The Russells and Parkers operated coal and clay mines in what is now the expansive Tower Grove South neighborhood in the Nineteenth Century. Their house, which was owned in turn by both families, but seems to have been built by William Russell, sat at 3405 Oak Hill Avenue and Fairview and Parker. The house sat…
Tag: Tower Grove South
The Clay Industry in South St. Louis
Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, St. Louis, Missouri, 1903 July, Sheet 108 The busy, and I would say, extremely hectic, intersection of Gravois and Chippewa once was home to one of the Hydraulic Press Brick Company’s brick yards, which you can see above in this Sanborn Map from 1903. I think what is also fascinating is…
Former Scruggs Methodist Memorial Church
Originally founded in 1872, Scruggs Methodist Memorial Church moved to the corner of Cook and Spring in 1877. The current Colonial Revival church was opened in 1929, and closed in 1998. I just realized I remember the original steeple being extant until only recently. City permits reveal that it was most likely removed in 2016,…
Fanning Elementary School
What’s now Fanning Middle School, and what will soon be a vacant building, was originally an elementary school. It’s one of the most interesting and architecturally rich of the schools designed by William B. Ittner in 1907. Clear views of the school are now blocked by some strange looking trees, but it’s a mix of…
The Crossroads of the World: Grand and Gravois
Inspired by a World Wide Magazine visit to the intersection of Grand and Gravois, I photographed the old South Side National Bank. It’s been turned into condos or apartments. It was going to be demolished for a Walgreen’s but cooler heads prevailed. It’s sort of St. Louis’s own shorter version of the Empire State Building….
Convent of the Good Shepherd
Several weeks ago, I wrote about Bamberger’s Grove at my regular St. Louis Magazine weekly column. As I also wrote, Adolphus Busch later bought the Grove and donated it to nuns, who opened the House of the Good Shepherd, who opened a school for girls. Here are a couple of extra maps that didn’t make…
Statues in the Window, Tower Grove South
Update: There is another Roman Catholic statue store on Virginia Avenue in Dutchtown. This is the perfect opportunity to announce to readers that I’ve created a new tag for Sculpture, which I realized filled a need that the Monuments tag was not filling. Now of course, some monuments will also get the Sculpture tag, but…
Horace Mann Elementary School
The very first post for Tower Grove South was way back in April of 2009, almost two years after I started St. Louis Patina, and it was about the threatened demolition of Mann Elementary School. That seems like a million years ago, figuratively, since the school is doing very well, with a strong enrollment and…
Former Holy Family Roman Catholic Church
I’ve often remarked that Romanesque Revival churches in St. Louis are not fully Romanesque, but are often Gothic Revival in their massing. In the case of the former Holy Family Roman Catholic Church, the building is instead a pure Romanesque church in both form, massing and ornament. It is really a wonderful example of the…
Oak Hill Presbyterian Church
I came to the realization recently that I had a grand total of four posts about Tower Grove South out of over 4,500 posts over the last thirteen years, so decided to go take some pictures of the neighborhood. Due to the large amount of large street trees, I’ll probably need to come back in…