This house above, an Italianate wood-frame house is surely one of the oldest buildings in the Ville. Below, this fascinating two-family building surely rose along with the Ville’s changing fortunes as the center of African-American life in St. Louis. Again, another incredibly old house, one that could easily fit into St. Louis Place or Lafayette…
Tag: The Ville
Wood Frame Houses and Arson, The Ville
The old age of the Ville shows in the disproportionate number of surviving wood frame houses. Built before brick fire codes reached them, these houses sheltered the first inhabitants of the area when it was miles from the city. Sadly, they are extremely vulnerable to fire, and fire has struck far too many of these…
The Ville, In Extensus
Update: I went back and revisited in July of 2022. The Ville is one of the oldest neighborhoods in St. Louis, which is surprising in that it is way out past Grand, which was still mostly farmland well into the first decade of the Twentieth Century. But the Ville clearly developed earlier, out along St….
Tandy Park: An Ensemble of Public Buildings in the Ville
Update: This first building above and below was originally Stowe Teachers College, which combined with Harris Teachers College in 1954. The Ville was the center of African-American life in St. Louis for generations, and really in some ways (and like most St. Louis neighborhoods) functioned as its own little mini-city lying inside of a larger…
Homer G. Phillips Hospital, The Ville
Located in the heart of the Ville, where the African-American middle class thrived for decades before the end of segregation, the Homer G. Phillips Hospital represented the crowning achievement of numerous leaders to open a state of the art facility for the African-American population of St. Louis. Opened in stages in the 1930’s, the building…
The North Side, West of Grand but East of Kingshighway
Update: The street above is Evans Avenue in JeffVanderLou. I went back in the summer of 2023; there has been substantial deterioration of the buildings since this photograph was taken. I was driving around a bunch, getting out and taking pictures here and there, so I’m not sure where most of these photos are. I…
Newstead Avenue Through the Ville
Update: I have now extensively photographed the Ville and Greater Ville neighborhoods, but I still have much more to explore, and more people to meet. There have been some streetscape upgrades to Newstead Avenue. I came to the humbling, and constantly present, realization on Saturday that I’ve only begun to scratch the surface of the…
North Taylor Through Lewis Place and The Ville
Update: To see where Taylor ends at St. Louis Avenue, click on this post from October 2018. Wow, what a difference a few blocks can make. Heading north on Delmar, there’s the inevitable feeling that disinvestment has taken its toll on the neighborhoods. I agree that it looks like brick thieves have moved west past…
The Ville #2
Update: I broke up the Ville and Greater Ville tag into The Ville and The Greater Ville tags to reflect the architectural variety and conditions of the large area that make up the two neighborhoods. I revisited the intersection of St. Louis and Marcus avenues, seen below, in July of 2022. I revisited the area…