 63rd/Ashland Green Line stop. Even at the early hour that we arrived, Ashland was bustling with traffic, both car and foot. The location was on a major truck route and while I was photographing I found myself bound between the gated front of the store and the repeating metal patterns on the sides of the trucks in the right lane. Two store fronts to the north was a cell phone store that had an odd number of customers for the early hour, which also made it difficult to make a good picture within the compressed space. Eventually X pulled his car into the right lane to block traffic so that I could stand in the street to photograph without worrying about oncoming traffic. I finally got the image I was looking for.

                         

This is my frustrated look

The next site on our list was one that I visited before with A and H in 2010. I was unhappy with the image and wanted to re-shoot. The incident happened at 1601 West 59th Street, a very busy intersection with a shopping center on the northwest side, M&M Liquor Store on the  southwest corner and a gas station on the southeast corner. There were also two busy bus stops, so it was going to be a challenge getting a quiet people-less image of the site. It was here that 26-year-old Deandre Murphy's car came to a stop after he was shot while driving a few blocks to the west. As we approached the intersection, there was an immediate issue. A 30-something year-old man in a purple t-shirt spotted us and began waving us down. At first, X thought he was just trying to sell us drugs, but upon further observation, he realized that the guy was hyped up on drugs or was just plain crazy. X overshot the location in hopes that the guy would lose sight of us and lose interest, but the more we circled the intersection, the more he chased after us and tried to flag us down. X and I have been in some dangerous and scary situations, but X is always comfortable because ultimately, as bad as some of the dudes are that we come across, they have common sense. They are not going to mess with the police for no gain and they mostly want to do their thing without any trouble or extra attention. In this case, X was visibly uncomfortable. He knows he can protect himself and us from normal goings on, but not from someone that is acting irrationally, so he was extremely hesitant about stopping. We finally found a spot where I could get a few images that were out of eye shot of the man in the purple shirt. X also brought me around a few different angles to photograph, but made sure that I remained in the car. This was an idea we had in the past to get the images I needed of extremely dangerous areas, but we managed to always get out and spend time without issue. This time I did my own kind of drive-by shooting. X would pull up and stop and I would photograph from inside the car. While I am still not extremely excited by the results, I am not sure if I will ever have the opportunity to take a good picture at that intersection. 

This was about the moment we caught his eye. 

Click for a much larger view.

After this shoot, I only have one more location to photograph before the photographing portion of this project is complete. 

Shooting/Re-Shooting

Me: Hey X!I'm just looking through my pictures and see that there are still a few spots I need to photograph/re-photograph. Can I enlist you for one more time out?

X: I can def do another. I'm off a few days next week. What works for you?

Me: Great! Would you be opposed to my friend coming out and videotaping? I'm trying to get grant money and need documentation. Let me know if that's be cool by you.

X: Totally fine!! I'd rather not be in it unless it's better for you. Looks more dangerous if you have security, lol.

Fast-forward to 7:30 am on Saturday morning. My friend L, who was coming out to take some video, and her wife R stayed overnight at our place on Friday so that we could make it out the door bright and early together. When 7:00 am came around I knocked on their bedroom door and L and I stumbled around gathering all the things we needed before exiting into the bright morning sunlight and climbing into X's car and heading west.

Our first location was 522 North Leamington where James Gardner was shot and killed in the early morning of August 9th in 2010. He and Another man were inside a vehicle when two or possibly three suspects got out of another vehicle and approached them. At least one of the suspects fired several shots in their direction. The victims tried to drive away, but their car crashed into a parked car. This location was a re-shoot. While looking through my images, I noticed that the address on the house behind the spot that I photographed before was 422. The last time we photographed on this block we were welcomed by a man dragging a suitcase down the middle of the street. This time all was quiet. In contrast to the bright yellow house at 422, 522 was a two story gray stone. The building had a brand new wooden front porch with a wrought iron fence that contained it and the adjacent property. The parking space in front where Gardner was killed was empty. As a I was photographing a woman down the block expressed interest in what we were doing. She yelled down the street that she wanted to be in the movie. X told her we were just photographing. She seemed a little disappointed.

