I discovered that photographer Joel Sternfeld had created a series of photographs where various tragedies had occurred. He also photographed 4421 Gibson Avenue, in the Grove, where Christopher Harris was shot to death when he was used as a human shield by a drug dealer exchanging fire with another man. The photograph above is my approximation of his shot today, 25 years later. The gasometer is gone, torn down 11 years ago.

A lot has changed since then in the Grove, and the house whose porch where the murder happened has been rehabbed, its front brick columns rebuilt and the inside cleaned up. But it is clearly the same house. You can’t see the gasometer anymore, of course. I wonder if the people who live on this block know what happened here long ago, in a different time, when things were not so great around this part of the city.

The pots are gone, replaced with the more palatable balls. Things look nice around here, now. It turns out I had photographed this same block back in the summer of 2014.