Designed by Albert Osburg, the City of St. Louis staff architect and opening in 1932, the Biddle Street Market was once the hub of a now vanished neighborhood. It replaced an earlier market of the same name, seen below.
As can be seen below, originally the sides were open and not bricked in on the present market building.
The building is based off Italian Romanesque Revival trends, not Renaissance, which I sometimes hear.
Fundamentally, it looks in many ways like the front facade of many churches, with the higher nave and lower side aisles, with a round window above the front doors.
Ornamentation is sparse, perhaps even harkening back to the many incomplete church facades one sees when traveling around Italy.
Thanks for this! the Older Biddle Street Market looms large in my family’s history. My original immigrant ancestor, from Germany, came to STL in 1853. He had a business cutting and selling wood at the market, according to family writings. The family grew roots in the Carr Square and Old North neighborhoods.
Cincinnati has a vibrant market filled with a variety of foods, local vendors, and filled with people. But in St. Louis my guess is that this building filled with potential is either used for storage or sits vacant awaiting the same fate of it’s neighbors.