I realized that while I investigated the Carr Square neighborhood in two pieces at St. Louis Magazine several years ago (you can read the first part here, and the second part here), I had neglected to take a look at what the area looks like now. To put it mildly, you would never imagine that…
Tag: Near North Side
Cass Avenue Between Elliott Avenue and North Grand Boulevard, South Side
I took a look at the south side of Cass Avenue, after having looked at the north side of the street on several occasions over the years, including January of 2013, again in January of 2017, and one more time in December of 2022. While clearly once and still a somewhat trafficked thoroughfare, I never…
Former Biddle Street Market
Designed by Albert Osburg, the City of St. Louis staff architect and opening in 1932, the Biddle Street Market was once the hub of a now vanished neighborhood. It replaced an earlier market of the same name, seen below. As can be seen below, originally the sides were open and not bricked in on the…
Sligo Steel Fire
Update: Everything on this block has now been demolished. A catastrophic fire struck the buildings of what I understand to be the old Sligo Steel buildings on the Near North Side along North Broadway just north of Downtown. This is not the first time these buildings have been hit by fire; I covered a previous…
Out of Blood (and Money)
Update: All eighty employees were terminated at the end of February. The hospital surrendered its licenses and will not reopen. Absolutely no one was surprised that the new three bed hospital opened by Paul McKee failed only a short time after it opened, and years, I mean years after it was first proposed. Property taxes,…
Green Board-Ups, JeffVanderLou, Part Two: Dayton Street
As I mentioned yesterday, Missouri Preservation listed the “JeffVanderLou Green Board Buildings” as one of their 2024 Places in Peril. South of Cass Avenue, which I have erroneously included in my Near North Side neighborhood for years, is actually also part of JeffVanderLou, and the following photos are from the well-preserved (for now) 2800 block…
In Search of Francis Saler and the Old St. Patrick’s
I’d been doing some research lately on the old St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church, which was completed around 1845 (the parish was founded in 1843 and closed in 1973), making it the third in St. Louis after the Old Cathedral and St. Mary of Victories, a German language parish. A familiar name came up, the…
Demolition, Former Star Bucket Pumping Co.
One of the last historic buildings of the Carr Square neighborhood is coming down, and coming down fast on land once owned by Anne Biddle. Built in 1906 or around that time (the date is a little suspect), it was a time when there were once thousands of houses surrounding it. Destroyed by urban renewal…
Neighborhood Gardens
Designed by architect Joseph Murphy of the firm of Hoener, Baume and Froese and opening in 1935, Neighborhood Gardens is a historic public housing project in the Columbus Square neighborhood just north of downtown. It is historic in that is the first example of the wealthy coming in with good intentions, clear-cutting a whole city…
Fire at the Former Fred J. Swaine Manufacturing Co.
Update: Everything on this block has now been demolished. The night after the fire at Jamison Memorial Church, a suspicious fire broke out at the former Fred. J Swaine Manufacturing Co. building on the north side of the vacant lots of what was supposed to be the ill-fated Bottle District. A descendant of the founder,…