I wandered around Enright Avenue and Delmar Boulevard west of Vandeventer and took in some of the sights. There’s an old fires station that looks to have been converted into a house. There are a lot of original buildings but there’s also a lot in-fill from the early Twenty-First Century, such as the houses below….
Tag: In-Fill
North Up Blair Avenue, Hyde Park, May 2026, Part One
Now, as we head north up Blair Avenue into Hyde Park, we see this substation. A pet peeve of mine is how AmerenUE makes no effort to integrate its utilities into city neighborhoods. They’re not so ugly and obtrusive in West County; trust me. I’ve seen lots of abandonment in southern Hyde Park in the…
Caroline Street Between South Ewing and Ohio Avenues, Compton Hill
A couple of weeks ago I covered the historic survivors of the Compton Hill neighborhood on the blocks just to the west of South Jefferson Avenue, including Caroline Street. I found a nice collection of those survivors along Caroline Street to the west of Ohio Avenue, with a predominance of Italianate style houses. In other…
Geyer Avenue Between California and Ohio Avenues
Heading one block to the north to Geyer Avenue, it would be remiss to not talk about how Interstate 44, the Ozark Expressway, has altered the street forever. As I demonstrated above with the blue shaded area on the Compton and Dry Pictorial St. Louis from 1876, all of that land is now under the…
Maple Avenue Between Maple Place and Hamilton Avenue
Continuing on to the east on Maple Avenue past Maple Place in the West End, we see more of the typical housing stock for the neighborhood. Many houses are three story, such as the one in the upper right, which is only seen in this area north of Delmar. I’ve always liked this apartment building…
Maple Avenue Between Hodiamont Avenue and Maple Place
I looked at Maple Avenue between Hodiamont Avenue and Maple Place briefly way back in December of 2015, but now we’ll look more closely. First up, above, is an interesting story, and it took a bit of sleuthing to show that indeed this building sat right here at one (it’s long gone now). Kerpan’s was…
South Seventh Boulevard Between Barton Street and Shenandoah Avenue, West Side
I looked at a segment of the west side of South Seventh Boulevard (remember, the east side was annihilated for the widening of the major traffic artery back in the mid Twentieth Century) in November of 2025, so I thought I would photograph more of the surviving and reconstructed urban fabric to the south, heading…
Horton Place, West End
The Horton Place Addition was platted in 1887; city records do not preserve the name of the surveyor, though Julius Pitzman was active in the area at the time period. Sanborn maps split the one block (but very long) street into two maps. Above is the west end, and below is the east end. It…
Cabanne Avenue Between Porter Mall and Belt Avenue, West End
I want you to understand that with the exception of the two houses you see below, every other single house on Cabanne Avenue in the fire insurance map above is gone. Sorry to go on a tirade, but this is what happens when you let government go crazy and implement its vainglorious ideas on entire…
Rock Island, Illinois, Part Two
We next headed down to what I think is the Old Chicago neighborhood of Rock Island, which has seen redevelopment and the construction of mixed-income public housing. The color blue has also been a popular choice for the older houses. Unlike Davenport, Rock Island has most definitely chosen to have a levee, which is straight…