I never feel like I can get a good picture of the Old Courthouse in downtown St. Louis. There always seems to be something blocking my ability to back up far enough, or it’s a cloudy day, or whatever. Surrounded by buildings for most of its existence, first by two- to three-story-houses and stores that…
Tag: Gateway Mall
Blocked View
Gateway One (the Peabody Coal Building) should have never been built. St. Louis should have never built the Gateway Mall, either, but since it did, at the bare minimum it could have at least done it correctly. Sigh.
The Beginning of Boone’s Lick Road
Where has this monument been hiding? It was dedicated in the 1970s, but I guess the recent renovations of the Gateway Mall has made it more obvious? There is another monument out in Dardenne Prairie.
Family Photos
I found some old pictures my family took from the Arch back in 1986-7; in the upper left, you can see the Cupples Warehouses sitting vacant. The first Kiener Plaza, now demolished, was just starting construction. The ash trees are now gone, but they were relatively young thirty years ago. Below, the Metropolitan Square Building…
Civil Courts Building
Designed by Klipstein and Rathmann and completed in 1930, the Civil Courts Building was probably one of the last generation of major Beaux-Arts buildings in America. Its form is based off the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, with an extended base but still containing the Ionic colonnade capped with a stepped pyramid. Constructed from the money provided…
Civil Courts Building From Chestnut Street
The Civil Courts Building is one of my favorite buildings in downtown St. Louis, but it is so often viewed from straight down the Gateway Mall. I like seeing it from among the buildings of downtown.
World War II Veterans’ Memorial
Update: The proposed additions were superseded by the successful renovation of the Soldiers Memorial by the Missouri History Museum, which reopened to the public on Veterans’ Day 2018. Read my article about the completed renovations here. The renovations included the completion of the architect’s original vision for the space seen in these photographs, which now…
Tearing Down Buildings for the Gateway Mall
See the view from the opposite direction.
City Garden, Successful Urban Renewal
I wish the historic buildings that used to stand here were still here, but since they’re not, we have to come up with some sort of solution to fill the void. I think the City Garden is a great example of where well planned and executed design can add a lot to a downtown. We…