I find someone new every time I visit Bellefontaine Cemetery, and recently I found the grave of William Russell, who was an important figure in early St. Louis history. See his family’s estate here where they mined coal and clay. While the limestone has been damaged by acid rain, you can still imagine how beautiful…
Three Houses on South Grand, Dutchtown
Toby Weiss of B.E.L.T. St. Louis brought my attention back down to the block of houses across from the old St. Anthony’s Hospital site on South Grand Boulevard. The three houses are typical of the area, and remind us that originally major arteries were desirable (or not undesirable) building sites for upper middle to upper…
French Market Area, Revisited
I looked at the French Market area almost a decade ago in February of 2011 when there was a thick coat of ice on the ground in the area south of the elevated lanes of Highway 40 in the area that is known as Frenchtown. It was once a bustling area, anchored by the French…
Jefferson and Gravois, Revisited
I’ve looked at the intersection of South Jefferson and Gravois avenues in July of 2012, and I came back over the course of several months to photograph the crossing of two of the most important streets in the inner South Side. It’s come a long way from when it was a small exurban village surrounded…
Convent of the Good Shepherd
Several weeks ago, I wrote about Bamberger’s Grove at my regular St. Louis Magazine weekly column. As I also wrote, Adolphus Busch later bought the Grove and donated it to nuns, who opened the House of the Good Shepherd, who opened a school for girls. Here are a couple of extra maps that didn’t make…
Chippewa Street, Then and Now
I know I swore sometime back in 2007 or 2008 that I would never let St. Louis Patina become one of those “St. Louis Then and Now” sites, instead focusing on the here and now, and how historic architecture influences the world today. That being said, sometimes it’s fun to do a comparison of old…
The Beauty of Dutchtown, Part 48: Virginia Avenue Between Keokuk and Chippewa Streets
Update: We pick back up with Number 49 in the series here. The last block of Virginia Avenue in Dutchtown, between Keokuk and Chippewa streets, has houses that perhaps look more like the building stock in neighboring Gravois Park, just to the north. The buildings with a side entry, with four windows, two up, two…
The Beauty of Dutchtown, Part 47: Virginia Avenue Between Osage and Keokuk Streets
Virginia in between Osage and Keokuk, just north of Marquette Park is another quiet block due to it being one way southbound, and then Osage is one way to the west and east, so again there is little reason for anyone to drive down this street unless they live here. The houses are smaller, with…
The Beauty of Dutchtown, Part 46: Virginia Avenue Between Meramec and Gasconade Streets
The block of Virginia north of Meramec is quiet north of the busy commercial strip due to it being one block long before hitting Marquette Park, and it is one-way southbound, so there is little reason for anyone other than residents of the block to use it. Urban Eats sits on the northeast corner of…
The Beauty of Dutchtown, Part 45: Virginia Avenue Between Osceola and Meramec Streets
Virginia Avenue starts to get really interesting as the grade begins to climb as we head up the hill towards Meramec Street. On the left, we see the huge mass of the long-abandoned Cleveland High School, which has suffered a series of arsons in the last year. The Public Schools found such as large parcel…