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…
Tag: Arson
The Tuileries: A Lost Palace in Paris and Its Influence on St. Louis Architecture
You’ve probably never heard of the Tuileries Palace, but it’s actually one of the most important places in French history over the last five hundred years, and its influence on the architecture of what has become known as Second Empire in the United States and St. Louis is hard to overstate. First of all, it…
Updates on the Inner North Side
Update: The remaining houses on the north side of the street have been demolished. Two buildings on St. Louis Avenue in JeffVanderLou apparently had become something of celebrities due to some graffiti someone had painted on them years ago. I came by while they were in the process of being demolished; the one on the…
The Beauty of Dutchtown, Part 45: Virginia Avenue Between Osceola and Meramec Streets
Virginia Avenue starts to get really interesting as the grade begins to climb as we head up the hill towards Meramec Street. On the left, we see the huge mass of the long-abandoned Cleveland High School, which has suffered a series of arsons in the last year. The Public Schools found such as large parcel…
Fires and the Northside TIF, Old North St. Louis
The Northside TIF and Paul McKee’s damage to North St. Louis is not some abstract academic discussion about what role government should play in financing and aiding private developers. It impacts real people, when houses that are left to rot for over a decade are set on fire by an arsonist, and the flames and…
Burn Out in JeffVanderLou
Update: The minivan was replaced by an abandoned trailer filled with old tires in November of 2018. A year ago, these houses on Laflin Avenue in JeffVanderLou were in acceptable shape, even though they had been abandoned for a long time. I was shocked to drive by in the last week of August to discover…
Clemens Mansion, Mid-January Before Demolition
Update: See photos of the Clemens Mansion in the 1960s. The site is now vacant. Back, just when the demolition of the Clemens Mansion was just starting, I took these pictures. I am very sad to see it go, particularly because the owner, Paul McKee never put any real effort into saving it, and more…
Hyde Park in the Morning Light #6, The Children of the Hyde Park Fire
As some of my readers know, I was gone from St. Louis for a good solid decade, from August 1996 to December 2006. Up in Kirksville for undergrad, I rarely knew what was happening back in St. Louis, back when the internet was still in its infancy. I had never heard of this fire, and…
Visiting East St. Louis on the 100th Anniversary of the Riots
10th and Bond Street is where it all began, 100 years and two weeks ago. I went back and snapped these photos on the exact anniversary of some of the worse racial violence in US history. The oldest areas of East St. Louis are still mostly abandoned, with wide swaths of vacant lots. I am…
Clemens Mansion: Part 3, The Effects on Neighbors
Update: Demolition of the Clemens Mansion was completed by the spring of 2018. For the old “it’s just a building” crowd, I offer the following exhibits. First is the “Sherman House,” which was gutted by fire, started by burning embers from the Clemens Mansion on Helen Street. The fire could have easily spread to occupied…