I recently became fascinated with the phenomenon of “private” traffic signals, which are electric traffic control lights which serve only one user at a busy or dangerous intersection. The first one is where West Pine Boulevard sweeps around and terminates at Lindell Boulevard after coming out of Forest Park. The traffic light usually only serves…
Tag: Forest Park North and West
A Vanished Mansion at the Corner of Lindell Boulevard and West Pine Drive
These two houses along Lindell Boulevard just west of Kingshighway, which I looked at way back in March of 2008, used to have two neighbors just down the street, back when this was actually known and platted originally as Park Road, as I mentioned yesterday. Designed by the famed architecture firm of Barnett, Haynes and…
A Vanished Mansion at the Corner of Lindell Boulevard and Kingshighway
As I always tell people, if you come across a house that is much newer than all the houses around it, you need to be suspicious. Take 2 Westmoreland Place, built in 1895 by Henry Siegrist, an automobile lubricant executive on lot 33 of the Forest Park Addition. It passed through various owners before being…
In the Footsteps of Lillian Handlan Lemp
Many readers are no doubt familiar with Lillian Handlan, who would marry William Lemp, Jr., the heir to the Lemp Brewery. Later, their acrimonious divorce would make headlines around the country. But she also lived in many places around St. Louis, and I’ve identified several places she called home. There may be more, but for…
Alexander Hamilton Elementary School
Alexander Hamilton Elementary School is tucked away in the neighborhoods north of Forest Park, only two blocks south of Delmar. It’s surrounded by a park and quiet residential streets, and to the northeast a major Metro depot. It was designed by Rockwell Milligan, of the famous firm of Ittner Milligan, and it looks like many…
Fourteenth Anniversary of St. Louis Patina: The Times They Are a-Changin’
Fourteen years now. The world and St. Louis have changed so much in that time. I’ve changed so much, too. I think about what and how I photographed in that time. What is gone, and what I had no idea even existed back in May of 2007. I’m on my fourth camera, and I have…
Westminster Presbyterian Church
The massive Westminster Presbyterian Church, on the southwest corner of Union and Delmar boulevards, is easily one of the largest churches in St. Louis. Designed by Albert Groves in 1916 and completed in 1925, it is an expression of the large, wealthy mainline Protestant denominations’ tastes in architecture in the early Twentieth Century: the English…
Waterman Boulevard Between Lake Avenue and Kingshighway Boulevard
I realized I’ve never really ever taken any photographs over this way on Waterman Boulevard, and on a nice sunny day, the buildings really looked their best. It’s a mix of mansions, three-families flats–which are super common in Chicago but not so much in St. Louis–and other apartment buildings that look like six-families. It’s interesting…
Holy Corners Revisited, West Side of Kingshighway
I looked at Holy Corners way back in January of 2009, and I figured it was long overdue for an update. First up is the beautiful Tuscan Temple, which is an example of the Doric Order of classical architecture. But I have to chuckle, as it is Roman in form, as it only has columns…
Betty Wheeler Classical Junior Academy, Former Kennard Elementary School
Update: The School Board of the St. Louis Public Schools officially renamed the school after the founder of Metro High School during the summer of 2022, effectively ending the debate over the original name of the school. Samuel M. Kennard Elementary School has been in the news recently, so I thought I would check it…