Probably almost nobody in St. Louis remembers Merchant Street, and the bustling community that once lined its two blocks between Second Street and South Broadway. Originally named Carondelet Street, it was basically wiped away in the urban renewal plan for what we now call the Kosciusko neighborhood, but for over a century it represented the…
Month: June 2021
North Side of Stansbury Street, Marine Villa
Stansbury Street is one of those weird little streets that only goes for one block, and takes its name from the addition of city lots to the city over one hundred years ago. There are some interesting houses, including the one above that I guess is undergoing a gut rehab. After World War II, some…
The Neighborhood Around St. John the Baptist, Revisited
Just as I had done back in 2013, after I had looked at St. John the Baptist, I also photographed the streets near the church. I realized there had in fact been some changes. For example, above, looking down Adkins Street (last photograph in the old post), the lot on the left shows where the…
St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Church, Revisited
I was in Bevo, driving down Delor, and I spotted St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Church, which I sometimes forget about because it is tucked away back in the neighborhood. I’d photographed it back in July of 2013, and the light was not very good. This day it was much better. Like a traditional…
Resurrection of the Zombie Subdivision, Wildwood
We returned to the zombie subdivision in Wildwood that was one of the victims of the housing crash back in 2008 (remember that–it seems a million years ago now). It’s actually sort of interesting to see how the real estate market dealt with this problem. Off Crescent Road, individual homeowners have simply bought the adjacent…
The Central West End and The Case of the Vanishing House
Update: When I revisited the property in the winter of 2023, construction had begun on a replacement house (fourth and fifth photos). Someone must know the story behind this house just west of Boyle on Laclede. I was told what happened years ago, but now I’ve forgotten. There was a nice late Nineteenth Century house…
West Pine Boulevard Between Newstead and Boyle Avenues, South Side
The south side of West Pine Boulevard east of Newstead has a total different character, with two apartment buildings from the early Twentieth Century. Then the houses to the east are clearly from the first decade or two of the 1900s. It is interesting that the north side of the street developed earlier, and then…
West Pine Boulevard Between Newstead and Boyle Avenues, North Side
Heading east from Newstead, looking at the north side of West Pine Boulevard, we come across what I think is easily one of the best kept secrets of preserved rows of Romanesque Revival houses in St. Louis. But to stress the point, and can be seen in the house in the photos above and below,…
West Pine Boulevard Between Newstead and Taylor Avenues, South Side
Heading west then from Newstead to Boyle Avenue on the south side of West Pine Boulevard, we see some more Romanesque Revival and related houses that survived later development. I particularly liked the house below, with its massive rounded tower out front. Then there’s this forgettable 1960s apartment building; I have a friend who lived…
West Pine Boulevard Between Taylor and Newstead Avenues, North Side
Moving past the Hawthorne and Taylor Avenue, I realized that West Pine Boulevard has an amazing collection of preserved Romanesque Revival houses from the late Nineteenth Century. While there’s all sorts of development going on further west, and the stereotype of the Central West End is that it was built up after the World’s Fair,…