Update: Demolished for the new National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in 2017. The City of St. Louis cut ties with Paul McKee’s Northside in June of 2018.
I recently was passing through the area of the worst demolition and desolation in St. Louis, where I had been almost four years before. Nothing has changed.
To many St. Louis urbanists’ horror, The Atlantic Cities discovered this area of urban prairie and publicized it nationally.
In reality, it was a botched redevelopment back in the Schoemehl administration that caused this area to be so heavily decimated. Not that it makes it any better than slow, arduous decay.
I drove up through this area today, and was awe struck, but not in a good way. It was hard to believe that there was just… nothing. It truly is one of the most surreal places in the city. To think of all that space up there that could be collecting tax revenue for the city if there were actual residents… not to mention just the fact that such a lack of density is so terrible for this city. It is just unreal.