Visitation Park is a small neighborhood, north of Delmar and just west of Union Boulevard, named after the former Visitation Academy which was once in this area. There was still some damage from the tornado, mainly in small loss of shingles to roofs. You can see the house in better times here. However, as can…
Tag: Abandoned Buildings
After the Tornado: DeBaliviere Place
Following the path of the tornado east/northeast, we reach the DeBaliviere Place neighborhood, bounded by Forest Park on the south, DeBaliviere Avenue on the west, Delmar Boulevard on the north and Union Boulevard on the east (where we’ve already seen damage). Damage from the tornado is similar to that in Skinker-DeBalivere, with a large numbers…
John L. Miers House, Maryland Heights
Built in 1905 for John L. Miers, the house at the northwest corner of Midland Avenue and Smiley Road is now threatened with demolition. Miers was president of the United Railways streetcar company, and rather appropriately, a line ran right out front of the house (though obviously he could have afforded his own transportation). It…
Former Municipal Courts
The behemoth of the old Four Courts, named after the building in Dublin and demolished long ago, was based off the Tuileries Palace in Paris, as I mentioned a couple of years ago. Its attached jail was quite a work of engineering and architecture, with a huge half rotunda and tiers of cells. Replacing it…
Northeast Peoria, Early June 2025
It wouldn’t be a complete visit to Central Illinois without checking in on Northeast Peoria, those streets that stretch out in a diagonal fashion from downtown Peoria. It is an interesting mix of rehabbed and abandoned buildings. This gas station is a find; if you look carefully, there are the letters for Standard Oil on…
After the Tornado: Fairgrounds
Crossing Natural Bridge Avenue, we head into an area of the city that has not gotten much media attention, but was hit just as hard as other neighborhoods to the south. Ashland Elementary, above, was seriously damaged, and from what I understand will be closed past the start of the new school year. In fact,…
After the Tornado: Around the Ville and Greater Ville
Fountain Park, which has been in the news a bunch already, was crowded with disaster relief efforts so I continued on, not wanting to get in the way. I headed up North Taylor Avenue, taking a quick look at the Lewis Place neighborhood before heading into The Ville. I’ve looked at the building above before,…
After the Tornado: Photographing Destruction
I grappled with whether I should take or post any photographs of the tornado damage that struck St. Louis on May 16, 2025, which a reader noted will now be indelibly linked with the anniversary of the founding of this website on the same day. Is it ethical to photograph destruction, and in particular people’s…
Pine Lawn
Pine Lawn is one of the many small inner ring suburbs just outside the boundaries of the City of St. Louis along Natural Bridge Road and Jennings Station Road forms a north-south “spine,” so to speak. The name comes from the estate, one of many out this way, of Charles Clark, of which only the…
Sligo Steel Fire
Update: Everything on this block has now been demolished. A catastrophic fire struck the buildings of what I understand to be the old Sligo Steel buildings on the Near North Side along North Broadway just north of Downtown. This is not the first time these buildings have been hit by fire; I covered a previous…