Posts about Central St. Louis
The entire block of Mississippi Avenue between Lafayette Avenue and Kennett Place is in-fill, constructed in the first decade of the Twenty-First Century. But if we look back to Compton and Dry, we learn there was a whole other life… Continue Reading
Here we go again; more crumbling infrastructure has to be torn down and replaced; in Baby Boomers’ lifetimes we are now going on the third bridge in some parts of St. Louis, such as the Grand Viaduct. Interstate 44 has… Continue Reading
Park Avenue east of Missisippi Avenue has always had a mix of commercial activity since the 1870s, as Compton and Dry’s Pictorial St. Louis shows. Manufacturing was always a fact of life, as well, with industrial uses south of Park.… Continue Reading
The block between Benton Place and Mississippi Avenue is well-preserved, with many of its original houses from the 1870s still standing, but with some interesting twists and in-fill, both from the late Nineteenth Century and early Twenty-First Century. The Sanborn… Continue Reading
The block between MacKay (formerly Armstrong) and Benton places might be short, but it is jam-packed with history and beautiful architecture. It has also changed very little since 1876, when Compton and Dry’s Pictorial St. Louis was published. Two of… Continue Reading
Heading east of Missouri Avenue, we encounter one of those houses that I have a weakness for: the three story Italianate townhouse. It’s hard to see, but it has a hipped roof on top. It’s also missing its cornice, but… Continue Reading
Lafayette Square certainly has clearly defined borders; on the west it is the traffic sewer that is South Jefferson Avenue. Automobiles hurtle along this stretch, rushing to get to the I-44 interchange since there is not a complete set of… Continue Reading
Readers will probably have two reactions to the discussion of the closure of the five entrances and exits in this post. It will either be, “I’ve never heard of these in my entire life,” or “Oh no, those were my… Continue Reading
If there’s any neighborhood that’s changed the most dramatically as far as the built environment goes in the last decade, it has to be the Grove. Sure, there has been more new construction north of Highway 40, Interstate 64, but… Continue Reading
It’s hard to truly convey how much McRee Town, or Botanical Heights, as it’s known today, has changed over the last twenty years. Take the two houses above; they used to have third companion to the left, which was in… Continue Reading