It looks like something out of a cartoon, but the bite out of the tree has a simple explanation for its change of appearance since I first photographed it in April of 2022. One of the trees died or was blown over by a storm and it was revealed how much it had prevented the…
Tag: Abandoned Buildings
North Grand Boulevard Between North Market Street and Natural Bridge Avenue
Crossing North Market Street, we see the newly christened St. Josephine Bakhita Parish, which is the former Sts. Theresa and Bridget. Due to the closure of a number of other parishes, there was a consolidation of borders. A former convenience store has opened up with a new owners… Joseph Baker Wallpaper and Paint, from what…
North Grand Boulevard Between Finney Avenue and North Market Street
North Grand Boulevard is in transition; half of the right-of-way is being converted into a Great Rivers Greenway to connect Fairground Park to the center of the city. North Grand is also one of the most devastated stretches of a major thoroughfare. We’ll start at Finney Avenue and head north for two days. Above, this…
Southeast Carondelet, Early September 2026, Part Two
I looked at this house back in July of 2018 and it is still occupied and in good condition. There are other interesting buildings nearby that are typical Carondelet houses: hipped roof, two bay wide homes, are common like the one above in addition to gable roof houses. Sometimes they are only one story high,…
Vulcan Street, Early September 2026
I returned to the 7700 block of Vulcan Street that is tucked away in a quiet corner of Carondelet sometimes known as the Patch. Some houses, such as the ones above and below are occupied by stalwart owners, hanging on as industry creeps in around them. I’ve looked at this street in November of 2012,…
History of Cass Bank, Part Two
Now we come to the Cass Avenue Bank location that has been in the news, which was built in 1927, showing how quickly the institution had grown in twenty-one years. A severe, late Beaux-Arts building, it served as the headquarters of Cass Bank until 1974. This was near the Carr Square and Old North neighborhoods,…
History of Cass Bank, Part One
Perhaps you’ve been watching the news and heard a lot of coverage of the old Cass Bank building being in the crosshairs of demolition, and then at the last second it had been been saved. I thought it would be helpful to readers to explain what is going on. Cass Bank is still in business…
Gustine Avenue, Tower Grove South
I’ve become intrigued by the physical forms of neighborhoods where the dominant orientation of buildings face only one orientation. For example, in Tower Grove South, houses and apartments face north or south on east-west streets, even at the intersections with the north-south arteries. But…there are disobedient houses on those north-south arteries that choose to face…
Meramec Street Between Ohio Avenues and South Grand Boulevard, South Side, Dutchtown
I’ve looked at the north side of Meramec Street in Dutchtown extensively, in two groups of posts that start here and here, but I’ve never looked at the south side except here and there with individual buildings. Let’s start at South Broadway and work our way west. Thanks to Found St. Louis, I learned the…
1400 Block of Newhouse Avenue, Hyde Park, Revisited
I walked down this stretch of Newhouse Avenue back in January of 2018 so after looking at the damage at the old Friedens Sunday School Hall, I thought I would take a look at how the block was doing. There had been continued abandonment and deterioration. The building below hasn’t seemed to have changed at…