Oregon Avenue was the site of a country estate set among a grove of trees owned by a B.W. Alexander back in 1875. Back to the present day and crossing over Potomac Street, we’ll first look at the west side of the street going north.

There are some beautiful houses along this stretch, showing how strongly middle class Gravois Park was at the turn of the century.

And it was very economically diverse, with a ton of four-family apartment buildings built at seemingly the same time.

There are five or six that all look this, but unfortunately, many of them are in bad shape or boarded up and abandoned.

In fact, I was shocked at how much abandonment there is just off a major commercial corridor such as Cherokee Street. Are people just holding on to property as speculative purchases?

I suspect so, because all the one family houses for the most part are occupied and in good shape.

This building below just looks bad.

Then we get to the commercial property at the corner, which is not being fully utilized yet. There is clearly an apartment above.

At this point, we’ll turn around at Cherokee Street and head back south, looking at the east side of the street.

More abandonment on the east side as we head south.

But there is some rehabbing going on of this solid housing stock.

But there are still so many houses that are sitting in disrepair or abandonment.