Continuing our examination of the concept of the “shopping mall,” we visited Mid Rivers Mall, located at the intersection of Interstate 70 and Mid Rivers Mall Drive. The mall is doing fine, but it’s not doing great. There are four hundred thousand people located within four or five miles of the mall, and they are…
Tag: Modernism
The Crossings at Northwest, Former Northwest Plaza
I thought I would swing by the “Crossings at Northwest,” or what I called Zombie Northwest Plaza, which apparently was the largest outdoor mall in the United State when it opened in January 24, 1966. Supposedly. The last time I was by was back in 2017. The Famous Barr, designed by Raymond Loewy and William…
The Galleria, Former Westroads Shopping Center
It’s increasingly forgotten, but the Galleria originally was the Westroads Shopping Center, and like many other early shopping centers, it was more of strip mall with a single anchor, in this case a Stix, Baer and Fuller, and several other stores arranged in behind a parking lot. Built in 1955, Westroads was Stix, Baer and…
Magnolia Avenue, National Garden Clubs
Hiding in plain sight on six acres on the south side of the Missouri Botanical Gardens is the National Garden Clubs headquarters. You can read all about the history of this organization here. The open courtyard welcomes the visitor into the front entrance of the building. Historic photographs give us a window into the fascinating…
Magnolia Avenue from Thurman Avenue to Klemm Street, Part Two, and Hortus Court
After another not terribly inspired 1950s or 60s long apartment building, we get to Hortus Court, a fascinating and unique development in St. Louis. Platted in 1921, Hortus Court is a row of Dutch Colonial houses arranged around a walkway perpendicular to Magnolia Avenue, creating a quaint, private community of homes facing each other across…
Magnolia Avenue from Thurman Avenue to Klemm Street, Part One
Crossing Thurman, we see more apartment buildings and houses. This first one is perhaps more reminiscent of the U-shaped buildings of Chicago that are so prevalent, but not so much in St. Louis. But as I often remind readers, apartments in St. Louis, no mater how complicated they look, are usually just four- or six-family…
Magnolia Avenue from South 39th Street to Lawrence Street
Heading west on Magnolia Avenue past South 39th Street, we get to some of those exceptionally long lots. But these houses don’t have those long yards, because the backs were partitioned off to create houses facing South 39th Street, sitting perpendicular to Magnolia Avenue. They are typical houses from the early Twentieth Century. One house…
Magnolia Avenue from South Grand Boulevard to South 39th Street
The next couple of weeks I’m going to be looking at that strange, awkward strip of land that extends from South Grand Boulevard to Tower Grove Avenue between Magnolia Avenue and the north alley behind Botanical Avenue in the Shaw neighborhood. Why is the space between Magnolia and Botanical not wide enough for another street,…
Arsenal Street Between Arkansas and Louisiana Avenues
We cross over Arkansas Avenue in Tower Grove East where there are many corner storefronts such as the one you see above and below. There’s also Riley’s, famous for its pizza. Those front parapet walls below have obviously been truncated due to damage from the weather, which is common. We see more tracts houses below,…
West of Downtown Union, Franklin County
Heading west from the square and downtown, we come across St. Paul Lutheran Church, founded in 1921 and originally met in an older building. The current church is from 1952. Houses are relatively simple in town. But I did find this nice Queen Anne Style house back closer to the courthouse. Out southwest of town,…