We have been talking about, while walking, the ritualistic aspects of what we are doing. We have set up a sculptural, shrine looking pile of discarded items we have found on our site - and then we walk lines toward it, and away from it. This morning we put a stick of Nag Champa incense at the end ot the three center lines, and walked until they were finished burning.

We then went to the Grand Rapids Library and began researching our plot.

By looking through city directories all the way back to 1912, we found out that there had once been a very prosperous hotel on our plot, the Cody Hotel. Looking at the Sanborn maps from 1953, we found the plot had been edited. When the map was originally made the Cody Hotel still existed, but the map had been ammended in 1955 and 1956.

The Cody on the map had been topped with parchment that reads "PARKING". We looked through the city directories from 1953 to 1956 and figured it was torn down sometime in 1955. We have yet to look through the newspapers from that year to find more information. We also spent time looking at Sanborn maps all the way back to 1867. This map is from 1894:

*EDIT
While searching the internet I came across an amazing photo of the Cody Hotel. It was built as the Warwich Hotel in 1886 and then destroyed in 1958.

-Ben