Update: This building was completely renovated into expensive condominiums. See the building on a sunnier day in this post (ninth photograph).

This hulking apartment building from 1889 must be one of the last holdouts of the “old” Soulard, never renovated, still advertising “rooms for rent” and holding out among the rehabbing that has occurred in the neighborhood for several decades now.

What is the story behind this building? From the back view, it looks to have been originally built as apartments, and not some sort of institutional building. Labeled “tenements” on the 1909 Sanborn maps, there is also a light well in the middle of the building.