Opened in 1927-8 to designed by the firm Study & Farrar, the Municipal Services Building is diagonally across Clark Street and Tucker Boulevard from City Hall. It is perhaps a building that is missed by many people, but is still used in part by the City of St. Louis. It is actually a collection of…
Around the Courthouses, A Survivor
At the southwest corner of South Eleventh and Walnut streets is this lone survivor, one of what was once dozens of commercial buildings in the southwest side of downtown. One by one, they were demolished and replaced by courthouses, to the point today where it is the last survivor. According to City records, it was…
Pierre Laclede Monument
A little known fact: the grassy area around City Hall is technically Washington Square Park, and on its western side, in the former right-of-way of 13th Street is the monument to Pierre Laclede, which interestingly enough ignores the contribution of Auguste Chouteau. I didn’t realize this, but the dedicatory text doesn’t lie: this was installed…
John Poelker Park
John Poelker Park, part of the larger Gateway Mall, is looking better than ever, clean and well kept, with a new fence installed around the central statue. While Poelker was the fortieth mayor of St. Louis, the statue commemorates firefighters, dedicated in 1994 and sculpted by R.R. Daus. I find it fascinating that while there…
Northeast Peoria, Early June 2025
It wouldn’t be a complete visit to Central Illinois without checking in on Northeast Peoria, those streets that stretch out in a diagonal fashion from downtown Peoria. It is an interesting mix of rehabbed and abandoned buildings. This gas station is a find; if you look carefully, there are the letters for Standard Oil on…
Family Farm, Early June 2025
I visited the family farm last weekend, and it’s perhaps evident, if it wasn’t already in the photos of the tornado damage, that the smoke from another natural disaster, the wildfires in Canada, was affecting the sky in the background. Longtime readers will know that the farm was hit by a tornado back in March…
After the Tornado: Fairgrounds
Crossing Natural Bridge Avenue, we head into an area of the city that has not gotten much media attention, but was hit just as hard as other neighborhoods to the south. Ashland Elementary, above, was seriously damaged, and from what I understand will be closed past the start of the new school year. In fact,…
After the Tornado: Around the Ville and Greater Ville
Fountain Park, which has been in the news a bunch already, was crowded with disaster relief efforts so I continued on, not wanting to get in the way. I headed up North Taylor Avenue, taking a quick look at the Lewis Place neighborhood before heading into The Ville. I’ve looked at the building above before,…
After the Tornado: Union Boulevard
Heading north on Union Boulevard, we see the damage to Waterman Place; normally the house above and below are largely shielded from view but with the trees destroyed, they are exposed. Many of the windows on the Chesterfield, below, have been blown out; I have been told that throughout the area affected by the tornado,…
After the Tornado: Forest Park and Nearby
The western portion of Forest Park was hit hard, and while the major institutions were not damaged, thousands of trees were lost. At first glance, many trees looked like they had escaped damage from the tornado, but upon closer inspection, it becomes obvious that many trees lost limbs and foliage. North along Lindell Boulevard, where…