Church Hill’s resident cartographic lunatic (laudatory) is at it again, folks.

John Pole, the Chimborazo Boulevard-based power-user of MapRVA’s tremendously fun geospatial history tool/game Yesterdays, recently struck out in pursuit of a new hyperlocal mapping obsession: the locations of the neighborhood’s many historic plaques. The Lookout spotted him last weekend with his six year-old son, Theodore, scouring the streets of the East End to take photos of the Historic Richmond Foundation’s (HRF) black placards on public buildings and private residence.

Those photos, Pole will then upload to a new MapRVA display developed by his geospatial confreres, Jacob Hall and Mike O’Brien, helping to create another visual digital network of the neighborhood’s rich history.

“As a Church Hill resident and owner of a contributing structure to the Oakwood-Chimborazo Historic District myself, I have loved the ability to learn more about Richmond and Church Hill history through this effort,” he said via email.

Tracking down Church Hill’s plethora of plaques is painstaking shoe-leather work in part because it’s not clear whether Historic Richmond has a master list of their locations on file. (In this, the MapRVA footman’s remit recalls that of Steven Keener, Ph.D., the Church Hill-based criminal-justice professor who is working to validate all the locations of Richmond Police Department’s Flock automated license-plate readers.) Pole has asked, and hopes one turns up. In the meantime, he’s hunting plaques the old-fashioned way—and making progress.

“I’ve conservatively taken at least 65” pictures of plaques in the East End, Pole estimated in a follow-up text exchange. To render them on MapRVA’s slick new tool, he has been uploading them to this designated folder on Wikimedia Commons, which currently features nearly 110 images of the plaques. Fellow MapRVA operative O’Brien (who led the group’s Flock-spotting seminar in Shockoe Bottom in May) has snapped a few as well; an unaffiliated photographer from northern Virginia had also previously uploaded about 25 pictures to the open-source repository.

The upshot: accounting for a few duplicates, Pole and company have either personally taken or sourced photographs of 95 of the 121 HRF plaques they know to exist in Church Hill. In the tradition of 21st-century grassroots researchers all over the country, they’re tracking the work in this shared spreadsheet. Most of the quarries Pole has captured for posterity are located in and around the St. John’s Church Historic District, but MapRVA’s tool also features a few in Union Hill, Church Hill North, and Oakwood-Chimborazo. Plaques marked in yellow on the map have been photographed; those in red still need to be.

Pole’s enthusiasm for documenting the neighborhood is evident in even casual conversation. It may also be contagious—or perhaps Theodore is just genetically predisposed to follow in his father’s photo-cartographic footprints. “Literally any time he sees a plaque [he says] ‘Daddy, do you have a picture of that one yet?’” Pole told me. “It’s been really fun to do with him, and I think a lot of fun for him. It’s such an easy thing to look for, and it gives us a reason to get out and around the neighborhood.”

If you, like Theodore, are picking up what Pole is putting down, you can get in on the action in two different ways. If you know of HRF plaques in the East End that aren’t yet logged on MapRVA’s master spreadsheet, get in touch with him at [email protected] and he’ll put it on the list. Or, if you’re feeling snappy, get out there and photograph some of the ones on the spreadsheet yourself, then upload the photos to the Wikimedia Commons folder using MapRVA’s tagging guidelines. Pole said he welcomes any help hunting Church Hill’s HRF markers. Who wouldn’t? It’s a big neighborhood, and those plaques ain’t gonna photograph themselves.

Possum Poetry is original verse written exclusively for The Lookout by Penelope Poubelle, the Lookout’s litter critter-at-large. If you spot roadside trash you’d like her to immortalize in doggerel, email a photo to [email protected]. All submissions anonymous!

The Lookout was in attendance Thursday evening for the first of two public-listening events put on by the city regarding its now-paused pétanque court expansion at Chimborazo Playground. My report from the two-hour confab:

The second meeting is underway today at Lucks Field from 11am-1pm. The Department of Parks, Recreation, and Community Facilities (DPR) is also soliciting feedback via online survey.

As you may have noticed this week, there’s paving underway throughout Church Hill proper. Did it catch you off guard? Yeah, me too. I’ve followed up with the Department of Public Works (DPW) to get a sense for the scope of the work. In the meantime, DPW did provide a breakout of paving projects scheduled this summer in Church Hill North. From a mid-May press release:

In other roadwork news around the neighborhood, I checked in with DPW last month about the status of Government Rd. which has been closed for two and a half years. Via email, spokesperson Paige Hairston told me on May 7th that a contract had finally been awarded for the project, and that the department expects the work—which includes upgrading underground utilities, stabilizing the hill, and repaving the currently cracked street—to begin and end in the spring of 2027.

“Additionally, the contractor will reconstruct the [Church Hill] Dog Park entrance,” Hairston added.

Happenings on The Hill is a digital bulletin board for events, causes, and other items of interest to East Enders that don’t necessarily merit full editorial treatment. Got something for a future edition? Email the relevant details, links, etc. to [email protected] for consideration!

Want to share your Very CHill Photo from the neighborhood? Email it to [email protected] with your name as you’d like it to appear for publication, and the camera you shot it on.