Lick Run, which we looked at yesterday, empties into Mill Creek, the industrial spine of Cincinnati. Not surprisingly, it has been heavily modified, altered and polluted by humans over the last two hundred years. There is something sublime about the giant swath of hundreds of miles of railroad tracks that you can see fleetingly while…
Tag: Bridges
Mount Adams, Cincinnati, Ohio
We’re going to take a break from Over the Rhine to visit Mount Adams, an example of a successful community fit into a tight space. As the name implies, and as can be seen above in the historic photograph, the steep slopes of the hill have kept the outcropping isolated northeast of downtown Cincinnati. Eden…
Leonor K. Sullivan Boulevard, Laclede’s Landing
Not much is happening down along the Levee anymore. There are so many streets blocked off or closed permanently, as in the case of Washington Avenue, removed in the recent Arch renovations, that it is increasingly difficult to impossible to even reach the riverfront. But it is worth it to see the Eads Bridge and…
Tower Rock
We made it out to Tower Rock, and it was worth making the trek down to the rural corner of southeast Missouri where it’s located. As can be seen from the above engraving, Tower Rock has been a sight on the river for generations of travelers, and I think about all the people who have…
Montmartre Cemetery
Across Paris in the Montmartre area is another cemetery, built in the basin of a former limestone quarry–a common theme where largely unbuildable land is used for the burial of the dead. It’s an interesting counterpoint to Père Lachaise; Montmartre Cemetery is still a rural cemetery movement space but it is more rigid and just…
The Château of Chenonceaux
Sitting aside and crossing the Le Cher River, the Château of Chenonceaux is easily one of the greatest achievements of humans carefully adapting the built environment with the natural environment. Instead of trampling on the natural world, the renovation of what had been an old Medieval fortress was transformed into a residence that worked with…
Downtown from the McKinley Bridge
The views of downtown from the McKinley Bridge are also impressive. The vacant Southwestern Bell building can be seen below, with the boarded up windows that were shot out by stray bullets earlier this year clearly visible. The Eagleton Federal Courthouse is to the west. Then there is the iconic Civil Courts building. The Stan…
Merchants Bridge, Under Reconstruction, Part Two
Update: The new bridge is now complete. I figured it was about time to get back out to the McKinley Bridge to survey the progress of reconstruction of the Merchants Bridge. Back in October of 2021, only the furthest east of the three trusses had been replaced, so I figured they were probably fairly far…
Road Deck Removal, MacArthur Bridge
I received a tip from a friend that further, and perhaps final pieces of the MacArthur Bridge’s infamous road deck were being removed from the western Chouteau’s Landing portion of the span. I’m sure there are many readers out there who can tell me much more than I can about the dangers of the old…
Japanese Garden, Missouri Botanical Garden
I think one of my favorite places in St. Louis is Seiwa-En, the Japanese Garden at the Missouri Botanical Garden. It dates from 1977, so it is now over four decades old. It is interesting to see that our current garden was not the first in St. Louis; there was also one at the Japanese…