Update: Another building a block away on Jefferson Avenue, seen here, was heavily damaged by fire on December 14, 2025. It’s the same story as usual; a slumlord sits on a property for years in a desirable neighborhood where it could have easily sold to a rehabber but instead it goes up in flames and…
Tag: South Jefferson
Former Lutheran Hospital, Looking Rough
The old Lutheran Hospital, later known as the St. Alexius Jefferson Campus to distinguish itself from the now-closed South Broadway Campus, and also home to the recently defunct Lutheran School of Nurshing, is looking pretty rough. Working our way around counterclockwise, we see just how much vandalism, illegal entering and other just general dilapidation has…
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…
Jefferson Avenue Pedestrian Bridge
Speaking of pedestrian bridges, there actually was at least one that I learned about from Vivian Gibson, author of The Last Children of Mill Creek. It’s been demolished, obviously, but it once took pedestrians over the Mill Creek railyards in the alignment of what was known as West Jefferson Avenue (really the original path of…
The Beauty of Dutchtown, 53: South Broadway Between Chippewa and Keokuk Streets, West Side
The Beauty of Dutchtown Series left off with No. 52 and continues with No. 54. The crossroads of South Jefferson Avenue, South Broadway (originally Carondelet Road) and Chippewa Street creates one of the more interesting intersections in St. Louis. It’s where the traffic from downtown passed by the suburbs of South St. Louis on its…
Odds and Ends
Update: Demolished in the spring of 2024. When I’m out and about, I sometimes snap pictures of interesting buildings that later expand into larger posts, but other times, I can’t figure out what to do with them. These photos are “outtakes;” buildings that are worth publishing but didn’t grow into anything else. Above, this is…
Former Burger Chef, Arsenal and Jefferson
Just to the north of the beautiful street wall of Nineteenth Century buildings lining South Jefferson north of Wyoming, a parking lot appears. A keen eye will see that faded but still visible paint, including a yellow arrow can be seen in the cracked and deteriorating asphalt. Then, like at Pompeii, a ceramic floor appears,…
Jefferson and Gravois, Revisited
I’ve looked at the intersection of South Jefferson and Gravois avenues in July of 2012, and I came back over the course of several months to photograph the crossing of two of the most important streets in the inner South Side. It’s come a long way from when it was a small exurban village surrounded…
Jefferson Avenue at Interstate 44
Here we go again; more crumbling infrastructure has to be torn down and replaced; in Baby Boomers’ lifetimes we are now going on the third bridge in some parts of St. Louis, such as the Grand Viaduct. Interstate 44 has caused irreparable damage to South St. Louis; the Barr Branch of the St. Louis Public…
Four Family Flat, South Jefferson
Update: Heavily damaged by fire on December 14, 2025. I see amazing buildings such as this one along South Jefferson Avenue, and I think what possibility they hold, but it’s rough with the heavy traffic going by. There are windows out there that can block out the noise (my friends who used to own the…