One last check up of The Chong.

“I knelt down to my camera bag to change lenses, but in the spot usually reserved for a wide angle, I had the ring that we had picked out together. I hadn’t been nervous until the elevator ride up. I didn’t know what to say, but hoped I had said it in letters, actions, and conversations prior. I simply asked her—this person who means more than anyone could know, who understands better than anyone could—to marry me.”

“25 days, maybe a month,” that’s what the man sitting at the desk inside the entrance said to me when I asked how much longer The Chong had. He didn’t seem much more interested in my follow up questions of what would come next or what brought on the anticipated closure.

While out shooting photographs in the city, lazily wandering around without any real agenda or plans, my friend Andrea and I spotted all of the “Store Closing/Everything Must Go” signs. I had occasionally passed The Chong Inc.’s storefront over the years, never paying it much mind. This time, though, we were fixated on the windows in the same way kids would’ve once crowded around downtown department stores at Christmas.

Behind the old curtains and beneath the old sign, Yum Yum Chinese Restaurant was actually open and serving dinner.

In Downtown Cincinnati, there’s a significant piece of street art that’s perhaps best viewed, ironically, from local art institutions rather than the street itself.

In Hawaii, a fading technology is still common.

I love Phil’s work, not just for his prose or the way he composes and executes wonderful photographs, but for the subjects he chooses to cover. The way he looks at the city, the things he finds interesting. He does good work over at Cincinnati Refined and in his personal time too. When I came across his story about chatting with one of the men behind designing and building Bicentennial Commons, I was reminded about a greenspace in the city that can be overlooked these days, but is still an icon in the landscape. A place I used to find myself frequently.