After the Tornado: Fairgrounds

Crossing Natural Bridge Avenue, we head into an area of the city that has not gotten much media attention, but was hit just as hard as other neighborhoods to the south. Ashland Elementary, above, was seriously damaged, and from what I understand will be closed past the start of the new school year. In fact,…

After the Tornado: Union Boulevard

Heading north on Union Boulevard, we see the damage to Waterman Place; normally the house above and below are largely shielded from view but with the trees destroyed, they are exposed. Many of the windows on the Chesterfield, below, have been blown out; I have been told that throughout the area affected by the tornado,…

After the Tornado: Forest Park and Nearby

The western portion of Forest Park was hit hard, and while the major institutions were not damaged, thousands of trees were lost. At first glance, many trees looked like they had escaped damage from the tornado, but upon closer inspection, it becomes obvious that many trees lost limbs and foliage. North along Lindell Boulevard, where…

Russell Boulevard Between South Compton and Nebraska Avenues

I’ve looked at this stretch of houses before, back in March of 2015, but only cursorily, so I thought I would continue my examination of Russell Boulevard heading east of South Compton Avenue. It’s a part of Compton Heights, even if it’s not on Longfellow or Hawthorne boulevards, and they are more public than the…

West Bruno Avenue, Richmond Heights

I’ve been looking at the mansions north of Highway 40 in Richmond Heights, but I recently traveled down West Bruno Avenue just west of Big Bend Boulevard and caught these houses. Richmond Heights really has some great architecture, and if you travel as the crow flies, it is as close to downtown St. Louis as…

Pasadena Hills, Revisited

It’s been almost exactly sixteen years since I first visited Pasadena Hills, and judging from the extremely low quality of the photos I took of the beautiful North County suburb I took back then, it was well past due to revisit. Comprising 120 acres and developed starting in 1928, the initial investment of the Carter…

Ira Avenue, Northwoods

I turned off Pasadena Boulevard in Northwoods and found this pleasant and nice street named Ira Avenue It continues that theme of houses developing from the 1920s into the 1950s. I love how Northwoods bucks the stereotype that many people hold for North County; it’s a beautiful area with well kept homes with beautiful architecture.

Dutchtown West of Grand Boulevard, Part Five

What is interesting, however, in this incredibly dense neighborhood of apartment buildings, is how there are a scattering of single family houses thrown in here and there in the part of Dutchtown west of South Grand Boulevard. Take, for example, these two bungalows above that I don’t think I’ve seen anywhere else in the city,…

Dutchtown West of Grand Boulevard, Part Four

Continuing on in our look at two family flats in Dutchtown west of South Grand Boulevard, we see more examples that have a front parapet wall. And if you look at the examples above, you can see more of those mass-produced glazed terracotta decorative elements that appear in the larger multi-unit buildings. But there are…

Botanical Avenue from South Spring Avenue to South Grand Boulevard

Crossing South Spring Avenue, we reach the final block in our survey of Botanical Avenue in the Shaw neighborhood. The first house on the corner is an impressive example of what I might call almost Tudor Revival or Jacobethan in style. Interestingly, it also appears to have been originally built as a two-family flat. The…