McRee Town. For many people, the name no longer exists; they call it Botanical Heights nowadays. I don’t, and probably never will. McRee Town is an example of what happens to a neighborhood that is left to slumlords, cut off from other healthier neighborhoods by the interstate, and then left to rot. Take Lafayette Avenue;…
McRee Town This Week
Update: Of the three houses on McRee Avenue just east of Vandeventer Avenue, the two houses on the right have been rehabbed; the house on the left has been demolished. Long troubled, long misunderstood, I will look at McRee Town, now relabeled Botanical Heights, all this week.
Zion German Evangelical Church
Update: See the congregation’s original cemetery in this post from January of 2021. Dating from 1871, the Zion German Evangelical Church sits in splendid isolation, with only a parking lot and cemetery surrounding it. The congregation, which still exists, dates from 1838. It is typical of many St. Louis churches in that it is really…
Raphael and St. Louis: St. John the Apostle and Evangelist Roman Catholic Church
The Church of St. John the Evangelist and Apostle sits in the midst of the Plaza Square development, and is an interesting church in its own right, dating back to the years before the Civil War. It is one of the oldest churches in St. Louis. It was renovated, not always successfully, in the Twentieth…
Temple Israel
Update: See Temple Israel’s new Modernist location out west. I revisited Temple Israel in November of 2020 in this post about Holy Corners. The roof was seriously damaged in the tornado that struck the neighborhood on May 16, 2025. The old Temple Israel synagogue is easily the most impressive Beaux-Arts building in St. Louis, even…
Lindell Boulevard, Heading West
I never really get a chance to look at the houses on Lindell west of Kingshighway. They’re an interesting mix of housing styles, not particularly always my favorite, but still a noteworthy achievement of organic development on the largest lots in the city. Recent additions have been more successful than others.
Old Second Baptist Church, Holy Corners
Update: I went back and looked at Second Baptist in the fall of 2020. The campanile was gutted by fire on October 26, 2021. I find Holy Corners fascinating in its interesting mix of seemingly incongruous architectural styles with the denomination of the original owners of the buildings. Take Second Baptist Church, for example; this…
Second Empire Beauty, Old North St. Louis
I remember when the house on the right was occupied; I was walking by and a guy started urinating out of the front door. But what a beautiful house that one on the left is; it’s for sale, too.