St. Joseph possesses two fantastic historic theaters in its downtown from two different eras. The first, the Missouri Theater, was built in a sort of Moorish Revival in 1927. Waylande Gregory was the architect. I can’t help but see the resemblance to the Majestic Theater in East St. Louis. Now owned by the City of…
Tag: Streamline Moderne
Fairfield Avenue, Newport, Kentucky
We’ve looked at Newport, Kentucky, across the river from Cincinnati before, but this time we’re going to look at Fairfield Avenue, starting at Ward Avenue and heading east. As I’ve said before, one of the great tragedies of St. Louis and its relationship to the Metro East is that civic and business leaders have not…
East of Downtown, Cleveland
Cleveland is much like St. Louis in that it is much longer than it is wide. In this case, however, the city stretches along a lake, and is longer east-west. St. Clair and Superior avenues in many ways are like the equivalents of North Broadway back in St. Louis, as well, passing through industrial zones…
AMC Theater Closes at Chesterfield Mall
Update: An additional closed theater added in August of 2023. I was surprised to discover that the relatively new AMC theater at Chesterfield Mall had closed back on May 18 of this year. Yes, the mall is going to be demolished for redevelopment, but the Cheesecake Factory is doing very well and will continue to…
Neighborhood Gardens
Designed by architect Joseph Murphy of the firm of Hoener, Baume and Froese and opening in 1935, Neighborhood Gardens is a historic public housing project in the Columbus Square neighborhood just north of downtown. It is historic in that is the first example of the wealthy coming in with good intentions, clear-cutting a whole city…
Commercial Street, North Side, Springfield
You can read about some of the history of the Commercial Street Historic District here, at the website for the area. This is an old fire station. I think these buildings below could be spotted in the historic photograph at the top of this post. There seems to be more empty renovated storefronts on this…
One More in Tower Grove South
Just north of Dutchtown across Chippewa Street into what is technically Tower Grove South is this beauty built in 1939 in what I would call a sort of Streamline Moderne, proto-Modern style. It reminds me of buildings that would spring up further west in St. Louis Hills in greater numbers. Tomorrow, we’ll head in a…
Fifteenth Anniversary of Saint Louis Patina
I started this website fifteen years ago today, and we’ve come a long ways since then. Three reboots, two crashes, and hopefully now it looks better than ever due to the hard work of around twenty WordPress technicians back in January and February of this year. Thankfully, there are still plenty of new things to…
Central Park, Downtown Jacksonville, Illinois
Jacksonville was founded by groups of “Yankees,” from New England, many of whom were graduates of Yale University. I can’t help but think the influence of the large town commons and greens of cities such as New Haven played a part in the design of Central Park, the outsized town square of Jacksonville. The center…
Ohio Avenue Between Potomac and Cherokee Streets, Gravois Park
Crossing over Potomac Street and looking at the west side of Ohio Avenue as we head north, we see a bright yellow building. Looking at Pictorial St. Louis, we realize that it is the old Italianate Evangelical Lutheran School, simply missing its cupola and chimneys. I suspect it may have been built as a single…