A major milestone is coming up soon here at St. Louis Patina, and I was curious if readers had particular favorite posts they liked or were their favorite. Copy and paste the URL in the comments section.
Category: Commentary
Opinion pieces/commentary
No Street Parking in Laclede’s Landing
Why is street parking not allowed in Laclede’s Landing? It makes the whole neighborhood just look dead, and it’s so funny just watching people drive around in circles on streets where no one can stop or anything. Yes, some of the streets are narrow but the north-south ones aren’t. And how are you supposed to…
About That Lynch Guy
Interest has renewed lately to place a plaque commemorating the infamous last location of Lynch’s slave pens at the northeast corner of Clark Street and South Broadway, now the location of the Stadium East Garage. Lynch operated this location for a relatively short time from around 1860 to 1861 or 1862 when the Union Army…
Wainwright Building for Sale
I’m sure by now many people have heard that the State of Missouri is vacating the Wainwright Building in downtown. Let’s not waste time on trashing the State of Missouri or Chesterfield, which will be the recipient of those government workers. I want to stress that from my understanding, forty years ago the State of…
Mound City Chronicle
I wanted everyone to know about a cool new photography book that’s come out recently published by my friend and frequent collaborator, Jason Gray. In Mound City Chronicle, Gray’s purpose: is more than a series ofimages of St. Louis. It is testament to a path made through thecity at this moment; a path meant to…
The Tragedy of the Commons and Alley Dumpsters
“For that which is common (shared) to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it. Every one thinks chiefly of his own, hardly at all of the common interest; and only when he is himself concerned as an individual. For besides other considerations, everybody is more inclined to neglect something which he expects…
Don’t Fence Me In, St. Louis Edition
I want to tell you about a man you’ve never heard of outside of a news story last week, who died anonymously for unknown reasons less than a block from the center of our city’s government. My coworkers and I never knew the name his mother named him, but his nickname around City Hall was…
Seventeenth Anniversary of St. Louis Patina, St. Augustine’s, Dusk, May 4th
We’re getting closer to two decades here at St. Louis Patina, rounding out our seventeenth year, and what better way to commemorate it than looking at St. Augustine, which is slowly coming to an end after years of neglect. So we’re left with another landmark destroyed.
Abandoned Famous Barr Parking Garage
Recently I was giving a tour of downtown to some visitors from out of town, and I was trying to weave a careful route that avoided as many bombed-out buildings as possible, but eventually we ended up going by the Railway Exchange and its parking garage. It’s become something of an outdoor guerilla art project…
The Closure of Nursing Homes
The last decade or so has been rough on nursing homes in St. Louis. While readers at first might find the link tenuous to history, they must be reminded that many are in historic buildings, and likewise, neighborhoods are kept healthy when members of society are able to “age in place,” meaning they do not…