Don’t Fence Me In, St. Louis Edition

I want to tell you about a man you’ve never heard of outside of a news story last week, who died anonymously for unknown reasons less than a block from the center of our city’s government. My coworkers and I never knew the name his mother named him, but his nickname around City Hall was…

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…

Market Street Details

Update: The Kiel Opera House, now the Peabody, has been renovated and looks much cleaner nowadays.