I found this old post from my other blog, and it’s kind of funny to see my attitude about different parts of St. Louis from two ten years ago.

Update: This view of St. Louis is extremely out of date, written from the standpoint of still living on the East Coast. My attitudes have changed dramatically.

Downtown St. Louis: Where No St. Louisan Has Gone Before

I took the opportunity the Friday before I headed back to DC to do an architectural survey of downtown St. Louis, or at least what’s left of it. They’re progressing on the new Busch Stadium; I hope the noise from the interstate overpass doesn’t affect the viewing enjoyment of the fans in the south stands.

Update: The Arcade-Wright Building was renovated in 2015.

Here’s a group of office buildings from the turn of the century; St. Louis has some of the best old skyscrapers after New York and Chicago, and they’re horribly underutilized and frequently demolished for a parking garage. People, listen carefully, St. Louis will never revive its downtown with dozens of new parking garages; it needs pedestrian traffic that hopefully the new loft renovations will provide. DC’s downtown has revived with a paucity of parking because it has real destinations, not plenty of parking.

I took this picture from the parking garage that I parked in; it shows some of the varied architectural styles present in the area around the Old Post Office. Several buildings in the picture represent the work of some of the 20th Century’s greatest architects and need to be preserved.

I ventured into North St. Louis to visit Crown Candy and see what exactly was happening in the seeming netherworld of the northern part of the city. I found a fair share of abandoned houses, but a large numbers of well-restored houses.