In light of the launch of EveryBlock and some hosting issues, Adrian Holovaty is shutting down chicagocrime.org and has posted his reflections on the site.

As he points out, it wasn’t the first mashup ever launched, but it was the first one that enabled me to see what was really possible when you combine data from a number of Web sites to create something new and different. These days, the word “mashup” almost seems dated, but back they were fresh and startlingly innovative.

chicagocrime.org was an incredible illustration of a new way forward for the Web, and it’s kind of surprising to think that it’s already time for it to go, having been superseded by something even more robust and interesting.