This is the third of three weeks on Thursdays and Fridays, where I’ve been looking at the three east-west streets parallel to Cherokee Street in Gravois Park, the neighborhood to the south of the famous commercial artery. This is where the east-west streets are “Indian Tribes” and the north-south streets are the “State Streets.” You can also see Potomac and Miami Streets.
Like the previous two streets, many of the houses and buildings face the north-south state streets, which are longer blocks in relation to the shorter “Indian tribe” blocks. But there is a wealth of beautiful housing stock along Winnebago, reflecting the streetcar suburb’s German community’s success around the year 1900.
There are a mix of Second Empire duplexes and storefronts, where the owner probably lived upstairs, with four-family apartment buildings mixed throughout.
As can be seen below, the expensive red brick was used on the front elevation, and less expensive brick was used on the side elevations.
What I particularly enjoy about the Second Empire houses above and below are the still-extant slate tiles, with ornamental colored shingles mixed in.
But there is still much work to do to make Gravois Park a community where everyone is living in a house without the threat of violence and even just the threat of lead paint.
Then there is the gem of Froebel Elementary School, from 1895. It is named after the original founder of Kindergartens, Frederick Wilhelm August Froebel (no, Susan Blow founded the first one in America in Carondelet). The school is a wonderful pile of the Romanesque Revival, in the moment before Ittner and Milligan schools would dominate education building in St. Louis.
Froebel school is a very beautiful building. I recently discovered the old Harrison School building. The front of the building is very similar to Froebel. The name and date, and the triple arches. Both schools finished in 1895, on opposite sides of town.
The school is by August Kirchner, and an early William P. Ittner.