Turning right from Garrison Avenue onto St. Louis Avenue, we pass by the abandoned Grace Lutheran, and then past the Lindell Park subdivision, which has avoided much of the Northside TIF purchases. But east of here, there are vacant lots of many former McKee buildings, some of which were demolished now close to twenty years…
Tag: Brick Thieves
6,500th Post: Twenty-Three Years of Paul McKee
Wow, I suppose 6,500 posts have a way of sneaking up on you! I also suppose since Paul McKee and his failed Northside TIF is in the news, it would be germane to talk about it and how I’ve been investigating and shedding light on his dealings for eighteen years now. Some of the first…
5,500th Post at St. Louis Patina
Thinking back over 5,500 posts, give or take since some were lost when this website crashed a year ago, for some reason this post from February of 2015 popped into my head. It’s interesting in that my 5,000th post also dealt with a subject from the St. Louis Place neighborhood. I was always drawn to…
Randomness Around St. Augustine’s
I called this post “Randomness Around St. Augustine’s” because that best describes what is happening around the church which is getting a second chance on life, as I wrote about yesterday. Above, Central High School, captured out the window of the circular stair tower of the church, is in bad shape, and is slated for…
JeffVanderLou, September 2019
If anyone asks me the neighborhood that has been hit the hardest by racism, predatory banking policies, redlining and failed government actions, it would easily be JeffVanderLou (though in time at the current rate, other neighborhoods in St. Louis and North St. Louis County will surely catch up). I had revisited the area in the…
JeffVanderLou, Early June 2019, Part 1
Land speculation has arrived in the neighborhoods around the new spy agency, and if history has shown us anything in America, land speculators have rarely had the interests of the general public in mind. I first photographed the house above in detail way back in December of 2013; little has changed other than the running…
JeffVanderLou, Mid November, 2018
I wanted to check up on JeffVanderLou, an area that straddles Grand Boulevard, and that is heavily affected by disinvestment, abandonment and demolition. There are still so many wonderful buildings left, though, such as this Romanesque–Gothic Revival hybrid church above. But then there is this savaged, brick-theft ruined house, which has sat like this for…
JeffVanderLou, Early July 2018
Update: I went back in November of 2018 to see how things were doing; I also revisited the area in late summer of 2019. Eleven years now I’ve been photographing JeffVanderLou, particularly east of Grand Boulevard, and perhaps what is most striking is how little has changed, and if anything has changed, it is always…
Hebert Street, JeffVanderLou, June 2018
Paul McKee’s crimes are hidden during the summer more, when the giant volunteer trees and underbrush grow lush and green, concealing houses that have collapsed years ago. You see, up this way, nothing ever gets cleaned up. Here is the same ruin in the winter; I remember when the house still had brick walls… Heading…
Updates Up North
More of the front portal of St. Augustine’s church has fallen down, dashed on the steps. Or possibly, the monogram roundel has been stolen, as I do not see its rubble below. See this earlier post (second photo) to understand what is now missing. And meanwhile, the absurdity of the Northside TIF continues, as the…