I’ll fully concede that this four-family had already been screwed up for years before the current rehabber bought it, but that does not excuse what’s happened to this long-suffering property in the last six months. Cheap crap that will fail when the next unsuspecting owner years from now owns it makes my blood boil. The…
Category: Commentary
Opinion pieces/commentary
Stop Me Before I Paint Again!
Disclaimer: This post is not an attack at homeowners, who due to economic hardship have painted their house, or who inherited a painted brick house. St. Louis Patina legal disclaimer: In no way is St. Louis Patina accusing or insinuating that the current owner of the building depicted in the above and below photos is…
The Motor City: Detroit, Michigan
If I understand the point of this somewhat incoherent essay, it’s that a tension exists between various groups who want to define the “real” Detroit — is it the Detroit of the bustling past, the shockingly ruined present, or the inevitably gentrified future? While this debate is inexorably being proved pointless — nostalgia will prove…
An Examination of the Great Lakes Region
I realized I needed to get out of St. Louis for a little while to clear my head and get some needed perspective, so I set out from the Gateway City, heading northeast for what ended up being an almost two-week odyssey around, for lack of a better term, the eastern Midwest, or might be…
Fout Place, July 2023
I thought I would check up on the house at Fout Place and see how–oh wait, what am I talking about? Of course it’s doing terrible, just like the last six times I visited! I’ll have to admit recently I’ve gotten really burned out taking photos of abandoned, burned out and collapsing buildings. As I…
5,500th Post at St. Louis Patina
Thinking back over 5,500 posts, give or take since some were lost when this website crashed a year ago, for some reason this post from February of 2015 popped into my head. It’s interesting in that my 5,000th post also dealt with a subject from the St. Louis Place neighborhood. I was always drawn to…
Big Muddy Dance Company Presents: Blaze
As I’ve done in the past, I wanted to alert readers to an upcoming cultural event that I think is worth your time. Big Muddy Dance Company is offering up another performance this Friday and Saturday. From their press release: A specially curated blend of exciting new works and audience favorites, featuring world premiere choreography…
Sixteenth Anniversary of Saint Louis Patina
On the occasion of the sixteenth anniversary of St. Louis Patina, I wanted to announce that I now own the trademark for the name “St. Louis Patina.” I wanted to thank my parents for helping me obtain this recognition of this identity that I’ve built up over the last decade and a half. You’ll notice…
Rapid Changes, Mill Creek Around Grand Boulevard
Late on Saturday, I checked up on how the residential development of the former railyards of the western Mill Creek valley was going. This is west of the historic African American neighborhood, but is the actual valley, where roundhouses and light industry, as well as massive switching yards once lay. The building that was under…
A Sad Discovery, Dutchtown
I was shocked to discover that the beautiful house above, one of a pair on the west side of Nebraska Avenue in between Gasconade and Osage streets burned at some point after I photographed them in October of 2019 (fourth and fifth photo down, the burned house is in the fifth photo). But what matters…