The old Soulard Branch of the St. Louis Public Library has had several uses over the last decade besides the commercial space facing 7th Boulevard. There was “The Library” and then “The Archives.” They’re both gone. Below, in McKinley Heights, I still can’t believe that Second Empire house below is sitting vacant; the property values…
Category: County
Posts about St. Louis County
Chesterfield, Post-Chesterfield Mall
Big things are happening out to the west of the now almost completely defunct Chesterfield Mall, which entered the hallowed halls of my Crumby Run-Down Malls of St. Louis pantheon with this post in June of 2017. But Chesterfield still boasts some of the highest income levels in the region (even if other zip codes…
Howard Bend, February 2023
I’ve been driving out and around the Howard Bend area since the early 1990s, and it’s interesting t see how it’s been changing. In fact, one of my earliest posts, almost fifteen years ago, looked at the area when it was still rural. Finally, after years of false starts, Maryland Heights’s dreams of developing the…
Odds and Ends
Apparently I see some things around the city that make me chuckle or stop and just look. Here are a few from the last month or so.
Whispering Oakwood, Reborn
I had been following the saga of the house that had been in various legal wrangles with the suburb of Ballwin for years. As I reported in the past, it had been foreclosed on by a New York bank, and then it was demolished, leaving a vacant lot. Much to our surprise, a new house…
Private Traffic Signals
I recently became fascinated with the phenomenon of “private” traffic signals, which are electric traffic control lights which serve only one user at a busy or dangerous intersection. The first one is where West Pine Boulevard sweeps around and terminates at Lindell Boulevard after coming out of Forest Park. The traffic light usually only serves…
TopGolf and the District, Chesterfield
In case readers living outside of a metropolitan region where there is currently no TopGolf, I thought I would take a couple of photos to show what such facilities look like. This is the one out in Chesterfield. Perhaps the most prominent feature is the giant net which wraps around the field where players seek…
The Mysterious House, Revealed
We were shocked recently to discover that a wooded estate in the 17000 block of Wild Horse Creek Road had been cleared of its trees, revealing an extremely old house that according to satellite images once had multiple additions. It has now been stripped of those late encrustations, and while it is hard to tell…
Royale Orleans
Either you’ve experienced the St. Louis tradition of the Royale Orleans and its mostaccioli, or you haven’t. Perhaps you’ve even been there numerous times over the decades. One time after a wedding the caterer told us we could take the ice sculpture off the banquet table. That was a really dumb idea and we ended…