Heading south down the shore of Lake Michigan from the Chicago Loop, you encounter a landscape that is both sublime and ineffable at the same time. There are no words to describe it. As I planned my journey to a series of Midwest industrial powerhouses, I realized I had never used these old, very old…
Tag: Interstates
Enclaves of St. Louis #3: 2700 Block of Osceola Street
It’s been a little while since I’ve done an Enclaves of St. Louis feature, so I thought I’d look at the 2700 block of Osceola Street in Dutchtown, just east of South Broadway and west of Interstate 55, which now artificially truncates the block. This must be a very interesting place to live, with just…
Bellevue Brewery and Central Parkway, Cincinnati, Ohio
The former Bellevue Brewery sits high up on a hill above Central Parkway, the former Miami and Ohio Canal. Ironically, this was originally the back of the building. But of course, it might seem logical that industry would grow up along the canal, though I wonder how much utility the waterway really provided by the…
Mill Creek Valley, Cincinnati, Ohio
Lick Run, which we looked at yesterday, empties into Mill Creek, the industrial spine of Cincinnati. Not surprisingly, it has been heavily modified, altered and polluted by humans over the last two hundred years. There is something sublime about the giant swath of hundreds of miles of railroad tracks that you can see fleetingly while…
Demolition Coming, The Grove, Part Two
Update: The church is now gone. The old Emmaus church at Tower Grove and Chouteau avenues will be demolished for the new Ronald McDonald House and headquarters. The old warehouse to the east has already been demolished. The apartment buildings to the east down the block are in great condition, and are not part of…
Northside Regeneration and the Future of North St. Louis
Update: There’s some great news to report on these two houses. For once this is not land speculation but rather the Sisters at Alpha Kappa Alpha rebuilding a founder’s home as part of what will be a museum and community center. Heading east on St. Louis Avenue just east of Garrison, I spotted a strange…
The Forgotten Bircher Boulevard
I thought I would look into greater depth regarding the former Bircher Boulevard, which while still preserved as a highway exit off Interstate 70, has largely been destroyed. I looked at the houses on the south side of the former boulevard back in April of 2019, and I can only imagine what happened to the…
Old North, Revisited Winter 2022, North Eleventh Street Between Montgomery and Monroe Streets
I’ve long been intrigued by this corner storefront sitting right by the interstate. The black paint is the from the never-ending efforts of Operation Brightside to cover up graffiti. The city agency is currently winning at this address, but the tide of battle will probably turn the other way sometime this summer, and so on….
Richard Pryor and Peoria
I had known for awhile that Richard Pryor was from Peoria, but I had always assumed it was one of those situations where he was born there and had moved away when he was a small child. That is far from the case; his childhood is inextricably linked to his upbringing in the city. Weirdly,…
Northeast Side of Crunden-Martin, October 2021
I photographed the east side of Crunden-Martin back in the summer of 2020, and not much had changed. The hulking buildings are still vacant, and are built of a sort of pale red brick. A portion of the terracotta cornice, which may have been white or cream-colored when it was originally installed but has turned…