That massive, hulking limestone Parthenon sitting on its own man-made Acropolis is for sale again. If you have a couple of million dollars and don’t mind them using some of the rooms occasionally, it can be yours.
The vacant lot next door with the rubble retaining wall was once a mansion, demolished for more parking.
Designed by Eames and Young and originally finished in dedicated in 1926, the interior was never finished.
“‘Let there be light,’ and then there was light.”
The sheer massiveness of this building has always amazed me; what an enormous amount of stone! What a Herculean effort!
It even overshadows the almost-as-massive Scottish Rite Cathedral two “doors” away. That building seems rather viable and in use for its intended purpose as well as serving as a venue for other events, however.
The large mansion in between these two structures, however – what was its use before SLU bought it for the Art Gallery? Someone told me when I was a student at SLU in the early ’60s, that it had a connection to the Woolworth family or business, but that may have been just a legend.
A-HA! I found a (partial) answer: http://www.slu.edu/sluma-home/sluma-history
Since it was used, according to the link by various companies, maybe the Woolworth story was true?
I was right on Woolworth – and apologize for not continuing research:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Louis_University_Museum_of_Art and http://www.builtstlouis.net/midtown/02e.html