For years after the demolition of the old Four Courts the morgue was still used at the corner of Twelfth and Spruce streets (you can see in the 1920 photo below how the old courthouse has vanished). But finally in 1927, the City of St. Louis turned to its staff architect, L.R. Bowen of the…
Tag: Beaux-Arts
After the Tornado: Union Boulevard
Heading north on Union Boulevard, we see the damage to Waterman Place; normally the house above and below are largely shielded from view but with the trees destroyed, they are exposed. Many of the windows on the Chesterfield, below, have been blown out; I have been told that throughout the area affected by the tornado,…
Saint Louis Art Museum, Nighttime
I was up at the Saint Louis Art Museum almost until close and snapped these photos with the night sky behind it.
Central Post Office
It dawned on me that after I had posted about the major expansion to the Central Post Office, I have never actually posted about the original building, opened in 1935. I’d even featured the murals on the interior back in 2011. Designed by Klipstein and Rathmann, who also designed the Eighteenth Street Parking Garage from…
Four Historic Districts, Bloomington, Illinois, Part One: North Roosevelt Avenue
I was up in Central Illinois, so I thought I would check out some of the historic districts in Bloomington that looked interesting. I’ve already checked out White Place, one of the other prominent historic districts, back in March of 2016. We’ll be looking at four in all, starting with the North Roosevelt Avenue Historic…
Lightwell, Carnahan Courthouse
I was in the Carnahan Courthouse recently on some unrelated business and I spotted an open window that looked into one of two lightwells for the building. I took these photos blindly, sticking my camera out the window. It’s interesting to see how the HVAC systems have been installed in the lightwell since there was…
Magnolia Avenue from Thurman Avenue to Klemm Street, Part One
Crossing Thurman, we see more apartment buildings and houses. This first one is perhaps more reminiscent of the U-shaped buildings of Chicago that are so prevalent, but not so much in St. Louis. But as I often remind readers, apartments in St. Louis, no mater how complicated they look, are usually just four- or six-family…
Downtown Union, Franklin County
I rolled into Union, the county seat of Franklin County, on a quiet afternoon last Saturday and took a look around. Union, like Washington to the north up Route 47, has seen explosive growth in the last thirty years as an exurban community in the larger St. Louis Metropolitan area, so there is a lot…
Farmington, Iowa
The last town heading downstream on the Des Moines River is Farmington, named after the one in Connecticut. Founded in 1839, around the same town as the other settlements in this area, there are some interesting buildings in town. The most notable is the L. Burg Block, constructed in rough stone in 1878 in the…
New Masonic Temple, Redeveloped
I never thought I’d see it, but the New Masonic Temple on Lindell has been successfully redeveloped into apartments, known as the B on Lindell. Not surprisingly, due to its massive size, its interior had never been completed, so the recent renovation was probably working with blank space in much of the building. It’s still…