Bob Wire

Look carefully in almost any corner of Chicago and you'll see it. Barbed or even razor wire. It protects our used car lots, garages, roofs, vacant lots, almost any place you really want to keep people out of.

I remember the shock of moving to Chicago and realizing the stuff was all around. Although I grew up in a city, my city didn't have too much of it, at least not where I lived. Yet Chicago had it seemingly in every corner. It was both in your face and fading into the background.

I started to wonder what it said about our society that we would allow something so ugly, and so clearly meant to inflict harm, to invade our streetscape. I couldn't imagine Paris or Barcelona filling up with barbed wire. Yet we put it up and put up with it everywhere.

Still it does have a stark beauty, and I've grown fond of it over the years. I suppose every major American city has the stuff lurking in its corner, but I've kind of come to think it as one of those things that makes Chicago, well, Chicago.