Update: Everything seen above was cleared or demolished for the new National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in 2017. The City of St. Louis cut ties with Paul McKee’s Northside in June of 2018.
Tag: Deserted
Zombie Subdivisions, Revisited
Beyond the manicured lawns off of Crescent Road, the zombies appear out of nowhere. Weeds, as tall as grown men, fill the fields of dreams where McMansions had once dared to tread. The pavement has prematurely aged, a thin veneer of blacktop on the surface of the heavy clay. Not much has changed out here…
Return to Pevely Farms, Lewisburgh, Meramec Valley
The isolated southern side of the Meramec River Valley continues to fascinate us. We had previously spotted this railroad viaduct the last trip, and this time we drove down. It’s developed quite the patina over the years. Pevely Farms was a show farm, from what I understand, and I suspect these might have been original…
Non-Activated Space, DeBaliviere Place Neighborhood
I get so tired of people wanting to build so-called “pocket parks.” An historic structure gets knocked down, the original proponents of the park move on, and pretty soon because the original agreement didn’t provide for perpetual maintenance, you end up with this. I find these dead spaces all over the city.
Commercial Avenue and Its Environs, Cairo, Illinois
Update: Many of the buildings below are now gone as of June 2024. Commercial Avenue is really where Cairo’s history turns dark and tragic. The desolation that dominates the lower east side of the peninsula shows in the photo above. Though several blocks away, I could capture a clear shot of the remaining buildings on…
Further South than Richmond, Virginia: Cairo, Illinois
I finally made it to Cairo, Illinois with my father last week. I have to admit, while I was prepared to see what many of my friends have already been documenting for years, I was struck how much more there was to this infamous town than just Commercial Avenue (seen above), which is the most…
Central Industrial Drive, McRee Town
Update: There is another one of these industrial drives up north. Central Industrial Drive might be the most forgotten street in St. Louis, stretching from Vandeventer to Chouteau in a valley that stretches up to the Mill Creek Valley. It was packed with railroad tracks for over a century, but sometime presumably in the mid…
The Case of the Mysteriously Vanishing Rock Piles
Update: The stones were moved to the winery, and a small memorial was built with stones from the church on the former site in Rock Hill. I covered the shameful desecration of Rock Hill Presbyterian last year, and a friend and I drove out to see how progress on the reconstruction was going. It turns…
Dan, Madison Street and Beyond, JeffVanderLou
Update: Dan’s house seemed to be vacant and graffiti covered as of the spring of 2016. As we were photographing the houses seen yesterday on Leffingwell, a man came out to his car, and greeted us. His name was Dan, and he and his family have lived at the corner of Madison and Leffingwell for…
St. Louis Avenue, JeffVanderLou, Revisited
Update: Some of the buildings in the photo above were demolished in the summer of 2020. I know for a fact that the one of these houses, either the one on the far left or the one second from right, now trashed was occupied the last time I looked at these houses.? I distinctly remember…