Update: Demolition was completed by October of 2021. Like many things in life, it takes more time to get going, but then once you get started, it starts going fast. Such is the case with the demolition of the Queeny Tower, which is now coming down quickly. They were working well into the evening last…
Tag: Skyscrapers
More Demolition, Queeny Tower
Update: See the progress of demolition in mid-August of 2021 and was complete by October. The demolition of the Queeny Tower is proceeding, and when I stopped by on the last Saturday of June, the Caterpillars were working away moving debris around. Part of the top of the tower is clearly gone, and they are working…
Merchant Laclede Building, Revisited
The Merchant Laclede, or Merchant’s Laclede Building, depending on whom you ask, was another of the historic skyscrapers in the financial district of St. Louis, often forgotten in favor of the more famous Chicago School buildings to the west. It was built in 1886. It’s been simplified over the years, losing its pediment and conical…
Security Building, Revisited Again
I found some photos of the Security Building deep in the St. Louis Patina archives, and I thought they should see the light of day. The standard story always goes is that it’s the last, or one of the last Romanesque Revival skyscrapers in St. Louis before the coming of the innovative Wainwright Building, but…
Views of Central St. Louis from St. Louis University Hospital’s Parking Garage
I was checking out the beautiful Emil Frei & Associates stained glass windows in the chapel of the new St. Louis University Hospital, and when I looked out from my perch in the parking garage, I captured the stunning view of the skyline of the central corridor of St. Louis. Above is the Central West…
Unbuilding: The Queeny Tower
Update: See more demolition work in the early summer of 2021 and in mid August of 2021. The demolition was complete by October of 2021 and the site cleared. They’re tearing down the Queeny Tower, which while not the most distinguished building architecturally in St. Louis, has an important role in the history of medicine…
Former Stouffer’s Riverfront Inn
They sure had all sorts of great ideas in the 1960s about how they were going to revitalize downtown, and pretty much none of them worked. They’re either demolished, abandoned, bought out in corporate mergers or forgotten. Just look at all the vacant land in the heart of a major metropolis. The Stouffer’s Riverfront Inn…
Downtown Quincy, Illinois
Much like St. Louis, Quincy got its start due to its location high on the bluffs above the Mississippi River, allowing it to benefit from the trade connections without the threat of flooding. Much like St. Louis, eventually the railroad connections became much more important, and bridges began to be built across the river at…
Bank and Insurance Building, Dubuque, Iowa
Built by a host of Dubuque’s financial giants to create what we would probably now call “Class A Office Space,” the Bank and Insurance, or Fischer, Building, dominates Main Street at the corner of 9th Street. It opened in 1895 and is a tour-de-force of terracotta ornament. The top and street level stories have been…
Main Street Between 11th Street and 9th Streets, Dubuque, Iowa
I cut over from Locust Street towards Main Street; like many cities in America, living close to the central business district was once prestigious, before the noise and smoke of the automobile made it less desirable. The incredibly beautiful Second Empire townhouses left behind along Main Street and its side streets remind me of what…