When I was growing up in Chicago – Hyde Park – friends and I would drive these long roads and boulevards – getting high and talking about why things appeared this way, the books we were reading and the theories we thought they contained. The long meditative journey provided an escape from what we were supposed to be doing and a bridge both to the city and the future we imagined that we might inhabit in that or some other city. After returning to Chicago – having lived in Ithaca, Paris, Rome, and New York, learning about so many other road types and how they held the city together – I wanted to direct a more critical eye to these roads up and down which I had passed so many time – most likely, by car rather than on foot. By choosing to walk Western Ave – a road largely intended to move people in cars rather than foster a vibrant street life – I was at once drawing upon the legacy of the Surrealist derive as well as the work of both the Situationists and earth artists in my use of the walk as medium that can hold something to be offered up later for inspection by a broader public. As with those in Paris fascinated by the Zone where the city became the country, I was also looking at a line of demarcation. The meaning and significance of this line is, however, far from clear. It is changing as new investment pours into the city and those who once called this landscape their home are forced to find another place for shelter. This ambiguity can be seen as one walks north along Western and in the role that it plays in marking a line of gentrification between east and west. In many ways, the series of photographs is just the beginning for an ongoing process of documenting this blocks and expanding farther north and south.