Occasionally I build up some photos that don’t really go with anything else, and I present them to you here. Above is a nice house on Lemp Avenue across from the brewery that is now an AirBnB. For the longest time, it was a band practice space. Moving across the old St. Louis Commons to…
Tag: South Riverfront
South Riverfront Near the Wreck of the Intrepid, October 2021
I went down to the South Riverfront bright and early on Saturday and cut through the flood wall. The sun was shining across the Mississippi River. The water level is still low, but I think it has been rising a bit since the last time I looked. I had come to see if I could…
The Old Marine Quarry
Just beyond the lanes of Interstate 55 but west of the South Riverfront are the remnants of a very old quarry, whose original purpose has been lost. It zigzags back and forth, and even appears in Pictorial St. Louis. I originally thought these cliffs were caused by prehistoric water erosion in this post from August…
Merchant Street
Probably almost nobody in St. Louis remembers Merchant Street, and the bustling community that once lined its two blocks between Second Street and South Broadway. Originally named Carondelet Street, it was basically wiped away in the urban renewal plan for what we now call the Kosciusko neighborhood, but for over a century it represented the…
The Former Lemp Ice Houses and the South Riverfront
I looked at the town of DePue, Illinois, several years ago in an article at St. Louis Magazine, and how the Lemp and Anheuser-Busch breweries brought ice down from the Illinois River to St. Louis. But there is also fairly good evidence of how the ice houses along the river on the South Riverfront looked…
Manufacturers Bank and Trust Company of St. Louis, South Broadway
Originally known as the Manufacturers’ Bank and Trust Company, this financial institution changed its name to the American Bank of St. Louis, before being merged with Mercantile Bank, It’s a classic Beaux-Arts bank building, though it’s curious in its relatively low-slung design; most financial institutions normally tower over their other one-story neighbors.
South Riverfront, Revisited Again Late August 2019
The railroad tracks that snake around the South Riverfront are still used, but they seem more quiet than they used to be over a century ago. I was down this way back in 2017. The views of downtown are vast from down south, and it’s hard to believe that this was once a large residential…
Transmission Lines
I sometimes find it hard to believe there was once life on the riverfront. It’s just a giant empty expanse of concrete, partially buried train tracks and vacant lots awaiting “redevelopment” that’s probably never coming.
Sugar Loaf Mound, House Demolished
The house which sat on top of Sugar Load Mound has been demolished by the Osage Nation. The lower platform of the mound to the north still has one house left.
Further South Riverfront, Revisited
Update: The City’s Work House was once located very near here, as I wrote in St. Louis Magazine in January of 2021. The South Riverfront, cut off by cliffs and I-55, is not as immediately accessible as the North Riverfront. But it still holds its curiosities, like this elevator, below. Update: These cliffs are not…