The third weekend of July was rough in North St. Louis. First off, we lost a beautiful corner store at West Florissant and De Soto avenues, which I swear I’ve photographed and I also could swear was occupied with a second-hand appliance store if I remember correctly. It was destroyed by fire Saturday morning in College Hill.
Then, and I couldn’t believe it in hindsight, after walking out of the new Target at South Grand Boulevard and Chouteau Avenue, I spotted a giant black plume of smoke to the north. I headed north and checking the Fire Department’s Twitter account, discovered it was in the 8200 block of Hall Street! That is a long ways from Target!
Hall Street has a bunch of crumby industry, much of it increasingly abandoned, and it drives me crazy when I think about all of the historic neighborhoods demolished by the City of St. Louis and then repackaged as superblocks back in the 1960s, such as Kosciusko, and here we have all this blight that should have been demolished and eminent domained instead!
Look at this junk, that goes up in black smoke and flames every so often, and think about how we demolished Kosciusko, a neighborhood as beautiful as Soulard instead!
There were so many fire trucks flying by as I checked out the fire. This one below was screaming by at about 60mph when I snapped this photo. I don’t remember seeing that piece of metal on the pavement by the back tire–did it fall off or did the firetruck run over it? I didn’t see it at the time.
For certain, better Hall St.
By the by: As kids we used to come from the County down to Hall St on the weekend nights and drag race. I was passenger in one time. Kinda exciting.
Thanks Chris for these excellent photo essays.
They still drag race on Hall Street! I’ve heard that it’s been going on since at least the 1940s, if not earlier.
You are very strong in spirit to view and capture the vestiges of what once “WAS’.
Thank you!
And another one goes up this morning. I swear I can’t figure out what the city is doing. If they were actively trying to clear the north side they couldn’t do a better job.
Read up on the Team Four Plan:
https://www.stlamerican.com/news/columnists/jamala-rogers/team-four-sucka-punch/
First time I’ve seen that. Looks like our leadership finally found a successful project. I’ve lived in the city for 5 years now and it’s maddening how poorly run this place is. No strategic vision. Thanks for doing this. Your page is on my daily surfing list.
decades of neglect and racism.
Where and when was the carnival–somewhere on HALL STREET…