It wasn’t publicized in the news, but if you were watching the St. Louis Fire Department’s Twitter feed, you noticed a passing reference to a firefighter being injured fighting a fire in a warehouse on the Near North Riverfront. This is the former Federal Cold Storage Company, which was part of a general trend of…
Tag: Arson
Grand Motel, Closed and Burned Out
Back in January of this year, the now-closed Grand Motel was severely damaged by arson. It is actually very sad because the new owner was planning on renovating the buildings for a homeless outreach center. I saw her on the news, and her heart was in the right place. I don’t know what will happen…
St. Augustine’s the Day After the Third Fire
To say the visit to the former St. Augustine’s the day after the towering inferno that gutted the church was depressing would be an understatement. About the only positive thing I could say is that at least all the timber, potential fuel for another fire (the gigantic piles of wood from the roof collapse), was…
St. Augustine’s a Week Before the Third Fire
I may have taken some of the only photos of the former St. Augustine’s after the collapse of the roof over the nave sometime in February and before the fire on the night of March 18th. Honestly, it probably wasn’t a terribly good idea for my friend and I to be inside the heavily compromised…
Third Fire at St. Augustine’s
A St. Louis Patina correspondent captured firefighters battling the towering inferno that broke out in the evening of March 18th, devastating St. Augustine’s. At this point, I reluctantly have to admit that it needs to be torn down in the interest of public safety. I think it’s probably arson. What else is there to say…
Norvell-Shapleigh, The Saturday After the Fire
I went back out the Saturday after the fire to check on the state of the demolition of the Norvell-Shapleigh warehouse after I had viewed it on Monday. A substantial amount of the building had been removed, particularly the former J. Kennard and Sons Carpet Co. portion on the north, including the part that had…
Norvell Shapleigh, Destroyed by Fire
Another warehouse on the Near North Riverfront has been destroyed by a suspicious fire. While certainly we can attribute some of the conflagrations to squatters accidentally allowing campfires to grow out of control, I was told that in some instances, including the one that hit the Norvell-Shapleigh Warehouse, that was most definitely not the case….
Fire at the Former Fred J. Swaine Manufacturing Co.
The night after the fire at Jamison Memorial Church, a suspicious fire broke out at the former Fred. J Swaine Manufacturing Co. building on the north side of the vacant lots of what was supposed to be the ill-fated Bottle District. A descendant of the founder, Karen Swaine, was kind enough to share with me…
Suspicious Fire at Jamison Memorial Church
Update: A church burned in Soulard a week or so after this fire. Its cause was not determined to be suspicious. Something suspicious is going on in St. Louis, with back to back fires on Friday and Saturday nights over the Memorial Day weekend. The first casualty was the Jamison Memorial Church on Washington Boulevard…
Hôtel de Ville, Paris and St. Louis City Hall
One thing that annoys me about American architectural history and St. Louis architectural history in particular is that it is frequently written by people who have absolutely no background in European architectural history. Case in point, it is “common knowledge” in St. Louis that City Hall is based off of the Hôtel de Ville, the…