Continuing north up Blair Avenue, we leave St. Louis Avenue behind and enter the northern portion of Old North St. Louis. Perhaps what is most notable is the number of trees and how much more shaded the streets are, and how many more houses there are. Many of these houses appear in Compton and Dry’s…
Tag: Old North St. Louis
North Up Blair Avenue, Old North, May 2026, Part Two
We continue north up Blair Avenue today, starting at the intersection of North Market Street and seeing the first Second Empire buildings. Vacant lots are interspersed with occupied and rehabbed houses. I’ve always liked the house below, with Italianate stylings. We now make it to Warren Street, where there are commercial buildings. More vacant lots….
North Up Blair Avenue, Old North, May 2026, Part One
It’s been awhile since I’ve gone north up Blair Avenue, so I thought I would take a look to see what’s been happening since the last time, which was March of 2024. It’s been my way of checking up on the inner ring neighborhoods of the Northside, and it is always interesting. I started further…
About Those Painted Houses
Back in January of this year, I covered just one of what are dozens of houses that were painted a horrible burgundy color by a shadowy company operating out of Fort Knox, Kentucky. As Ryan Krull reports in St. Louis Magazine, it was all part of a giant Ponzi scheme, as well as other criminal…
Montgomery Street Fire, Old North
Only hours after I had posted on January 22 the good news that these houses were being rehabbed, a fire broke out and severely damaged this row of houses. I do not know what the future holds for these houses. Sometimes it feels like North St. Louis just cannot catch a break.
Twenty-Three Years of Paul McKee: Old North
Old North was originally going to be in the footprint of the Northside TIF (Blairmont, one of the shell LLCs, takes its name from a property McKee bought at the intersection of Blair and Montgomery in the neighborhood). But neighborhood opposition caused the McKee to withdraw Old North from his plan. The only problem is…
Old North, January 2026
As Charles Dickens said in one of my favorite books, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Let’s get the worst of times out of the way first up in Old North. This act of deprivation committed against what was and could be a beautiful building on Hebert Street (I…
Demolition, Former Meier and Pohlmann Furniture Co.
For the life of me, I don’t think I ever photographed the old furniture factory at the corner of Blair and Palm, but the northwest corner of the massive complex in Old North was recently partially demolished due to some collapse onto the street. New grass has been sown, but from the looks of it…
North Up Blair Avenue, North of St. Louis Avenue, Old North, March 2024
North of St. Louis Avenue, things were quiet, and little has changed. There aren’t really any new collapses, or demolitions to speak of. We reach Branch Avenue, which is the border with Hyde Park.
North Up Blair Avenue, South of St. Louis Avenue, Old North, March 2024
I’ve decided to make “North Up Blair Avenue,” my periodic journey up that street through the inner Northside neighborhoods a tag. I also decided to take a much more detailed look, and start further south in the Old North neighborhood, around Howard Street. There is a lot of vacant land, including where the German Singing…