Update: The entire area seen in these pictures was cleared for the new National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in 2017. The City of St. Louis cut ties with Paul McKee’s Northside in June of 2018. Earlier this February, I came across some strange sights in the footprint of McKee’s failed Northside project, where the city is now…
Month: February 2016
Second Empire House, Near North Side
I could have sworn I had a picture of the front of this house, but I can’t seem to find it now. But what a story this house tells. While yes, many houses, when converted to boarding houses saw expansions out the back, I do not think that is what happened here. This was just…
Clemens Mansion, Two Weeks in Winter 2016
Update: Completely destroyed by suspected arson in the early morning hours of July 12, 2017. The site is now a vacant lot. See photos of the mansion in the 1960s here. At this rate, the Clemens Mansion is going to be a pile of rubble in a few years. Offers to help or even buy…
Gate District, Revisited
I’m still suspicious of the Gate District, a redevelopment in the 1980s where most of the existing housing stock was leveled and replaced with wood frame houses typical of that decade. There is still a lot of the historic fabric left, however. Honestly, from what is left, I find it hard to believe that all…
Fox Park Early Vernacular, Revisited
Update: I went back in the late summer of 2019. I really like the houses on Ohio just north of St. Francis de Sales Church in Fox Park, which I examined in part of this earlier post. I think I finally figured out the deal with the house below; just as in other parts of…
The Funky Alley, Benton Park West
Weird things abound in this city, the result of the slow, often hodgepodge rate of development. But sometimes, those weird things survive up to the present day, such as the “funky alley,” as I call it, just southwest of the intersection of Ohio and Gravois. Even back in 1875, in the Compton and Dry, you…
3300 Block of Michigan, Benton Park West
Benton Park West, really the northern tip of Dutchtown, is easily one of my favorite neighborhoods. This is the 3300 block of Michigan, which captures the neighborhood’s identity well. Construction started around the Civil War, so the housing stock, like the flounder house below, can be very old, but then later the “in-fill” around 1900…
Train Kept A-Rollin’
MacArthur Bridge approaches at 7th Street. Age and grit.
Little Flatiron Gone
It’s really hard for me, and I know a lot of other people, to know that this little guy is gone.