Due to more failure of Paul McKee’s Northside Regeneration to properly maintain its buildings, the historic Novelty Theater is being torn down. The two-screen theater, designed by Charles Deitring in 1910 possessed a capacity of over one thousand. It has sat empty for a long time. As far as whether the structure to the east’s…
Tag: Northside TIF
St. Louis Avenue, JeffVanderLou, Winter 2024
I had originally headed west on St. Louis Avenue based on an unfounded tip that Sarah Lou’s had caught fire. Thankfully, it had not, and I ended up having a great conversation with an older gentleman waiting for the bus out front about the restaurant’s amazing fried chicken instead. Sadly, from the looks of it,…
Fire at the Former St. Liborius, SK8 Liborius
The unthinkable happened late on the night of June 28 at the former St. Liborius Roman Catholic Church, which had been closed in 1992 by the Archdiocese. It became SK8 Liborius approximately ten years ago. The people behind SK8 Liborius had been working tirelessly over that time to fix up the former church, and I…
Coming Soon: Nothing! North 13th Street
I’d heard about the impending doom of this building for years, and it’s finally happening now. I realized I never quite captured it very well, but you can see its front façade in this post from June of 2019 (last photo). I’ve long been worried about this end of Old North; this weed-choked lot, I…
Green Leaf Market Closed
Perhaps it should come as no surprise, but the Paul McKee grocery store at the intersection of Cass and Tucker has closed (remember when the bridge was just the beginning?) Sitting right at the approaches to the Stan Musial Veterans Bridge, I thought there would at least be some traffic, but I heard that during…
Northside Regeneration and the Future of North St. Louis
Update: There’s some great news to report on these two houses. For once this is not land speculation but rather the Sisters at Alpha Kappa Alpha rebuilding a founder’s home as part of what will be a museum and community center. Heading east on St. Louis Avenue just east of Garrison, I spotted a strange…
Another McKee Property Burns
Another one of Paul McKee’s buildings went up in flames on Tyler Street. I realized I had photographed the building way back in February of 2016 (last photo) as well as June of 2019 (second photo), and now it is completely ruined. It doesn’t matter if it was arson or accidental, the end result is…
Checking Up on McKee Land
Little has changed where Paul McKee owns vast swaths of real estate since I went by this area last year. There are still abandoned and fire-gutted buildings. Update: By July of 2022, the ruins below were finally torn down. The large apartment building on St. Louis Avenue is still sitting as a burned out shell….
Old North and Another Fire
There are still so many great things happening in the Old North neighborhood, where houses are being rehabbed, and other buildings, while still vacant, have been stabilized, leaving them secure for future residents to buy and renovate. Not so with properties still owned by Paul McKee. At the beginning of March, another one of his…
Historic American Buildings Survey: The Clemens Mansion
It seems like it’s been far longer, but it’s coming up on three years since fire gutted the James Clemens Mansion, resulting in its final demolition. But back in November of 1960, Paul Piaget photographed the mansion when it was still part of a religious complex as part of the Historic American Buildings Survey, cataloged…