Not much is happening down along the Levee anymore. There are so many streets blocked off or closed permanently, as in the case of Washington Avenue, removed in the recent Arch renovations, that it is increasingly difficult to impossible to even reach the riverfront. But it is worth it to see the Eads Bridge and…
Tag: The Levee
A Foggy New Year’s Day
I woke up New Year’s Day to heavy fog blanketing the city, so the logical thing to do was to go photograph the tallest building I could find. I first hit St. Francis de Sales. I then went and looked at the Gateway Arch, which was heavily obscured by the fog, its top almost invisible…
The Old Cathedral, Interior
I already discussed the copy of the Velázquez two days ago, so we’re going to go around the church and look at some of the other works of art in the newly refurbished interior of the Old Cathedral. While the high altarpiece Crucifixion is not one of them, many of the others are gifts of…
The Old Cathedral, Exterior
I’m glad they didn’t tear down or move the Old Cathedral, but I wish they wouldn’t have left it so stranded in the middle of an interstate on one side, and an incongruous park on the other. Here are various shots of the exterior facade from different angles and croppings. It is the fourth church…
The Old Cathedral, Eighty Years Later
Right on the eve of the demolition of the Levee for the new Gateway Arch grounds the Historic American Buildings Survey photographed the Old Cathedral’s exterior and interior. By then the Old Cathedral was surrounded by warehouses, and very few people actually lived anywhere near the first church in St. Louis (it is a myth…
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…
Eads Bridge, September 2018
The water in the Mississippi River was high when I took this picture, and the parking lot on the Levee was completely submerged.
Riverboat, Docked on the Levee
You don’t see this much any more down on the Levee. It’s neat to see, but the ranks of riverboats once seen along here will never happen again.
Family Photos
I found some old pictures my family took from the Arch back in 1986-7; in the upper left, you can see the Cupples Warehouses sitting vacant. The first Kiener Plaza, now demolished, was just starting construction. The ash trees are now gone, but they were relatively young thirty years ago. Below, the Metropolitan Square Building…
Aubin Fire Insurance Maps, 1874
C.T. Aubin also published an early fire insurance map for the downtown area of St. Louis; the city had already spread outside of the area shown, but what is show is probably close to 99% gone. So these maps, and the cool key on the front page showing what each building would look like ideally,…