Finally, we’ll look at some of the details of the ornament in the main auditorium.
Category: Central
Posts about Central St. Louis
The Auditorium, Fox Theater
Moving into what I call the auditorium, for lack of a better term for the theater’s main room for viewing movies, musicals or music, we see more of the elaborate architecture.
The Lobby, Fox Theater
I’ve looked at the exterior of the Fox Theater before, way back in June of 2010, but I’ve never looked at the interior. We’ll start with the lobby. Designed by Charles Howard Crane and opening on January 31, 1929, the photograph above was probably commissioned right before or after the premiere of the lavish movie…
Caroline Street Between South Ewing and Ohio Avenues, Compton Hill
A couple of weeks ago I covered the historic survivors of the Compton Hill neighborhood on the blocks just to the west of South Jefferson Avenue, including Caroline Street. I found a nice collection of those survivors along Caroline Street to the west of Ohio Avenue, with a predominance of Italianate style houses. In other…
Hickory Street Between South Jefferson Avenue and Missouri Avenue
After looking at the fascinating surviving urban fabric of Hickory Street and others in the Compton Hill neighborhood that survived urban renewal, I wondered if there were any similar streets across South Jefferson Avenue that weren’t mansions in Lafayette Square. And lo and behold, Hickory Street bears a similar working class character as the streets…
Madison Elementary School
Designed by William B. Ittner, Madison Elementary once sat in what was a bustling, crowded and dense neighborhood. Now, the stretch of South 7th Street is sits on is desolate, largely devoid of buildings, and certainly empty of the residences that were once full of thousands of residents whose children attended this school. But these…
Hickory Street Between Ohio and South Jefferson Avenues
Our last street we’ll be looking at in the old Staniford Addition is Hickory Street, which was formerly named Elizabeth Street. To the north, what is north LaSalle Street and Florist Row was Virginia Street, another woman’s name (note back on the Compton and Dry it was just a raised right of way in 1876)….
Rutger Street Between Ohio and South Jefferson Avenues
Moving north up to Rutger Street in the old Staniford Addition from 1863, we again see some very old houses from easily the 1870s. This block in particular perhaps has the most houses preserved. Rutger was originally Sarah Street. It is perhaps obvious why these streets were renamed with names from further to the east…
Caroline Street Between Ohio and Southern Jefferson Avenues
Jumping over Park Avenue, where the historic fabric of the city has been completely erased, we arrive at a gold mine of houses from the 1870s and 80s. And Compton and Dry’s Pictorial St. Louis from 1876 gives us some interesting views of what was there 150 years ago. The first half of the block…
St. Vincent Avenue Between Ohio and South Jefferson Avenues
We now jump ahead to the north a bit due to the redevelopment that annihilated a large swath of Compton Hill, which I wrote about at St. Louis Magazine. First known as Lafayatte Town and then the Gate District, I still call this neighborhood by its historic name. While the majority of the urban fabric,…