Observed arrival · 2026-08-31

Before These Walls — the history of a house, from public records

beforethesewalls.com Observed source

Editorial interest 78/100 Selection signal · not a rating of the site

A planned address-history service assembling deeds, permits, plats, maps, and newspaper archives into reports about individual buildings.

Landing page captured for the 2026-08-31 issue.

Field notes

The site describes an address-resolution layer keyed to Cook County parcel PINs, with monthly refreshes and tolerance for missing units or transposed digits. Planned report adapters will query deeds, permits, newspaper archives, maps, and plats on demand while retaining raw responses and attaching a source ID to each statement. The index is described as live with 1,863,549 parcels, but reports are not yet available for purchase.

Observed signals

Read the marks

Editorial observations of this landing page, not a rating.

○OpenPublic substance visible

✦PrettyNotable craft visible

●ProPolished or operationally mature

◎NicheUnusually specific use

◉HumanPersonal, local, civic, or handmade

ƒJavaScriptBrowser-side code central

One card from the complete issue

Habitat Reduced to One Settee

219,482 arrived 1,000 judged 999 catalogued Enter the complete issue