Update: As of November of 2021, every building in this post is now destroyed.
Reservoir Market was finally put out of its misery, sometime before September of this year. It looks like some of its walls are still preserved in its neighboring buildings. It is a sad loss, but not unexpected.
Update: The Freie Gemeinde was destroyed by fire in November of 2021.
North from there, up St. Louis Place Park, the Freie Gemeinde, or Free Thinkers’ Hall, looks like it is on its last leg, after likewise suffering for years after a partial collapse. The central gable is now leaning outward, and the porch with its cast-iron columns seem to be missing.
Update: The Loler House was destroyed by a squatter’s fire the evening of May 15, 2021.
Near there, on St. Louis Avenue, the John Loler Mansion is finally starting to show some serious structural collapse, which greatly concerns me.
I know people who want to buy these houses, and have a proven track record of renovating huge, dilapidated buildings in neighborhoods such as St. Louis Place, but often the owners of these properties are nowhere to be found.
And, in a continuing series of how there is a double standard up north, several houses destroyed by fire were finally demolished, much later than it would have taken in St. Louis Hills or the Central West End. It has been almost two years since the fire that gutted these buildings.
As to your point regarding double standards between North and South, I find it to probably be less nefarious than one might expect. With few to no residents around these areas, chances are that pressures from neighboring properties are lacking, thus creating a void in CSB/building department requests for demolition or stabilization. With absentee land ownership and lack of population comes many problems. I am not saying it is an acceptable situation, but I do not believe their are bad actors at work here.