Speaking of pedestrian bridges, there actually was at least one that I learned about from Vivian Gibson, author of The Last Children of Mill Creek. It’s been demolished, obviously, but it once took pedestrians over the Mill Creek railyards in the alignment of what was known as West Jefferson Avenue (really the original path of…
Tag: Bridges
Commercial Street, North Side, Springfield
You can read about some of the history of the Commercial Street Historic District here, at the website for the area. This is an old fire station. I think these buildings below could be spotted in the historic photograph at the top of this post. There seems to be more empty renovated storefronts on this…
Old Monroe, Lincoln County
We’d seen Old Monroe on maps for years, on the banks of the Cuivre River, so we thought we’d stop by finally. There are some extremely interesting buildings, including the one below, which I suspect might have been built as a hotel originally. The house below is your classic, and probably German immigrant-built duplex; note…
End of the Skybridge
This might be considered sappy, but in all seriousness one of my first memories of downtown St. Louis is walking across the skybridge from the parking garage into the old Famous Barr in the Railway Exchange Building during our first visit to St. Louis Centre. Fast forward almost forty years and St. Louis Centre has…
Merchants Bridge, Under Reconstruction, Part Three
Without much fanfare, they have completed the third, westernmost and final truss span of the Merchants’ Bridge north of downtown. The bridge piers remain, encased and strengthened with massive amounts of reinforced concrete. The old Merchants’ Bridge, the second oldest span in St. Louis, is now a memory. I looked at the first and second…
Covington, Kentucky
I had the opportunity to explore more of Covington, Kentucky, which is directly across the Roebling Bridge from Cincinnati. There is a stunning quarter of houses built around and after the Civil War to the northeast of the approaches to the bridge, with houses in various styles. You can walk or bike to your office…
Mill Creek Valley, Cincinnati, Ohio
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…
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…