The renovation of the historic LaSalle Building is now complete, and it has opened as a Hotel Indigo. I took a peek inside a couple of weeks ago and it is really beautiful inside and out.

As I had mentioned before, despite being next to the densest concentration of workers in the St. Louis region theoretically (the Metropolitan Square Building), this intersection of Olive and Broadway was dead and depressing.

Hopefully redevelopment can now come to the shorter building seen below that is sandwiched in between the LaSalle Building and a non-descript Modernist skyscraper to the west at the corner of Sixth Street.

There is a pure simplicity to the building’s ornament, prefiguring future architecture of the mid-Twentieth Century.

The little guy next door to the north on Broadway got a reskinning, as well, which will make it the third or fourth life for this little building. See it at Built St. Louis.

I think the elevator/utility tower added to the north works perfectly fine and doesn’t detract from the overall composition of the building, and honestly, besides me, I doubt very few people will ever even notice it.

For some reason this car was being towed through downtown on the day I was photographing the intersection.

Please join me Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 7:00 PM at the Missouri History Museum for my lecture on my latest research into Adam Lemp’s development of the cave property on Cherokee Street in the early 1860s, with new discoveries from historic maps, business contracts and examination of the lagering cellars under the brewery. Admission is free.