On the blocks near the old Hawthorne Works, morning arrives sideways — low sun down the numbered avenues, brick still cool from the night, maple shade laid in stripes across the parkway. AJ Landscaping takes Cicero's narrow city lots the way they ask to be taken: mowed in tight, unhurried passes, trimmed close along the gangway fence, edged until a clean gray line runs unbroken to the curb. These lawns are small and completely public, seen by everyone waiting on the corner for a bus, which is exactly why the details carry. Clippings come off the sidewalk instead of scattering, and in fall the leaves are pulled out of the corners before the wind can hand them to a neighbor. A block that looks tended is worth the extra ten minutes, every time.