Month: December 2010
Union Trust, Downtown
Update: The Union Trust Building was renovated in 2018. The lesser known of the two remaining Louis Sullivan buildings in St. Louis is a gem, even if it’s hard to photograph it in its entirety. I guess it’s a good thing there are other building blocking the view, in the overall scheme of things.
How Important Is a City’s Link with Its River? A Look at Rome, Italy
Update: The new Gateway Arch grounds are now complete. All the discussion recently about the new Arch Grounds competition and how St. Louis has lost its soul by being disconnected from the Mississippi River raised some interesting questions in my mind. I started thinking about how various cities that I’ve visited around the world embrace…
National Stockyards’ Pre-Columbian History
It turns out there was a major Mississippian culture city under the National Stockyards around one thousand years ago. Read the article here before it expires at the Post-Dispatch website.
St. Louis: Playground to the Entire Region
Why does it seem like everyone who wants to engage in illegal activity feel the need to come down to the City of St. Louis to cause trouble? I’ve started to notice–and it’s a trend that certainly has been going on for a long time–that many of the high profile crimes in the city recently…
Sunnyside Up #2
Update: Demolished in the summer of 2016. Here is the second installment of my finding a sunnyside-up egg on the ground. See the first one here.
Christmas at Fourth Baptist
Update: Demolished in early 2016. Regardless of your religious views, you have to admit that it’s a shame that the tradition of celebrating Christmas at Fourth Baptist Church came to an end in 2008. For another year since the devastating fire, there will be no Christmas service at the church. Will Christmas ever be celebrated…
St. Liborius, St. Louis Place
St. Liborius, despite lacking its original steeple, is a sight to behold. Perhaps one day, when the street is reborn, the steeple can be replaced, as it was in Washington, DC, in a similar style church. The church once anchored what must have been a stunning streetscape, now almost completely obliterated or replaced with vinyl-sided…
Old North, Land Reutilization Authority Houses
People often talk about how absentee landlords are a major problem for the city, but it’s not always so simple. These are LRA properties (a city agency), according to signage on the buildings and the City Assessor’s Property Database. I like the pile of illegally dumped tires.