The Streets Around Norwood Square

One of the most interesting neighborhoods in St. Louis is Norwood Square, which I first looked at way back in August of 2009. It sits on the site of an old quarry, which is settling badly (I tried to figure out what kind of quarry it was, but it does not show up on this…

Mount Adams, Cincinnati, Ohio

We’re going to take a break from Over the Rhine to visit Mount Adams, an example of a successful community fit into a tight space. As the name implies, and as can be seen above in the historic photograph, the steep slopes of the hill have kept the outcropping isolated northeast of downtown Cincinnati. Eden…

Lockerbie Square, Indianapolis, Indiana

Moving on on our tour of Midwestern neighborhoods and their relation to downtowns, we next come to the Lockerbie community of Indianapolis, Indiana. First of all, I had never realized that Indianapolis had a planned street grid, with radiating arteries coming out from a central roundabout (we’ll look at that sometime in the future). Lockerbie…

Hammett Place

Hammett Place is one of those special places that I found on accident and that I suspect most people in the St. Louis region have never heard of before. Whilte technically part of a neighborhood created by the City government in the late Twentieth Century called Kingsway East, it’s tucked away on the edge of…

Penrose Street Between Blair Avenue and North 11th Street, Hyde Park

I ended up on Penrose Street in Hyde Park recently east of Blair Avenue, which is blocked off with Schoemehl Pots. On the east, Interstate 70 cuts the street off from North Broadway, with which it had long been connected. Some houses are abandoned, like the one above, but others are in great condition and…

Indiana Avenue Between Sidney and Lynch Streets, East Side

I realized I had mostly been looking at the west side of Indiana Avenue in the past, as well as further south. But the east side of Indiana Avenue just south of Sidney Street in Benton Park is actually a very interesting mix of buildings. First there is a group of Second Empire houses close…

Redevelopment Continuing, Lafayette Square

Back in May of this year, I checked in on the massive new development transforming the long moribund northwest side of the Lafayette Square neighborhood. I think most people know the story: the wealthy area declined and industry moved in (though that’s not entirely true, as early sources show that dirty industry had always been…

Whispering Oakwood, Reborn

I had been following the saga of the house that had been in various legal wrangles with the suburb of Ballwin for years. As I reported in the past, it had been foreclosed on by a New York bank, and then it was demolished, leaving a vacant lot. Much to our surprise, a new house…

North Second Street, East Side, Laclede’s Landing

We’ll first look at the east side of North Second Street, heading north. The two buildings on the right are the Greeley and Cutlery buildings, respectively. Back in 1980, the two buildings were shabby, looked abandoned, and the Cutlery Building was still sporting a fire escape like something you would see in the Lower East…