I’ll be honest; a lot of the Loire Valley featured run-down barns and beaten up farm implements interspersed with mostly new houses built in the last thirty years. But occasionally there were awe-inspiring châteaux and stunning towns that have preserved their historic architecture. One such place is the city of Blois, which sits on the…
Tag: Churches
Some Random Impressions of France
First off, perhaps I would like to start off with some impressions of Paris, and France in general. This was my twelfth trip to Europe, but my first to France. Many people were surprised that I had never been, and that was a major reason I chose to finally go. As I remarked to someone,…
Back from Paris and Northern France with over a Thousand Photographs
While certainly I wanted to show off the beauty of Dutchtown for two weeks, that was also cover for the fact I was traveling in Europe for over a week, specifically in Paris and throughout northern France. I took over 1,000 photos, which is slacking off a bit considering I took over 2,400 photos back…
Two Churches in the Land Between the Rivers
We looked at two churches in that flat bottomland sandwiched between the Missouri and Mississippi rivers that forms an almost peninsula-like eastern tail of St. Charles County. The first one, Trinity Lutheran Church at the intersection of Highway 94 and Church Road, dates from 1876, when it was calved off from Emmanuel Lutheran. The church…
Union Boulevard Between Dr. Martin Luther King Drive and Wabada, West Side
Passing by MLK Dr., we see increasing abandonment to the west in Wells-Goodfellow. The houses are also more modest. Judging from the brick patterns on above the doorway and the two upper windows of this four-family, I suspect this buildings front façade was once far more ornamented. Storefront churches often fill the old corner spaces….
The North Side from the McKinley Bridge
Looking north up the river, we see the old warehouses and factories of the Near North Riverfront. You can see the City Museum off in the distance. Next up are the warehouses of the United Bags Company along North Broadway. St. Liborius is in view in the St. Louis Place neighborhood. There is the old…
The Edge of Tower Grove East, Nebraska Avenue Between Pestalozzi Street and Magnolia Avenue
Tower Grove East is a strange neighborhood. In the eyes of many people, it is a junior version of Tower Grove South, or should I say, Tower Grove Heights, with its rows of early Twentieth Century suburban houses. But in reality, the eastern portion the neighborhood has roots going back to the mid-Nineteenth Century, when…
Gethsemene Lutheran Church
I recently attended a musical performance at Gethsemene Lutheran Church, and I found the architecture interesting. During the Middle Ages, it was perfectly normal for churches and cathedrals to be the centers of the community, where music, meetings, theological discussions and other non-ceremonial events would have occurred simply because they were the only large buildings…
Lindell Boulevard from Grand Boulevard to Vandeventer Avenue
Ah, Lindell Boulevard! I avoid the street like the plague because it is such a dysfunctional street. Once a residential street lined with mansions, sometime in the Twentieth Century it became the busiest street in the city. The mansions were demolished, and it became lined with businesses, while the through traffic jumped over to Highway…
Urban Density Surviving on Grand Boulevard
While all those demolitions are going on down south, there are actually a fair number of really nice buildings still standing just to the north, particularly on the west side of Grand Boulevard. Justine Peterson has a presence in one building, nice rehabbed above. There’s this spectacular Art-Deco storefront above, which is a rarity in…