We were back down on Chouteau’s Landing much like I was almost a year ago and the the buildings and bridges were looking good in the evening light. The MacArthur Bridge’s road deck is now completely gone, and is only used for trains. I’m always impressed by the massive concrete footings for the other rail…
Tag: Interstates
American Foundry and Manufacturing Company and F. W. Hanpeter Furniture Company
The forlorn intersection of Branch Avenue with 9th and 11th streets was once a bustling crossroads as can be seen below in Compton and Dry’s 1876 Pictorial St. Louis. I want you to pay particular attention to the building in the lower left above labeled “5.” In 1876, it was the Bellefontaine Streetcar Company’s barn,…
Viaducts, Trestles and Bridges, Chouteau’s Landing
Wandering around the vacant lot where the former Powell Square Building was located before it was demolished in Chouteau’s Landing, I was struck at just how much infrastructure there is clogging this part of the city. Perhaps it is a necessary evil, needed to move commerce and industry around the center of the city for…
Saint Mary of Victories
I realized I have never done a post on St. Mary of Victories down on Chouteau’s Landing, just across South 3rd Street to the east of Interstates 44 and 55. I wrote an article about the church several years ago at St. Louis Magazine. As can be seen above, the church was once part of…
South Tenth Street Across from the Interstate
Across the interstate from Soulard, which you can reach on a pedestrian bridge and St. Vincent de Paul, which just barely avoided being demolished, you find a short stretch of South Tenth Street in what I call Frenchtown. As is evident, these first houses we’re looking at are in-fill, maybe easy to tell due to…
The Missouri River at St. Charles
We next went down to the Missouri River, which of course has been highly modified by the Army Corps of Engineers. There is the famous railroad bridge to the east, and I normally would have consulted Bridgehunter.com, but there is a new update about what the heck happened to that valuable website. It’s interesting that…
Street Design and Crashes, Arsenal Street and Interstate 55.
The recent crash of an automobile into St. Louis institution Gus’ Pretzel’s Shop was logical. I’ll explain why. Vehicles come whipping off of southbound Interstate 55 every thirty seconds or less, and the vast majority of them make little to no effort to stop, making the assumption that no one will be coming from westbound…
Former Marian Hospital
The northern neighbor of the Feickert-Lemp Mansion in the William Weible Addition was also an Italianate style house, with a similar appearance to it as well as the Hoppe Mansion on the west side of the street. While property records in the Assessor’s office shows the land was independently owned, it’s curious that they are…
From the Vault: South Shore Industry, Chicagoland
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…
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…