The St. Louis architecture, preservation and ADA rights community lost a dear friend last year by the name of Steve Patterson, who ran a blog, UrbanReviewSTL, for almost twenty years, and one thing Steve always did every year on Dr. Martin Luther King Day was to walk or eventually ride his motorized wheelchair the full…
Dr. Martin Luther King Drive From Union Boulevard to Hodiamont Avenue
We jump to Union Boulevard on Dr. Martin Luther King Drive (Wohl Community Center is one place we went by) and start to see some more interesting buildings along the former Easton Avenue. These one story commercial buildings look largely abandoned. We now arrive in the Wellston Loop, which I have looked at before back…
Dr. Martin Luther King Drive From North Jefferson Avenue to Prairie Avenue
As I was heading towards Dr. Martin Luther King Dr., I glanced to my left while on North Jefferson Avenue and noticed the back portion of a building on Olive Street. No word on what happened. I turned onto MLK Dr. and proceeded west. This first portion is the former Franklin Avenue, and only later…
Bumpers in Trees
Tipped off by a source, I was guided to a grove of trees where bumpers were wrapped around trees decades ago, and now the trunks have grown around them, encasing them inside. Is there anything more American than this type of littering?
Mary, Queen of Peace Roman Catholic Church
While located just across the border in Webster Groves, the Roman Catholic church of Mary, Queen of Peace is often associated with the small suburb of Glendale. The current church was built in 1955 and features windows by Emil Frei & Associates. But I am interested in the sculptures in the high altar. I showed…
Algonquin Place Over to West Jackson Road
Taking its name from the historic golf club across West Lockwood Avenue, Algonquin Place possesses a host of houses from the 1910s and 20s. Not surprisingly, there are many Tudor Revival homes. There are also larger houses that I might describe as upper class examples of the Arts and Crafts style with their use of…
Night of the Iguana at Clayton Community Theater
I caught a great performance of St. Louis legend Tennessee William’s play, Night of the Iguana at the Clayton Community Theater last Friday. They will be performing it again October 24-27, 2024, Thursday through Saturday at 7:30 PM and Sunday at 2:00 PM. The theater is on the South Campus of Washington University, which is…
Demolition, Federal Cold Storage Warehouse
I went by on Saturday to check on the demolition of the Federal Cold Storage Warehouse on North Broadway in the Near North Riverfront neighborhood. The fire at this point was now extinguished as far as I could tell and only North Broadway was closed, and will be for a several more weeks while demolition…
Farmington, Iowa
The last town heading downstream on the Des Moines River is Farmington, named after the one in Connecticut. Founded in 1839, around the same town as the other settlements in this area, there are some interesting buildings in town. The most notable is the L. Burg Block, constructed in rough stone in 1878 in the…
Bonaparte, Iowa
The next town is Bonaparte, which is named after Napoleon, of course. Many people don’t realize that many Americans admired the supposedly Enlightenment-inspired French emperor due to his conflict with ancient monarchies in Europe. The beginning of the town centered around William Meek’s founding of mills (he named the town) in 1837. The building above…