After a murder-suicide shook his Brighton neighborhood, author and RIT Professor Peter Lovenheim set out to get to really know his neighbors.

Dr. Robert Wills shot and killed his wife, then himself, in February of 2000 on Sandringham Road in Brighton.

Lovenheim, who lives a few doors down from the home, said after the tragedy he realized many neighbors did not know the Wills family well, if at all. To get to really know them, he wanted to sleep over their homes.

While some neighbors told him no, others agreed. Lovenheim became friends with a single mother of two battling breast cancer, a realtor with a budding art career and an 81-year-old widower and retired surgeon.

"I started thinking deeply about how Americans live as neighbors today. I asked myself in an age of cheap long distance, discount airlines and the Internet where we can create community anywhere, how is it that we often don't know the people next door and what do we lose living as strangers to each other," said Lovenheim.

Lovenheim documented his experience in his book, "In the Neighborhood: The Search for Community on an American Street, One Sleepover at a Time."

For more about the book or Lovenheim’s upcoming local appearances, click on the link below.

Peter Lovenheim
Jamie Columbus