The Ruins, North Broadway, Far North Riverfront

I was heading up North Broadway when I spotted something out of the corner of my eye that made me make a U-turn and investigate. Through the lush undergrowth that had sprung up from the heavy rains we’ve seen this spring, I spotted the ruins of an old building peeking out. Through some research, I…

Demolition, The Workhouse

Regardless of your opinion of the Workhouse, or more properly called the Medium Security Institution, it is being demolished, and I thought I would swing by and take a look at the site. I had never actually stopped before, and really, driving along Hall Street, I’m generally looking out for maniac drivers around me so…

Gimblin Street Over to Halls Ferry Road, Baden, May 2025

I turned left onto Gimblin Avenue from Church Road and looked at the vacant lots that had appeared in place of the abandoned houses I had photographed back in February of 2018. There are more burned out houses, as well. But the cool apartment building below, which I also looked at in February of 2018,…

Church Road, Revisited May 2025

To my readers: I am safe from the tornado, but many others are not. Please keep them in your thoughts. In the future, when it is appropriate, I will survey the damage to the historic neighborhoods devastated in this tragic event. I found myself going back up Church Road in Baden again after I had…

The End of Antelope Street

I had just been talking to someone about Antelope Street, that interesting little footnote in St. Louis history in Baden where a row of houses once featured an active train track in their front yard. I was in the area so I wanted to check and see if the last house was still there. It…

Eighteenth Anniversary of Saint Louis Patina: Bombed Out Jack in the Box

Update: A devastating tornado ended up striking the afternoon this post was published. The Jack in the Box is now a Mexican restaurant named Antonio’s. I really didn’t have much planned for the eighteenth anniversary of this website/blog/whatever you want to call it, but then I thought of the bombed out Jack in the Box…

Dutchtown West of Grand Boulevard, Part Four

Continuing on in our look at two family flats in Dutchtown west of South Grand Boulevard, we see more examples that have a front parapet wall. And if you look at the examples above, you can see more of those mass-produced glazed terracotta decorative elements that appear in the larger multi-unit buildings. But there are…

North Twenty-First Street From Bremen Avenue to Penrose Street, Hyde Park

It turns out that I’ve apparently never looked at any of the buildings on North Twenty-First Street, but there are some nice houses along. There are some Second Empire apartment buildings, but also some never ones from the early Twentieth Century, like the ones above. These two houses below are just totally trashed. Sadly, there…