Update: I looked at the house above again in May of 2022. I took a look around Old North after looking at the Webster School renovations to see how the neighborhood was going. Update: The house has now been demolished. This old survivor above seems to be holding on, but I don’t know for how…
Tag: Old North St. Louis
Webster Elementary Renovations, Continuing
Update: The renovation is now complete. I checked in on the ongoing renovations of the old Webster Elementary School, whose rehabbing into apartment began last year. I think this is a great reuse of the school, providing much needed senior housing as retirements homes are closing in North St. Louis.
Mullanphy Emigrant Home in Serious Trouble
Update: I revisited the building in June of 2023; destroyed by fire on the night of September 14, 2023. Hey everyone, is it maybe the time for us all to start having a conversation about how the Mullanphy Emigrant Home is probably going to collapse into a giant pile of rubble soon? Honestly, it’s following…
Suspicious Fires Week: Warehouse on the Far South Side of Old North
Visible in the fourth photo down in this post from June of 2019, this warehouse caught on fire and burned, leaving only a ruined hulk behind. It will surely be demolished, and another vacant lot will join the dozens of others in this immediate area. I don’t imagine anything will replace it anytime soon. The…
North Up Blair Avenue, Spring 2021
Every year or so, I do a “North up Blair Avenue” post, and see the state of the neighborhoods slashed on their eastern side by Interstate 70. You can see the 2018 and 2019 posts from previous years. I did it again last Saturday, and things are looking good, but also some things are staying…
Old North and Another Fire
There are still so many great things happening in the Old North neighborhood, where houses are being rehabbed, and other buildings, while still vacant, have been stabilized, leaving them secure for future residents to buy and renovate. Not so with properties still owned by Paul McKee. At the beginning of March, another one of his…
Webster Elementary School, Renovation Begins
Update: I revisited the school in January of 2022; the renovations are now complete and the apartments are open. Built in 1908 to replace two earlier school buildings on the circular Clinton Place, and closing in 2007, the William Ittner-designed Webster School is officially seeing new life as apartments. Clinton Place was the southernmost of…
Updates on the Inner North Side
Update: The remaining houses on the north side of the street have been demolished. Two buildings on St. Louis Avenue in JeffVanderLou apparently had become something of celebrities due to some graffiti someone had painted on them years ago. I came by while they were in the process of being demolished; the one on the…
Fireworks Stupidity and Perceptions, Old North
Update: Sadly, the house was not salvageable and has been demolished. The City of St. Louis Fire Department has an excellent and very well-updated Twitter account that I monitor on a regular basis to keep abreast of current events. On the night of the Fourth of July, the Fire Department always keeps a rigorous live…
Fires and the Northside TIF, Old North St. Louis
The Northside TIF and Paul McKee’s damage to North St. Louis is not some abstract academic discussion about what role government should play in financing and aiding private developers. It impacts real people, when houses that are left to rot for over a decade are set on fire by an arsonist, and the flames and…