Constructed in 1834, the old stone Des Peres Presbyterian Church is rapidly approaching the bicentennial mark out in Frontenac off Geyer Road. Despite the roof collapsing in 1874 and a car crashing into it a few years ago, the venerable church has remained a beacon in the community. At one point it was threatened with…
Tag: Early Vernacular
After the Tornado: The Ville, Revisited
I traveled around The Ville some more and it has been devastated. Yes, there was already a fair amount of abandonment and vacant lots, but what was intact and in good condition was damaged badly. Sumner High School suffered extensive loss of its roof, as well as some windows, from what I understand. It was…
Gimblin Street Over to Halls Ferry Road, Baden, May 2025
I turned left onto Gimblin Avenue from Church Road and looked at the vacant lots that had appeared in place of the abandoned houses I had photographed back in February of 2018. There are more burned out houses, as well. But the cool apartment building below, which I also looked at in February of 2018,…
Church Road, Revisited May 2025
To my readers: I am safe from the tornado, but many others are not. Please keep them in your thoughts. In the future, when it is appropriate, I will survey the damage to the historic neighborhoods devastated in this tragic event. I found myself going back up Church Road in Baden again after I had…
College Avenue, College Hill
After leaving Bellefontaine Cemetery, I hung a left on College Avenue in the College Hill neighborhood, which I haven’t really looked at much lately. While there is a lot of abandonment and demolition, there are some people who are not giving up, and as seen below, have doubled down on their commitment to their home….
Along the Lower River des Peres
I traveled from the mouth of the River des Peres, starting by heading up Marceau Avenue, where I spotted some old houses while still in Carondelet. I crossed over the River des Peres on Alabama Avenue onto the south side of the drainage ditch and proceeded up Carondelet Boulevard. Of course, Alabama Avenue becomes Lemay…
East Steins Street
Leaving behind Reilly Avenue, we spot the Jacob Steins House on East Steins Street. I wrote about the house and other stone dwellings at St. Louis Magazine back in 2014 and their rich history in Carondelet. As we head northwest up East Steins Street, we pass through the industrial ring that was the heart of…
Reilly Avenue, Northeast of East Steins Street
On one of the quiet, isolated streets of southern Carondelet, I found a row of houses that I had never seen before. Just off East Steins Street, these houses are very old, probably from the 1860s or 70s. They have no alley and the residents seem to park on concrete parking pads out front. I’ve…
Tamm Avenue between Oakland and Clayton Avenues
I realized I have never looked at Tamm Avenue, the famous street that passes through Dogtown just south of Forest Park. Of course, there were clay and coal mines in the area, but really, according to my sources, they were mainly east of Hampton Avenue. But not all, and one mine, the Gittens Mine, which…
Titonix Lead White Factory
I found an old book at the library about Carondelet, and while it was filled with the normal stuff about French Colonial history–which is really cool–what I really found interesting is the industry. I like to think about Carondelet not as a quaint little French town, but rather as a big, brawny Brooklyn on the…