Saying ‘screw you’ through architecture: America’s spite houses

(CNN) — It all started out because he was playing around on Google Earth.

Aaron Jackson was at a crossroads. He was living in New York City and working at a nonprofit when the city was devastated by Superstorm Sandy in 2012. Stuck in his small Queens apartment, the self-described “news junkie” spent long stretches online, falling into internet wormholes.

At some point, he says, he came across the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC).

The Church, which is considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center , is best known for organizing pickets at soldiers’ funerals and emblazoning anti-LGBT slogans on protest signs and billboards.

“The first thing I saw was that (the church) was in a neighborhood. I was walking around and I decided to do a 360 view and I saw a ‘for sale’ sign