The houses above were demolished for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in 2017. The City of St. Louis cut ties with Paul McKee’s Northside in June of 2018. The gas station was demolished in the winter of 2024.

There’s often a prevailing view in St. Louis that nothing was built in the city after World War II except new skyscrapers downtown. In reality, out in the neighborhoods, corner stores were already being knocked down and replaced with gas stations such as the one below. Sadly, this trend continues, as the historic fabric of corners in St. Louis are degraded by the construction of parking dominated businesses such as Walgreens or Quiktrip. Also, new housing, known in local parlance as HUD housing, sprung up in neighborhoods of older housing stock, as can be seen above. These narrow houses actually fit into the street wall very well, but their poor construction has led many of them to be abandoned already, and demolished in many cases.

Photos by Jeff Phillips