 

Our next location was another re-shoot at 4034 West Jackson in West Garfield Park. On the evening of August 31st in 2010, 18 year-old Anthony Carter went out to the store to grab something to eat. He was almost home when shots rang out. He was shot multiple times in the back. When police officers arrived at the scene they found him unresponsive. The first time I visited this location, X pointed out the two drug spots, one on each corner on the west side of Jackson and Pulaski. They were in competition with each other. When we arrived again, only one of those spots could be identified and it was being run bare bones. As I photographed the sidewalk where Carter was killed in front of a gated lot next to a gray stone, X and L watched a man try to get out of our range of sight. It appeared that he was trying to buy dope, but was afraid of getting near my camera. 

Former "tied house" at 24th & Wastenaw

read more about "tied houses" here

The last spot we visited was another re-shoot in the Little Village neighborhood. The immediate area which formerly appeared to be a gang haven was amidst a huge transformation. The median at 24th and Washtenaw that was etched with Latin Kings grafitti was torn up, the house on the northwest corner that previously had "fuck da police" written above the door in black marker was now a children's home and 24th Street was being torn up to be repaved. It was just a half a block west at 2718 West 24th Street where Jennifer Alvarado was shot and killed while in a vehicle. She was a passenger in the front seat of the vehicle as it was headed west on West 24th Street about 5:30 p.m. on September 6th when another vehicle pulled up at about and fired shots.

After successfully re-shooting three locations, X dropped L and I off at my house where everyone was still asleep. It was as though we never left.

The New Trend is Up

Homicide spreadsheet for January 2012 (click for larger view)

Chicago ended the first quarter of 2012 with 118 homicides, the worst first quarter for homicides in nine years, continuing a troublesome trend that began late last year. That is a 57% increase from the 75 homicides recorded in that same period in both 2011 and 2010. Nonfatal shootings totaled almost 490 in the first three months of 2012, up 37% from a year earlier.

The city recorded 50 homicides in March, up from 22 homicides in March 2011 and 31 in March 2010.

Criminologists contribute the rise in homiceds to the unseasonably warm weather this winter. Commenting that in better weather people are outside more which inevitably leads to more opportunity for conflict.

The worsening violence comes as the Emanuel administration touts its efforts to combat gang crime and add officers and resources to some of the city's most dangerous neighborhoods.

To combat violence in two of Chicago's most violent neighborhoods, Police Superintendent McCarthy saturated "conflict zones" in the Englewood and Harrison police districts with additional officers early this year as a long-term strategy.

But the early results appear mixed. Through April 1st, homicides fell to 6 in the Harrison District on the West Side, down from 9 a year earlier. But killings almost doubled in the Englewood District on the South Side, jumping to 15 from 8. Nonfatal shootings rose sharply in both districts, however.

During one particularly violent weekend last month, 49 people were shot — 10 of them fatally, including a 6-year-old girl as she sat between her mom's legs on the family's Little Village front porch.

In the last two weeks of March, the violence continued unabated. The department's statistics show that 26 people were killed and more than 80 nonfatal shootings occurred from March 19 through April 1.

Here are the breakdowns for a few of the most affected communities as of today:

West Englewood - 10

Chicago Lawn - 10

Austin - 7

South Shore - 7

South Lawndale - 7

Englewood - 6

Dot Mapping Segregation in Chicago

Yale assistant professor Bill Rankin, proprietor of Radical Cartography addresses segregation in Chicago. He believes that block mapping is inaccurate. As Rankin points out, solid-color maps "visually reinforce political ideals... of ethnic homogeneity." His solution is to create census-based "dot maps," an old but infrequently used form of cartography. His award-winning dot-map of Chicago makes a great companion to the other maps of the city, because you can see how neighborhoods break down by race. Let's let him explain:

See more on Bill Rankin's Radical Cartography website.

Hayt School

I came upon these images today and realized that I never shared them. In the spring of 2011 while Killing Season was showing at Mes Hall in Rogers Park, I got to do a workshop with a group of young men from Hayt Elementary School. They were part of a club at their school for African-American and Hispanic boys. Since the recent influx of hispanic families into the area, there have been some issues with violence between the two groups. This club was aimed at mending that rift.



After checking out the exhibition, we had a discussion about violence and "the broken window theory. " the kids were broken up into two groups to go out and photograph with disposable cameras. They were asked to take pictures of things that could be indicative of violence in the neighborhood. The images that they took were fantastic and insightful. Here are a smattering of some of my favorites.

