North Grand Boulevard is in transition; half of the right-of-way is being converted into a Great Rivers Greenway to connect Fairground Park to the center of the city. North Grand is also one of the most devastated stretches of a major thoroughfare. We’ll start at Finney Avenue and head north for two days. Above, this beauty has been lost.
Above, until recently this house was one of a pair, but now the home to the left has been demolished. Below, as we approach MLK and Page, auto-centric fast food restaurants come into view.
It’s a wasteland. Is it any surprise that there is no one in sighte?
Just to the east, the ABC Auto Building is being demolished. Paul McKee owned it and with help from Legal Services of Eastern Missouri, the local neighborhood association wrested it from his control, but it was too far gone structurally. Thanks, Paul! Its neighbor had already been demolished.
Moving north, we can see what we lost for a parking lot.
More abandoned buildings…
There are more recently commercial buildings, but they’re surrounded by parking lots, making the area as hostile to pedestrians as possible.
When the area was more rural, we saw old country homes like the one below.
