Twenty-Three Years of Paul McKee: Hyde Park

Hyde Park was never in the footprint of the Northside TIF, but I can’t help think that it was affected by the disruption that was occurring in the neighborhoods to the south. This neighborhood is really suffering from the effects of abandonment, and the City’s reliance on McKee’s plans diverted attention from residents’ real needs…

Hyde Park, 2011, From the Vault, Part Two

Here are more photographs from the vault. This is south of Salisbury Street in Hyde Park, I can tell. Things have gotten better with the filling in of vacant lots, but there have also been demolitions.

Hyde Park, 2011, From the Vault, Part One

I found some old photographs from Hyde Park that I took back in 2011 that I never used. I don’t know why, and apart from a few views, I have no idea where these photos are. I think the majority are along Salisbury Street or thereabouts. Things have changed dramatically in fourteen or fifteen years.

Jewish Orthodox Old Home, September 2025

Not much has been happening up at the old nursing home at Grand and Blair. There’s more graffiti, that’s for sure. There hasn’t been more demolition after the removal of the crumbling wing back in 2024 that I noticed.

North Twenty-First Street From Bremen Avenue to Penrose Street, Hyde Park

It turns out that I’ve apparently never looked at any of the buildings on North Twenty-First Street, but there are some nice houses along. There are some Second Empire apartment buildings, but also some never ones from the early Twentieth Century, like the ones above. These two houses below are just totally trashed. Sadly, there…

Angelrodt Street from North Twentieth Street to Blair Avenue, Revisited

Continuing around Hyde Park, I headed down Angelrodt Street east of Twentieth Street, which I looked at back in January of 2018. I first spotted this house, which is rapidly losing its vinyl siding. I’ve always been fascinated by these little houses, built a half century or more after Hyde Park was already a bustling…

Twentieth Street Between Newhouse and Bremen Avenues

Despite the sad loss of Friedens, I still think that Hyde Park is such a great neighborhood, full of so many beautiful buildings. Twentieth Street, one block over, is almost completely intact. I really love this storefront church, below. There is an old wood frame house behind, which must be very old, and then here’s…

Former Friedens German Evangelical Church, In Ruins

Well, I guess there’s not much to say but St. Louis has lost another beautiful church to fire, most likely set by squatters trying to keep warm on one of the coldest nights of the winter so far. In this case, it was the former Friedens German Evangelical Lutheran Church, which I first looked at…

Two Fires

Two notable fires happened in the last week or two, and we’ll start with one in the 2800 block of Cherokee Street. I have to admit I didn’t even realize the building was vacant; it has hosted a rotating cast of different carryout restaurants. It’s a sad turn of events on a major thoroughfare. It…