"Crime Unseen" on Gather Round the Mic

Evan Mather wrote an interesting article about "Crime Unseen" on Gather Round the Mic. He wrote a little something about each of the artists in the show. Here's what he said about Killing Season:

"All of the photographers involved in the show take different approaches to looking at the intersections between crime and photography, though all, in some way, look at its effects. Those effects can be quite disparate, though, varying in the specificity of the crime, and the focus on either the human or societal impacts of the crime. The most expansive approach comes from Krista Wortendyke in her piece Killing Season: Chicago. Between October 2010 and January 2011, Wortendyke photographed the site of every homicide in the city, often days or weeks after the crime was committed. These photographs are arranged chronologically on a wall. In times when there were many murders, the photographs rise high, while gaps between crimes leave gaps, creating the image of a city skyline. The images, absent of context, are exceedingly banal, combined with the unique display method, all serve to illustrate how violence and crime disappears into the make-up of a city, and can become as integral to its composition as its buildings."

Click here to read the whole article.

Reader recommends "Crime Unseen"

"Crime Unseen" was recommended by the Chicago Reader as the show to see this week! Read the full article HERE.

"Crime Unseen" in New City

Jason Foumberg covered both "Crime Unseen" at the Museum of Contemporary Photography and "The Happiness Project" curated by Trish van Eck in New City's Eye Exam this week. I am excited to have an image featured as well as a nice mention of my work in the MoCP show.

See the article HERE.

Killing Season Addendum

Please visit my new project blog Addendum. I am writing about my experiences and posting photos from my adventures as I embark on this new piece, an offshoot of Killing Season Chicago, made for specifically for Crime Unseen at the Museum of Contemporary Photography. The show will run from October 28th - January 15th. This addendum will be a data driven visual bar graph mirroring the homicides in 2010 during time period of the show.

Wrapping up the West Side...Almost

Along with needing to go out and photograph the few extra homicides that showed up suddenly on the homicide tracker since I finished last fall, I also have a few places I wanted to revisit and re-photograph. I got a text from X at about 6:30 in the morning asking if we were still on. It looked dark outside from the comfort of my bed, so I pulled myself up to go look out the window. It was overcast and a little wet, but otherwise perfect light for photographing. We were on.
X picked me up about an hour later in his almost brand new car. It was quite a change from having to leave the passenger side door open when we got out to photograph since the door didn't open from the outside. This car was shiny and perfect. I hopped in and we headed to the West Side. I had 5 new places to visit and 5-6 that I was hoping to re-visit. X is back working on the West Side since his citywide unit was disbanded, so it seemed natural to hit up that area first.
Our first stop covered two of the sites that I wanted to re-shoot. The first was 5101 West Monroe Street in the West Side's Austin neighborhood where Brian Daniel was shot while he was standing on the sidewalk. The shooting happened at about 4:45 p.m. on August 16th. Brian was playing cards when three male assailants approached and opened fire. Two other suspects fired shots at a group across the street from where Brian was standing, striking the him while he tired to run from the scene. He suffered multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at 8:30 p.m. at Stroger Hospital. Police believe the shooting was gang-related. Since it was an overcast morning with perfectly diffused light, I took the opportunity to re-shoot the same image I made last summer with much better lighting. The block was extremely quiet save for a few pedestrians, one of whom entered the building that Daniel was shot in front of. She seemed unconcerned with my photographing.
Diagonally across the intersection from this site was 5049 West Monroe Street in Austin where Ronnie Peterson was found shot in the head in his car in the late afternoon on Sunday August 22nd. Reports say that someone inside a vehicle that pulled up next to his car fired several shots at him. This incident happened just five days after Brian Daniel was shot. Could two people shot on the same corner within five days of each other possibly be unrelated? Last time I photographed here there was a man walking back and forth in and out of my frame. As it turned out I didn't have a good image without him in it. I took the chance on this quiet morning to get an image free of people.
We got back in the car and headed for 4150 West Grenshaw Street where Anthony Clemons was shot and killed on the morning of August 17th in the West Side's Lawndale neighborhood. The shooting happened at about 8:25 a.m. It was still early and this block was also extremely quiet. Since last year, a little red brick house across the street from the site had been abandoned. It looked as though a tree branch crumpled a corner of the eave over the front porch and broke the large front bay window. It was now half boarded up. We visited this location last year while hubbub erupted a few blocks away. There had been a shooting just north west of the site. X thought that it would be a great opportunity to go to the site while the early morning gunfire left everyone retreated into their homes. The often busy area, he said, would be deserted. Today there was only a small group of young men sitting on the front stoop of a house about a block west.


