Update: I revisited the area in the winter of 2023. The building on the right above was destroyed by the tornado of May 16, 2025. I decided to check in on the corner of Marcus and St. Louis Avenues, which I first looked at way back in August of 2009. You can actually see the…
Tag: St. Louis Avenue
Checking Up on McKee Land
Little has changed where Paul McKee owns vast swaths of real estate since I went by this area last year. There are still abandoned and fire-gutted buildings. Update: By July of 2022, the ruins below were finally torn down. The large apartment building on St. Louis Avenue is still sitting as a burned out shell….
Outtakes, Spring 2021
They’re cleaning up the ruins of the John Loler House relatively quickly, though I was a little worried to see workers standing on the wood floors now loaded up with the debris of bricks and limestone as they stacked pallets. I had some leftover photographs from when I visited Dunbar Elementary this winter. I’ve always…
Another Loss on St. Louis Avenue
Updates: As of the winter of 2022, the burned out shell was still standing. By July of 2022, it was finally torn down. Right on the heels of the disastrous fire that destroyed the John Loler House, the historic fabric of St. Louis Avenue and the greater St. Louis Place neighborhood suffered another terrible loss this…
St. Louis Avenue, JeffVanderLou, Late May, 2021
I never thought I’d see this day, but all the buildings that were vacant and/or hit by bricktheft have been demolished east of Glasgow Avenue. There were dozens of buildings in this stretch a decade ago, and they’re all gone now. The last ones were still here less than a year ago. We’ll see when…
John Loler House, Destroyed by Fire
Update: See the house in ruins a week later; the site was cleared soon after. I was getting ready Saturday evening to head over to the Granite City Art and Design District when I glanced at Twitter, where I follow the St. Louis Fire Department. They were reporting a fire at a “three story house…
St. Louis Avenue West of North Florissant Avenue
I’ve sporadically photographed the block just to the west of North Florissant Avenue, and mainly the buildings on the south side of the street. They’ve all been destroyed on the south side: first the Winkelmann Mansion, then a row of houses in a fire. But the north side of the street has some amazing buildings…
Updates on the Inner North Side
Update: The remaining houses on the north side of the street have been demolished. Two buildings on St. Louis Avenue in JeffVanderLou apparently had become something of celebrities due to some graffiti someone had painted on them years ago. I came by while they were in the process of being demolished; the one on the…
North St. Louis, Late Summer, 2019
I met new people all over North St. Louis this summer, including members of the congregation of the Original Friendship Missionary Baptist Church in the Ville neighborhood, on St. Louis Avenue. Better Family Life had organized dozens of churches to host barbecues all summer long, and the Church had been one of the participants. I…
JeffVanderLou, September 2019
If anyone asks me the neighborhood that has been hit the hardest by racism, predatory banking policies, redlining and failed government actions, it would easily be JeffVanderLou (though in time at the current rate, other neighborhoods in St. Louis and North St. Louis County will surely catch up). I had revisited the area in the…