Updates: See the street and its houses around the school here; compare to the architecture of Walbridge Elementary School in Walnut Park and the former Kennard Elementary School. See more pictures of the school and Tennessee Avenue in this post from June of 2020. Updated with historic photo from 1926 in April of 2021.
I think Shenandoah Elementary is one of my favorite school buildings in the City of St. Louis. It’s an interesting mix of Spanish architectural revival elements, but what really blows me away is the amazing front entrance.
In what could best be described as a Baroque Revival portal, the entrance features two beautiful Solomonic Columns, twisting their way up to the architrave of the door, and its curving, broken pediment. It’s a rarity in St. Louis, and is truly special. It seems the idiotic threat of demolition has passed, and the school is now safe, for the time being.
How incredibly cool! I had no idea as a child (attended it 1954 – 1963) that it was a Baroque Revival portal. During the Cuban missile crisis we eighth graders had to hunker down in the basement between the piles of coal.