Heading east on Fifth Street from Easton Street (named after Rufus Easton, the founder of Alton), we see some very early housing. We then angle onto the diagonal Court Street, which mysteriously exists for only about three blocks. We then hop onto Fourth Street as we head out of town. I really like this two-car…
Tag: Early Vernacular
Fairfield Avenue, Newport, Kentucky
We’ve looked at Newport, Kentucky, across the river from Cincinnati before, but this time we’re going to look at Fairfield Avenue, starting at Ward Avenue and heading east. As I’ve said before, one of the great tragedies of St. Louis and its relationship to the Metro East is that civic and business leaders have not…
Leaving, Youngstown
After surveying the remnants of what had once been the workplace of literally tens of thousands of Americans, I worked my way out of Youngstown, passing through the neighborhoods where they once lived. I saw St. Nicholas Byzantine Catholic Church, which alludes to the Eastern European origins of many of the immigrants who once flooded…
In Search of the Sidaway Bridge and John D. Rockefeller, Cleveland
Sometimes I go searching for something and I don’t find it, but the journey becomes interesting (and a little scary) in of itself. In this case, I went looking for the Sidaway Bridge, further up one of the tributaries of the Cuyahoga River, after reading about it online, and besides being fascinated by its structure,…
West of Downtown, Part One, Cleveland
Apparently I was staying in some neighborhood of Cleveland known as Cudell, and as I woke up the first full day in the city, I set out east on Lorain Avenue, turned left on West 81st Street going north, by this time having entered the Detroit-Shoreway neighborhood, hung a right onto Madison Avenue going east,…
East of Downtown, Cleveland
Cleveland is much like St. Louis in that it is much longer than it is wide. In this case, however, the city stretches along a lake, and is longer east-west. St. Clair and Superior avenues in many ways are like the equivalents of North Broadway back in St. Louis, as well, passing through industrial zones…
Vistula Historic District, Toledo
Down by the approaches to the Veterans’ Glass City Skyway Bridge is the Vistula Historic District, which retains some amazing architecture. The majority of my phots are from along East Superior Street. Platted in 1833, Vistula was originally one of two towns, the other being Port Lawrence, that combined together in 1837 to form the…
Former Packard Plant, Detroit
A visit to the former Packard automobile plant is de rigueur for any architectural historian or any lover of abandoned buildings. While Packard closed in 1956, the complex was never truly abandoned, as far as I could find, until 1999. As so often has happened, a manufacturing plant with an august history was relegated to…
More Historic Houses, Florissant
The Withington House, constructed in 1860, was the home of George and Eliza, and is another typical central hall five bay German house in Florissant. Auguste Aubuchon House began as a log cabin. The houses above and below are not the same one, but you can see how common the building type was, where there…
Kühn House and Harrison Avenue, Florissant
The original central five bay wide Kühn House was built in 1840, an example of a central hall Greek Revival house in Florissant. As is typical of the style, several wings were added, but kept in a bisymmetrical balance on both sides. As would be expected by the name, it was built by a member…