I think many of us have fond memories of Christmas at Famous Barr downtown in the Railway Exchange Building, so there’s something deeply sad to see it clad in massive metal sheathing now, a necessary step the City of St. Louis has taken to secure the structure from further intrusions after a fire earlier this…
Tag: Skyscrapers
Downtown, Youngstown
Downtown Youngstown is really nice! Now, I’m defining it as the area enclosed by Highway 422, which surrounds it to the northeast, effectively cutting it off from the rest of the city; on the southwest, the Mahoning River forms the other border. Youngstown State University clearly breathes much of the life into the area northeast…
The Terminal Tower, Cleveland
I want you to just take a look at the historic photograph above for a few minutes and just absorb what you’re seeing. In the background, Irish Bend and the Flats spread out in the distance, the engine house of the industrial heart of the city at its height can be seen, while in the…
Downtown, Part Two, Cleveland
Moving along through downtown Cleveland, we reach the “Beaux-Arts” or “City Beautiful” portion of the city, which every metropolitan area seemed to have dabbled with in the early Twentieth Century to better or adverse effect. Below is the Cuyahoga County Courthouse, completed in 1913. Moving along, we spot the 1922 Public Auditorium, which sits along…
Downtown, Part One, Cleveland
Downtown Cleveland is tucked into a triangular wedge northeast of the the Flats, in perhaps what is the closest physical relationship of an American city’s core to its industrial heart. Much of the western part of downtown is preserved, but it should be noted there are still entire large city blocks that are parking lots….
Toledo, The City of Glass
Visiting Toledo was fun, because I had absolutely zero expectations. I basically knew nothing about the city, other than it has an amazing art museum, which is a must-see if you’re in town, and that is about it. As I began to research the city, which is in the extreme northwest of Ohio, I discovered…
Other Fall Updates, Fires, Demolitions, Etc.
It finally happened, the Mullanphy Emigrant Home, which I last looked at back in June of this year, caught on fire and burned to the ground on the night of September 14th. There is certainly no grand conspiracy, but simply the fact that overnight lows reached 50 degrees, and a squatter’s fire probably spread out…
Cadillac Square and Broderick Towers, Detroit
Originally known as the Barlum Tower, the Cadillac Square was the first office building outside New York and Chicago to reach forty stories, opening in 1927. I’m always fascinated by the optimism of the builders; note the blank wall to the southwest. They were expecting that Detroit would continue to grow and another skyscraper or…
Down by the River, Detroit
Let’s walk from the Campus Martius, named after the famous field in ancient Rome where soldiers trained (it later filled up with temples such as the Pantheon), and part of the original Woodward plan of Detroit and walk down the street of the same name towards the Detroit River. It’s here that I spot some…
Book Tower and the Michigan Building, Detroit
I find the Book Tower, the creation of three brothers, one of the more humorous but enjoyable skyscrapers built at the height of Detroit’s golden age. It was actually the product of two building campaigns: the tower and the lower structure. You can see the Book Building, which is sort of the yellowish building to…