We were close to the station so next we stopped in to obtain the exact addresses of the 5 new sites that we had not visited yet. I followed X into the building and downstairs past doors that read things like "Gang Unit" on their placards. Papers were posted on the walls that were filled with the faces of undesirables. X stopped in front of one to show me a guy that he had been telling me a story about in the car. We ducked into a room and pulled up two chairs next to the computer. The wall above us was strewn with fliers announcing new and innovative ways that criminals were hiding their dope, guns, etc. The most memorable to me were a gun stashed in what looked like a 7-11 big gulp and a lipstick that is really a knife. There were some pretty inventive ideas up there. If only they could be used in a more productive way. We got the addresses and also began to work through my list of questions. Things like, "Was this a double homicide?" We made some progress then decided to leave the rest for another time.

Garfield Park Conservatory's Fern Room windows post hailstorm

We pulled out of the station and headed to our next location. We passed by the Garfield Park Conservatory, which is closed indefinitely after massive damage from a hailstorm earlier in the summer. I could see the damaged roof and broken windows from Lake Street. We arrived at 3125 West Washington where Alan Penny was doused in gasoline and lit on fire in his home on July 2, allegedly by his girlfriend, after the two had an argument. The sun had burned off the early morning haze and the sun was now shining relentlessly. When X and I visited this location last summer, a car was parked in front of the site with what looked like a bullet hole over the driver side wheel well. This summer it looked like a whole new neighborhood. A man was tending to his garden across the street, a lone tree in an empty lot stood alone, where last summer a host of junkies and drunks shaded, and bikers passed in a steady stream. I photographed, while X and I marveled at the changes.
Our next location was 735 North Monticello where Isaac Davis III was shot and killed. This location was one that I was weary going back to. I only got two frames off before X ushered me out last time. The site is across the street from a Head Start. Today we arrived just as school was beginning. Parents dropped their kids off one by one, making it much friendlier than the last visit. The two dope spots that were on opposing corners a half a block up last summer were gone. I assume interrupted by the massive construction project on Chicago. Currently there are no corners for them to hold. I had plenty of time to get the images I wanted this time around.
We pulled onto Chicago amid all the construction to head to the next location. We passed a storefront with big iron grating in front of the windows. X told me that he picked up a guy there that was dealing heroin. They found his stash in a magnetic hide a key behind one of the grates. He told me a few more stories as we headed to the first new location at 655 North Spaulding. On June 17th, a local rapper and another man were accused of beating 46-year-old Larry Brown to death because he accidentally scratched the rapper's car. This may not have showed up on the homicide report until later because Brown went into a coma before he eventually died of the injuries he sustained. X was skeptical of the visit the location because a few weeks ago, a police officer shot someone a block away from there. He decided we could go take a look and if it looked ok we'd get out. Things were pretty quiet there. A young man sat on his stoop smoking a cigarette, but there was no one else around. X decided that if anyone asked our story was that we were part of the investigation of the police shooting. He figured that would put us on their side and we would pose no threat. As I set up my tripod and photographed the man that was smoking walked on to the sidewalk and paced up and down the block. He watched us carefully. Soon another man came walking down the street and began to shout "po-po, po-po!" After he passed, the other young man came towards us and said, "You ain't the po-po, are you?" X responded, "I don't know, am I." as he lifted his shirt revealing his police radio. The man smiled and said, "Damn! You is the po-po." As we got back into the car the man asked if the photographs had anything to do with the shooting. X told him they did. The man responded, "That was some crazy shit." We smiled and were on our way.
There was another location close by that X was pretty sure we wouldn't be able to photograph, but he thought we could at least drive by and see. He said that he thought it was a drug house, but he wasn't positive. He was right, as we drove past 3359 West Iowa, I could see that the house was teeming with young boys hanging on the stoop, calling out, and watching us carefully as we passed by. We would have to revisit that location at a very early hour to get a chance at a photograph.
Our last location was a redo of a site from last summer. We had the address of the victim's house rather than the location of the murder. I discovered this while looking through the news reports. The address we photographed for Adrian Gates was on a residential street, but the image showed cops placing numbers on the ground in front of a gas station. X and I found the real address, 3656 West Grand. It was on a heavily traveled street about half a block down from a gas station. While we were photographing there, a man walked up with a scraggily looking pit bill that he was walking. It had a belt around it's neck for a collar. He told us that it was running around the neighborhood, so he was taking care of it until the owner came back. He expressed how bad he felt for it. Obviously the owner didn't treat the dog very well.
At this point X and I decided to call it a day. We would go out at least one more time to photograph the remaining spots which include one on the west side and about 5 on the south.

