Back in January of this year, the now-closed Grand Motel was severely damaged by arson. It is actually very sad because the new owner was planning on renovating the buildings for a homeless outreach center. I saw her on the news, and her heart was in the right place. I don’t know what will happen…
Tag: Hotels
The Pony Express and Patee House, St. Joseph
Moving up into the hills of St. Joseph, we encounter the Patee House Hotel (pronounced “Pay-tea,” no accent on the first e), which played a critical role as the offices for the Pony Express and is now an eclectic and fun museum. Heavily influenced by an early Italianate style, the most stylish hotel in St….
Down by the River, Detroit
Let’s walk from the Campus Martius, named after the famous field in ancient Rome where soldiers trained (it later filled up with temples such as the Pantheon), and part of the original Woodward plan of Detroit and walk down the street of the same name towards the Detroit River. It’s here that I spot some…
The Grande Ballroom and Grand River Avenue, Detroit
One place I wanted to visit in Detroit was the Grande Ballroom on Grand River Avenue, northwest of downtown. While the building has been abandoned for decades, it once played a pivotal role in the development of rock and roll, particularly as it was where the band MC5 played early in their career. Other very…
Former Packard Plant, Detroit
A visit to the former Packard automobile plant is de rigueur for any architectural historian or any lover of abandoned buildings. While Packard closed in 1956, the complex was never truly abandoned, as far as I could find, until 1999. As so often has happened, a manufacturing plant with an august history was relegated to…
LaSalle Street Revisited and the Art-Deco, Chicago
I looked at LaSalle Street briefly back in June of 2008, taking photos of the Rookery, Chicago Board of Trade and another bank. In July of 2008 I featured a skyscraper that had been “chopped off” and replaced with a more modern tower. But let’s look at the Rookery first, which like the Wainwright Building…
Further Down Market Street, Ste. Genevieve
The Southern Hotel is technically down Third Street, but we’ll continue on our way down Market Street towards the river. Note the cupola on the roof. While the Ste. Genevieve is famous for being a French colonial settlement, the majority of the current building stock dates from the Nineteenth Century. And much of it is…
Redevelopment, Former A.G. Edwards Buildings
Update: Demolition was proceeding nicely in the fall of 2023. As readers might suspect, I have been bedridden, overwhelmed with grief at the announcement that two of the oldest buildings on the former A.G. Edwards campus are marked for demolition in order to build two new hotels, a couple of blocks from the new soccer…
Streets of St. Charles
I was out visiting a friend two Saturdays ago, and I was intrigued by the “new urbanism” development of the Streets of St. Charles. It’s becoming increasingly common for wealthier suburbs of major cities to build these mixed-use developments, where there are ground floor restaurants and stores below apartments or condos. There’s usually a hotel…
TopGolf and the District, Chesterfield
In case readers living outside of a metropolitan region where there is currently no TopGolf, I thought I would take a couple of photos to show what such facilities look like. This is the one out in Chesterfield. Perhaps the most prominent feature is the giant net which wraps around the field where players seek…