Merchants Ice and Fuel Company was one of numerous companies that provided ice and coal for St. Louisans. Its plant now sits empty, surrounded by various other industrial buildings as well.
Month: June 2014
Abandoned Apartments, North Broadway Area
Update: Demolished in the winter of 2018. The site is now a vacant lot. Many of my friends and I have long looked at this august row of simple apartments. They sit on the wrong side of the interstate, dooming them to obsolescence. Surely some trucking company will probably come for them at some point,…
More Devastation East of the Interstate
Update: The building above has been demolished. I often tell people that large numbers of people once lived in the areas now east of I-70 and I-55, but that the interstates destroyed their connection to the rest of the city to the west. But what is so interesting is that many of these buildings continued…
Alley House Collapse, Old North
I realize that by posting these pictures, I am giving the wrong impression about the overall state of rehabbing and development that is making Old North St. Louis one of the most exciting neighborhoods in the region. But that being said, there is a certain captivating aspect of how this humble, wood frame alley house…
Vignettes from Castlewood
Valued reader Joyce Pharriss provided an invaluable window of life in what would become Castlewood State Park when it still operated as privately owned resorts along the Meramec River. From the mid-1920’s until about 1961, my mom and dad spent a lot of time on the Meramec River near Castlewood State Park. At some point,…
Southern McKinley Heights
Update: I revisited the area in June of 2020. Update: I revisited the area yet again in November of 2020 in two posts here and here. Tucked away, back on narrow little streets and alleys that have their own names, south of grand Russell Boulevard, an old, intimate part of the inner city of St….
Russell Boulevard, McKinley Heights
Leafy trees dominate the segment of Russell Boulevard that goes through McKinley Heights, a small neighborhood south of Lafayette Square. Expensive, lavish four-family flats point to the area’s relative wealth at the turn of the Twentieth Century, when many of these buildings were built. I’ve always been interested in why so much of the housing…
We’ll Leave the Light on For You
This abandoned apartment building, plywood rapidly fading to gray, still at least has one operable light bulb. Who’s paying the bill?
Second Empire House, Benton Park West
Update: I reexamined this house in 2016; read about it here. I find it endlessly fascinating how the perceived proper location for a house on its plot of land has changed in this city over the centuries. Also, it’s interesting to see how the “early birds” in neighborhoods, often decades before the primary settlement of…