Holy smokes. Did you guys catch the terrifying photos from Dock Street yesterday? A CSX train derailed on the trestle near N. 20th St., sending three boxcars into the canal. Miraculously, the cargo wasn’t toxic (it appears to be corn or some kind of grain), and no injuries have been reported. The Richmonder has more. Per a city release this morning, both Dock St. and the Capital Trail are closed.

Anyway. Today is Independence Day, and while it may feel like America herself has gone off the rails, it is a Saturday, and I hope you’re able to take some time to relax and recuperate. Ideally somewhere with powerful air-conditioning, and/or an ice-cold mountain stream.

As has become holiday tradition here at HQ, your humble Lookout editor is taking a break from regular publishing. Instead, below you’ll find updates on the state of the newsletter (good!), more footage of flooding at Chimborazo Playground (bad!), and some other editorial bonuses.

Regular programming resumes next week. Let’s hope the Avula administration’s decision to cancel the city’s official fireworks display at Dogwood Dell does not inspire additional local dipshits to fire their guns in the air this evening. See you on the other side.—Dave.

After more than 18 months as “just” a newsletter/website, The Lookout can now also be found on:

Please follow them all!

Because I spend entirely too much time on The Platforms™️ for my real job, I’ve hired a reader to help me manage The Lookout’s social-media channels. Maybe I’ll introduce them at some point, if they’re cool with it. For the time being, our strategy is very much just to maintain a low-effort presence on these platforms so that people looking for The Lookout there can find it.

In other words, don’t expect original reporting and commentary native to social media. The best way to keep abreast of The Lookout’s coverage will always be to read the newsletter and website. Same goes for submitting tips, photos, etc.; please do not send them via social media, because we don’t plan to closely monitor The Lookout’s inboxes there. Please continue to get in touch via email or Signal using these instructions. But now, you’ll be able to more easily send East End memes to your Instagram groupchats. If you’re into that sort of thing, that is.

Speaking of social media! As you may have noticed, I’ve published a few video reports on the flooding at Chimborazo Playground to L’Affair Pétanque Liveblog. They’re pretty rudimentary, because I am not a very competent video editor. But I think/hope they add some dimension to the coverage. All the videos can be found in the Lookout playlist on my YouTube channel.

The footage is a mix of stuff I’ve shot, and submissions from tipsters. If you have video footage—of Chimborazo Playground, or anything else—that you’d like to share with The Lookout for possible publication, please do.

As you can see, The Lookout has experienced an enormous amount of growth over the past three months. Welcome to all the new readers, and thanks to everybody who’s been here from the jump. The Lookout does not have a marketing budget, and relies entirely on word-of-mouth to reach new audiences in Church Hill and the surrounding neighborhoods. Tell your friends, neighbors, and low-stakes East End enemies:

Some other topline stats, for those interested:

Shifting to Saturday sends has smoothed out my workflow a bit, and it does not seem to have affected open rates in any meaningful way. That massive uptick in click-through rate appears to have been driven by the increase in web-only pieces. Publishing directly to web has been a good way for me to cover more timely items and, conversely, to bank “evergreen” items to fill out newsletters on a slow news week, so I’m glad to see readers have been engaging with them.

The steep upwards growth you see in the chart above seems to be coming largely from The Lookout’s ongoing coverage of the snafu at Chimborazo Playground. Which, great, a core function of this publication is informing the neighborhood about what’s going on in the neighborhood.

Filed a bonus item to the web earlier this week:

As a reminder, Mad Enough to Blog It™️ is local media criticism by The Lookout's founding editor, Dave Infante. Read more, and/or submit terrible local media to be considered for future critiques.

Courtesy of Lookout reader Sarah Mason, the latest edition of East End Animal Friend is live now, and cute as hell:

As a reminder, East End Animal Friends is a recurring feature spotlighting the many creature companions of Church Hill and its surrounds. Fill out this form to introduce your beloved animal(s) to the neighborhood in a future edition of The Lookout!

I had been rolling these out once a month, but because there are so many readers with adorable pets to share, that cadence has produced quite a backlog. Moving forward, I’ll try to include EEAFs a little more regularly. If you’ve been anxiously awaiting your pet’s feature, thanks for your patience!

Each week, The Lookout publishes a different photo of the East End shot by one of your very talented neighbors, like the ones above and below. In the past, I accepted those submissions via email, but that got kind of chaotic. So I just set up a Google Form to make it easier for you to submit your pictures, and for me keep track of them. (If you don’t have a Gmail account, you can continue to submit them directly to me via email.)

This also marks an exciting new dimension for this feature. Starting now, every Very CHill Photo will be entered into the public domain, which assists archivists like Yesterdays in creating free, open-source visual records of the neighborhood over time. (You will always retain credit as the photographer.) This is the same license I apply to all the photos I’ve taken and published at The Lookout. Learn more at Creative Commons, and/or submit your Very CHill Photos now.

Here are the top three most-read editions of The Lookout since Memorial Day (not including l’affair pétanque and other special coverage.) In reverse chronological order: