Between every two Chicago buildings there is a gangway, and in winter that shaded slot becomes a sheet of ice that lasts until March if nobody touches it. Earls Property Preservation clears the awkward geometry of a city property: the gangway, the back stairs, the narrow path to the alley gate, the apron in front of the garage. The drive and pad are plowed and the rest is shoveled and salted by hand, because that is the only way it reaches the corners. Snow removal on a block of two-flats is less about horsepower than about not skipping the hard six feet. Those six feet are exactly where somebody would have gone down.