Tower Grove East is a strange neighborhood. In the eyes of many people, it is a junior version of Tower Grove South, or should I say, Tower Grove Heights, with its rows of early Twentieth Century suburban houses. But in reality, the eastern portion the neighborhood has roots going back to the mid-Nineteenth Century, when…
Tag: In-Fill
A Vanished Mansion at the Corner of Lindell Boulevard and Kingshighway
As I always tell people, if you come across a house that is much newer than all the houses around it, you need to be suspicious. Take 2 Westmoreland Place, built in 1895 by Henry Siegrist, an automobile lubricant executive on lot 33 of the Forest Park Addition. It passed through various owners before being…
The Ville, July 2022
I took a short look at The Ville on a bright and sweltering Saturday recently. Despite the frequent reports of doom and gloom, much of the neighborhood has a lot going for it. There are many streets that are lined with some nice in-fill, and I hope can be built in the future. I definitely…
Penrose, July 2022, Part Two, Penrose Avenue and Environs
Continuing on Penrose Avenue, more or less, we see more housing stock that reminds me of the Greater Ville, which of course is not very far away, just south of Natural Bridge Avenue. I’ve always been intrigued by these little one-story houses with the false roof on the front façade. But then, we see a…
The South Side, Peoria
My trip up to Central Illinois in mid June took me to all sorts of random surprises, including several new churches and other sights, and that is why I enjoy doing what I do. It is often totally random. But sometimes my totally random path takes me through neighborhoods that tell stories that I don’t…
A Tour of the Sites Mentioned in the Federal Indictment
Legal disclaimer: all defendants are considered innocent until proven otherwise in a court of law, as laid down in the Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. That being said, federal prosecutors have a 99% conviction rate–yikes! Update: As of June 7, 2022, Lewis Reed, the last of the three members of the…
Arsenal Street Between Ohio and California Avenues, South Side
Moving west from Ohio Avenue on Arsenal Street, we see a HUD house that has been built on a vacant lot, probably back in the 1970s. I actually met the owner of the house at SerbFest, where he was working security. Next are two stout four-family buildings, which are such a mainstay of the Benton…
Arsenal Street Between Jefferson and Ohio Avenues, South Side
I realized that despite the hundreds of times I’ve driven down Arsenal Street in Benton Park West I’ve never actually photographed it comprehensively, so I hit the south side of the thoroughfare one morning recently. Starting at South Jefferson Avenue, which I’ve looked at here and here, we move west and go by vacant lots,…
Development in Northwest Lafayette Square
Redevelopment is finally coming to the northwest corner of Lafayette Square, which was long the abandoned site of the former Praxair facility, which exploded years ago. It’s a mixture of a large apartment building along Chouteau Avenue, while there are houses being built along Hickory Street. I was told the old stone house, which I…
Old North, Revisited Winter 2022, Hebert Street Between Nineteenth Street and North Florissant Avenue
Walking west on Hebert, I realized I had never really looked at the houses down this stretch of street. The views on the gently rolling terrain can sometimes be wonderful, as we spot Most Holy Trinity off in the distance. There are more well-preserved Second Empire houses, many with their original slate Mansard roofs. And…