Downtown Youngstown is really nice! Now, I’m defining it as the area enclosed by Highway 422, which surrounds it to the northeast, effectively cutting it off from the rest of the city; on the southwest, the Mahoning River forms the other border. Youngstown State University clearly breathes much of the life into the area northeast…
Tag: Museums
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 Ford Piquette and Fisher Body Plants, Detroit
Henry Ford’s Piquette Avenue Plant remains one of the most important locations in industrial and consumer history, serving as the factory where the famous Model T, as well as a whole other alphabet or earlier prototypes were manufactured. While not the first place Ford operated, it is still of critical importance. Located north of downtown,…
Woodward Avenue, Churches and Other Buildings, Detroit
We’ll leave Brush Park behind and turn on to Woodward Avenue at the Ecumenical Theological Seminary and head north. Woodward Avenue is perhaps one of the most iconic streets in Detroit, and stretches all the way from the Detroit River all the way past Eight Mile Road, the city limits, all the way to the…
Winneshiek County Courthouse, Decorah, Iowa
One of the more spectacular courthouses I’ve seen lately is the Winneshiek County Courthouse in Decorah, Iowa, located in the northeastern reaches of the state. Replacing the first permanent courthouse on the site, and costing $125,000 to build, it was designed by A.C. Kinney of Minneapolis and completed in 1904. I suppose I would describe…
Former Museum of the Ozarks
“Uh, it doesn’t look like it’s open anymore,” I dryly remarked as we pulled up in front of the Bentley House, constructed in 1892. While there is a deteriorating asphalt parking lot around the side of the house that confirms that this property was once open to the public for some sort of use, it…
Colonial and Colonialish Houses, Ste. Genevieve
Moving down to what is now South Main Street, we hit some of the oldest houses in Ste. Genevieve. There is the Bolduc House above. Early colonial houses had broad porches that wrapped around the whole structure, and unlike German or English log walls with horizontal beams, place the logs in the grounds vertically, as…
Ste. Genevieve Arts Center
The Ste. Genevieve Artists Guild has an arts center in what was originally a museum building built in the 1930s. The building below was the office. Thanks to the reader for helping identify the original use.
Neoclassicism and Beyond, Paris
Moving along now so we can get back to St. Louis, here is a smorgasbord of Paris buildings that have broader implications on world architectural history, including here in the Gateway City. First up is the Madeleine, which was originally built by Napoleon to glorify his reign, but was then converted into a church. It’s…
Notre Dame of Paris, Under Reconstruction and the Cluny Museum
No trip to Paris would be complete without a visit to Notre Dame, which simply means “Our Lady” in French, and as such, there are perhaps thousands of churches in the Francophone world with that name. Our Lady obviously refers to the Virgin Mary. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know the cathedral…