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…
Tag: Office Buildings
The Beauty of Dutchtown, 88: Meramec Street Between Grand Boulevard and Louisiana Avenue, North Side
We left off on the last Beauty of Dutchtown Series with No. 86. On a whim during one of the fog events on an early Saturday I photographed the entirety of the north side of Meramec Street, the main east-west artery in Dutchtown. I’ve photographed some sections before, but it is worthwhile to check in…
Redevelopment, Former A.G. Edwards Buildings
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 stadium. As many readers know, this was the heart of…
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…
North First Street, Laclede’s Landing
We come up the steep incline and reach North First Street, where the above photograph captures the street in 1968, right before the grand plans for redevelopment had begun. Interestingly, old fashioned street lights had already appeared. Below, on the southwest corner, a plaza that appears to still be incomplete replaced the vacant lot where…
More Change East of Saint Louis University Hospital
I had looked at the quiet streets east of SLU Hospital and had been pleasantly surprised at the development that had been going on back in February of 2021. Spurred by a recent visit by Mark Groth over at St. Louis City Talk, I thought I would go back myself this last weekend. I was…
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…
Lindell Boulevard Between Vandeventer and North Boyle Avenues
Heading west of Vandeventer, this stretch of Lindell Boulevard is perhaps the most devastated of the entire street in the Central West End. There is hardly anything left from the Nineteenth Century left on the north side. Even the AAA was once threatened with demolition for a drug store several years. Perhaps the most notable…
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…
Looking Out the Windows of the Alverne
It’s hard to believe considering how long suffering the Alverne Building was, that I was able to stand on the top floor recently and deliver a lecture. It’s now renovated into some interesting apartments, including some two-story ones, and the problem with the building having some small windows that couldn’t be altered in order to…