Heading east on Carroll Street from Eighteenth Street, we realize that the area east of the park was largely undeveloped by 1876, most likely to the presence of karst topography (there were caves in the vicinity, as well). In fact, Eighteenth was still known as Second Carondelet Avenue, a planned but ultimately terminated attempt at the City to create an alternate route to Carondelet Road (today’s Broadway) south to Carondelet through the St. Louis Commons (further south we know it as future 13th Street, now DeMenil Place).

But I digress. Carroll Street is another example of one of the side streets of Lafayette Square that makes the neighborhood so unique. Yes, the mansions around the park are amazing, but so are these smaller and middle class houses.

The south side of Carroll Street was anchored by a stately public school for decades.

Chet Ashley Ross, Peabody School, Second Carondelet Avenue and Carroll Street, 1890, Missouri History Museum, N27444

The Italianate rowhouses above are incredibly rare, and are real survivors. Many of these were demolished with the clearance of Mill Creek in the mid Twentieth Century.

Then we arrive at Dolman Street, which was originally Curran Street, but due to simplification of street names, was subsumed into what was probably the earlier or longer thoroughfare in the Twentieth Century.

The house at the northeast corner is a curiosity, in that it is abandoned. It is a beauty, and surely will be renovated soon.

The rest of the block is an interesting mixture of housing types before we arrive at the barricade of the Truman Parkway, which was originally Grattan Street.