Penrose Street Between Blair Avenue and North 11th Street, Hyde Park

I ended up on Penrose Street in Hyde Park recently east of Blair Avenue, which is blocked off with Schoemehl Pots. On the east, Interstate 70 cuts the street off from North Broadway, with which it had long been connected. Some houses are abandoned, like the one above, but others are in great condition and…

Redevelopment Continuing, Lafayette Square

Back in May of this year, I checked in on the massive new development transforming the long moribund northwest side of the Lafayette Square neighborhood. I think most people know the story: the wealthy area declined and industry moved in (though that’s not entirely true, as early sources show that dirty industry had always been…

Beck and Corbitt Iron Company, In Ruins

As I watched footage of the last two sections of the old Beck and Corbitt Iron Company building burn to the ground on Thursday, I realized it was a good thing I managed to get down and photograph it one last time earlier this month. It’s the building on the right in the first photo…

Notre Dame of Paris, Under Reconstruction and the Cluny Museum

No trip to Paris would be complete without a visit to Notre Dame, which simply means “Our Lady” in French, and as such, there are perhaps thousands of churches in the Francophone world with that name. Our Lady obviously refers to the Virgin Mary. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know the cathedral…

Foundations of the Louvre

Like St. Louis, Paris is multi-layered. One of the sights that I was not going to miss out on are the original foundations of the Louvre fortress, which are now viewable after being buried for centuries under the courtyard of the eastern portion of the famous palace. This helpful illustration that somehow photographed well above…

Malt Kilns, Lemp Brewery

The historic malt kilns at the Lemp Brewery have been stabilized after the unfortunate collapse of the western third (spare me your armchair engineering expertise–unless you have an actual B.S. or advanced degree in structural engineering, I don’t care), and as far as I know, the City of St. Louis will not order the demolition…

St. Louis Place from North Florissant Avenue

Looking across North Florissant Avenue into the St. Louis Place neighborhood, we see the apse of the old St. Liborius, which we probably shouldn’t be able to do if it weren’t for the demolition of so many of the buildings between here and there. Below, we can see again how the street grid of Old…