Retracing my steps back down Broadway Street to Fourth Street, we see a bank, perhaps the tallest historic building in downtown Paducah with some interesting modern additions… West of 4th Street is perhaps not as rehabbed as east, but there is just as beautiful of Victorian Period buildings from Paducah’s Nineteenth Century heritage. The Weille…
Tag: Theaters
Riverfront, Paducah
Now that we’ve seen a little bit of downtown Paducah, let’s talk a little about its history. Founded due to its Ohio River access, much like St. Louis, the city thrived due to these connections, and when the railroad came later, Paducah embraced that new technology, as well. A gigantic rolling stock mill still provides…
Commercial Avenue and Environs, Revisited, Cairo
Well, there certainly has been a lot of changes along Commercial Avenue, the main street of Cairo, since the last time I was here. First of all, we’re down to two buildings on the east side of the street, when there were four the first time I visited. I suspect there will be none soon….
Two Downtown Movie Theaters, St. Joseph
St. Joseph possesses two fantastic historic theaters in its downtown from two different eras. The first, the Missouri Theater, was built in a sort of Moorish Revival in 1927. Waylande Gregory was the architect. I can’t help but see the resemblance to the Majestic Theater in East St. Louis. Now owned by the City of…
Novelty Theater Under Demolition
Due to more failure of Paul McKee’s Northside Regeneration to properly maintain its buildings, the historic Novelty Theater is being torn down. The two-screen theater, designed by Charles Deitring in 1910 possessed a capacity of over one thousand. It has sat empty for a long time. As far as whether the structure to the east’s…
Macon, Sixteen Years Later
Fast forward to February, and I was back in Macon for the first time in sixteen years, and this is what I saw. There were some fresh coats of paint, here and there. The former bank building has a new business in it, which I learned was originally the Macon Building and Loan Association, later…
From the Vault: Macon, Sixteen Years Ago
We found ourselves in Macon, in Northeast Missouri recently, and I wanted to check up on the downtown area. It had been sixteen years since my first and last visit to downtown Macon, and I only posted a few pictures: some pealing lead paint, and a Beaux-Arts and a Modernist bank. I dug these photos…
Former St. Boniface, Winter 2024
The former St. Boniface, and now the former Ivory Theatre, has seen some theft of the metal on the upper portions of the two towers in the last couple of years. But I’m told that there are new owners who are taking care of it now, and hopefully they’ll have it back open soon. For…
Fairfield Avenue, Newport, Kentucky
We’ve looked at Newport, Kentucky, across the river from Cincinnati before, but this time we’re going to look at Fairfield Avenue, starting at Ward Avenue and heading east. As I’ve said before, one of the great tragedies of St. Louis and its relationship to the Metro East is that civic and business leaders have not…
Clifton, Cincinnati
Up north, the Clifton neighborhood was an independent town dating to the 1850s, but street car lines, which made the arduous climb up the steep hills feasible, transformed the area in the 1890s. Much of the housing dates to the first years of the Twentieth Century, however, and filled in what had originally been the…