“Hi, I’m Danny. I’m interested in stories,” says Danny Harris, publisher of the blog, People’s District. With a scooter and a microphone, Harris collects layers of city history from hundreds of different perspectives. The people he talks to and their singular views of Washington add “this amazing texture to how we understand our world.”

Harris has talked to everyone from a homeless veteran, who told him, “I just want to be seen. I just want to be acknowledged,” to a woman on her death bed who recited a narrative of her life. “I think there’s a lot of wisdom out there from everybody,” he says. People’s District is his contribution to acknowledging that wisdom and to “seeing the beauty of the stories.”

Though he is no stranger to talking to strangers, his work has not settled into predictability. “There’s still a lot of uncertainty, and actually I enjoy that,” he confesses. “It’s like going on a first date every day.”

Harris spends a lot of time with each story, both with its teller and the audio he gathers and transcribes for his webpage. As Harris got deeper into his project, he “felt really humble, because people reached out to me and they said, ‘We really need this.’”

As he continues to collect DC narratives and share them on People’s District, Harris hopes to explore the remnants of departed communities. He wants to find out more about what was, and is “interested in the ghosts of the immigrant community.” Whether Italian immigrants in Brookland, Seventh Street Jews, or pockets of Greek families, “there used to be these thriving communities . . . who ended up leaving.”

But not everything has been lost, Harris believes. “There are so many of these communities that hold onto what was.” Just as he opens himself to people and their stories, the city reveals its layers of existence. “Every inch of this place has narratives around it,” Harris stresses. He is uncovering those inches, one face at a time.