I have to admit that I was tricked by this building the first time I saw it. I initially believed it was built as light industry, and was gutted for a parking garage sometime in the mid to late Twentieth Century.

I was wrong! This was actually built as the Eighteenth Street Parking Garage, designed by Klipstein and Rathmann (they also designed the Bevo Bottling Plant and the Civil Courts, among others) in 1925.

It’s an interesting example of how the automobile was beginning to be an important means of transportation into the downtown area.

Of course, eventually the streetcars and commuter railroads would be annihilated by the automobile, with only buses and MetroLink being an option other than cars.