Red Eye

'Killing Season Chicago' was featured on the Red Eye's Wicker Park/Bucktown blog yesterday.
Check it out here.

Violet Hour's New Mural is Homicide Reminder

Chicago Tribune Covers 'Killing Season'

I have some exciting news! Earlier this week I was interviewed by Lauren Viera from the Chicago Tribune about my 'Killing Season' installation at The Violet Hour. The article and accompanying photographs were published in the Arts & Leisure section of today's paper. If you get the printed copy, check it out. The online version can be accessed via this link.
'Killing Season' Yields Public Art

Killing Season Mentioned on WBEZ's 848

I got a nice mention by Lauren Viera on WBEZ's the 848 on Monday while she was being interviewed about public art in Chicago.
The broadcast can be heard here.
Chicagoans reconsider public art after peeking up Marilyn Monroe's dress

Killing Season Chicago

Killing Season Chicago at The Violet Hour in Wicker Park

As of May 1st 2010, it was estimated that the same number of Americans were killed in Chicago as in the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq combined. In a time when Americans are focused on simultaneous wars in places that are beyond our immediate reach, I am interested in exposing the breadth of violence that occurs right here in the city of Chicago. It is common to hear someone say after a particularly devastating day for the city, "And it's not even summer yet." As the temperature rises so does the homicide rate. Beginning on Memorial Day and ending on Labor Day of 2010, I tracked the homicides in the city. Once the crime scenes were processed and the yellow tape was taken down, I visited and photographed the locations of each murder. This piece, which represents the homicides that took place between July 1st and Labor Day, shows 107 of the 173 killings in the city last summer. The form of the installation is created by data. Reading left to right, each day is represented by a column, each person that was killed on that day is stacked on that column in the order that they were killed. The result is a chart that looks like a city skyline. The purpose of this installation is to make tangible the statistics that we gloss over in the news every day.


The installation is finally complete. Stop by The Violet Hour for some tasty cocktails and check it out!

1520 N Damen: Day 3

After 3 hours of painstakingly cutting out stencils, I finally got to put the finishing touches on the facade of the Violet Hour yesterday morning. With the help of my wife and my father-in-law, I taped up the stencils for the words "Killing Season Chicago" and spray painted them a bright construction cone orange.




Under the chart, I added the months July, August and September to indicate what time period the installation represents.




As we were painting, a young woman from the neighborhood stopped to express her concern over the word "killing" being painted on a wall in her neighborhood. After explaining the project to her, she asked whether it would be clear as to how I stood on the issue. Erica explained that it was about raising awareness and that clearly, no one is for killing.




After peeling off the stencils, people really started to stop and look. It made me excited to see so many people wander by and stop to check it out.

1520 N Damen: Day 2

Killing Season had to be slightly modified to fit on the front of The Violet Hour. In order for the images to be a decent size, I had to cut out some of the timeline. I decided that since the installation was going up on July 1st, that I would start from that date and end on Labor Day. On Thursday, I returned to the wall to wheat paste up the images with the help of my friend Rachel Esser and my wife Erica.



Wicker Park is such a bustling neighborhood, which made for a very interesting day. I ended up talking to all kinds of people about what I was doing. One gentleman asked if the homes were for sale. After hearing about the project, he came back repeatedly throughout the day to look as the installation grew.



An older gentleman stopped and chatted with us for awhile about everything from Lady Gaga to Al Capone. He even did a little dance for us after which he told every girl who walked by that they either looked like Lady Gaga or Jennifer Lopez.





My friend Cassie Stadnicki took pictures while we worked. Check out her website to see more of her work.