I’ve long documented St. Louis Avenue between N. Florissant and Parnell, and from Parnell to Grand, so now I will take a closer look at the secondary artery cobbled together from a series of streets that stretches the length of the Northside.

St. Louis Avenue ends in Wells-Goodfellow at Hamilton Avenue (right where this house is), and Barrett Brothers Park and a junkyard. Back in Harland Bartholomew’s 1947 Comprehensive Plan, there were big plans for that park.

There are some of those four-family apartment buildings that I remember seeing a block or so away on Labadie.

But then there are much older, smaller houses, that I would expect to see in Dutchtown, such as the little guy below, with some 1950s Formstone on the front.

And this ancient wood frame cottage with an interesting addition out the front.

Those wood frame “shotgun” houses were the first generation of houses out in the exurbs, and I believe they were always meant to be temporary, their builders and occupants optimistically hoping for a brick dwelling one day.

Belt Loop Liquors sits at one of the perfect examples of the diagonal streets that were cut through to hook up the various shorter streets that the automobile age necessitated for smoother travel. Small triangle blocks were left behind.