I looked at Maple Avenue between Hodiamont Avenue and Maple Place briefly way back in December of 2015, but now we’ll look more closely. First up, above, is an interesting story, and it took a bit of sleuthing to show that indeed this building sat right here at one (it’s long gone now). Kerpan’s was…
Tag: Early Twentieth Century Eclectic
South Seventh Boulevard Between Shenandoah and Geyer Avenues
Crossing Shenandoah Avenue and heading north, we see this house standing by itself. It’s obvious that the front facade has been relaid, and judging from the tagging, it’s been sitting like this for a while. But moving north, we see tow examples of houses where there has been successful relaying of brick and occupancy. These…
Sara Lou’s, February 2026
Sara Lou’s is not doing well. We’re still holding out hope that an investor can come in and save the building, but that needs to happen soon. No, the current state of the building is not due to the tornado on May 16, 2026.
Rex-All Warehouse Glow Up
As I was driving down Kingshighway from Bellefontaine Cemetery to the former St. Mark’s, a blinding white object to the right caught my attention. The old Rex-All Warehouse, which I’ve looked at before back in June of 2011 and November of 2018 (fifth through seventh photos) has received a “glow up” as the kids say…
Twenty-Three Years of Paul McKee: St. Louis Place
St. Louis Place has whole streets that once had houses owned by Paul McKee, and one by one, I documented how they were destroyed by brick thieves back in 2008 St. Louis Avenue now is seeing real estate speculation due to the new NGA, which was part of the Northside TIF. In one of the…
Twenty-Three Years of Paul McKee: Hyde Park
Hyde Park was never in the footprint of the Northside TIF, but I can’t help think that it was affected by the disruption that was occurring in the neighborhoods to the south. This neighborhood is really suffering from the effects of abandonment, and the City’s reliance on McKee’s plans diverted attention from residents’ real needs…
Twenty-Three Years of Paul McKee: St. Louis Avenue in JeffVanderLou
Turning right from Garrison Avenue onto St. Louis Avenue, we pass by the abandoned Grace Lutheran, and then past the Lindell Park subdivision, which has avoided much of the Northside TIF purchases. But east of here, there are vacant lots of many former McKee buildings, some of which were demolished now close to twenty years…
From the Vault: Philadelphia, March 2006
I was digging around in the vaults when I came across some twenty year old photographs of Philadelphia. They’re so old that they pre-exist my move back to St. Louis from the East Coast and the founding of St. Louis Patina. This is about five cameras back and lots of growth in my picture-taking abilities….
Minerva Avenue Between Hamilton Avenue and Goodfellow Boulevard, Revisited Yet Again
After checking out the West End, I realized I was close to that block of Minerva Avenue I liked so much, so I thought it was time to see how it was doing. The answer: not good. Compared to the first time I saw the block, which is now eleven(!) years ago in January of…
Oakherst and Oakley Places, West End
I thought I would take some more photographs of the Oakherst Concrete Block National Historic District while I was up in the West End. Platted in 1906 as the Woodland Park Addition, as we’ve seen before back in October of 2017, concrete blocks were manufactured on site for what was considered a new exciting building…