Crossing Magnolia Avenue, former Rappahannock Street, we see the side of one of my favorite houses in St. Louis. It’s interesting as there is really sort of just a stock housing mass in this city, and then builders would simply add different fronts. It’s illustrated perfectly here. I’ve photographed the Magnolia elevation here (fourth photo)….
Tag: Italianate
The Edge of Tower Grove East, Nebraska Avenue Between Pestalozzi Street and Magnolia Avenue
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…
Schiller’s Grove and the Former St. Elizabeth’s Academy
I had long known that the former St. Elizabeth’s High School and convent, now the International Institute, had once had a larger chapel that had been partially demolished when its new Modernist wing had been built in the 1960s in Tower Grove East. Christopher Schiller, owner of the Swan Tavern on the Levee, had bought…
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…
Marcus Avenue Between Greer and Ashland Avenues, West Side, The Greater Ville
I was glancing at these apartments above when I turned to the right, looking up Marcus Avenue. It soon became obvious that just about every single house on the west side of the street (I’d captured these houses in the corner of the last photo of this post in September of 2021) has had its…
Ashland Avenue Between Clay Avenue and Whittier Street, South Side, The Greater Ville
After we pass by Farragut School on Ashland Avenue, things start to look a little more rough, with heavy abandonment and dilapidation. Four-family flats, built together, now sit abandoned in the weeds together. The short streets which give the north central Greater Ville its character are often filled with vacant lots and overgrowth. This corner…
Around Buchanan County, Iowa, July 2022
In a clockwise route, we explored various small towns in Buchanan County, starting in the northeast with Lamont, where we first spied this foundation above left behind but incorporated into a horse enclosure. There was also a half-flounder downtown on the main street, though I don’t know how old it was. Another sight was a…
Fayette and Upper Iowa University, Revisited
We returned to Fayette, which I looked at back in the fall of 2018. This time, the weather was sunny, and I was able to catch a more cheerful view of the town. I actually photographed this Queen Anne beauty below, which is now an AirBnB where my family stayed during our time in the…
Around Marshall County, Illinois, June 2022
North of Washburn is the town of La Rose, which is in Marshall County. The country actually has two parts on either side of the Illinois River. The town is dominated by a grain elevator, a part of which looks to be quite old. The booth for the truck scale is still standing, much like…
Around Woodford County, Illinois, June 2022
I went around and looked at some of the towns northeast of the family farm. I started with Eureka, the county seat of Woodford County. I could have sworn I had featured the courthouse before, but apparently not. Got to love the bank where they filled in the windows–who needs natural light when there’s amazing…