Vine Grove Avenue, The Greater Ville, Spring 2022

After I featured Vine Grove Avenue in two posts (here and here) back in January of 2019, the City began to demolish a large number of the abandoned houses on the one block long street in autumn of the same year. I wondered what had been going on since that time in this isolated corner…

A Billionaire in Wells-Goodfellow

Update: On April 7, 2020, Jack Dorsey donated one billion dollars to the fight against the Coronavirus pandemic and women and girls’ rights. 41 Then [Jesus] sat down opposite the offering box, and watched the crowd putting coins into it. Many rich people were throwing in large amounts. 42 And a poor widow came and put…

Future Site of Saint Louis University Hospital, Early June, 2017

I remarked to my companions that I felt like I was in Europe, with its unbroken vistas of fields surrounding Medieval cities. This will be the site of the new SLU Hospital, replacing the old Firmin Desloge building. Yes, it spelled the end for the Pevely Dairy Building. I wasn’t happy it was torn down,…

Flounder Alley House, St. Louis Place

Update: Demolished for the new National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in 2017. The City of St. Louis cut ties with Paul McKee’s Northside in June of 2018. The elderly woman who lived here has been on the news over the years, talking about how losing her house to eminent domain would be devastating to her life. She…

Dead Olive Boulevard

It starts out strong enough, rows of rehabbed buildings with award-winning restaurants around Compton Avenue. Then it starts to get a little more quiet, and the buildings, while well-maintained, start to look a little less august. And then the giant swaths of grass, generating zero activity, and surely zero tax dollars. Is this the middle…

Some Things Never Change

The survivalist compound is doing fine on N. Market Street. The vacant gas station at St. Louis Avenue and Parnell, where a homeless couple died in a fire years ago, has not changed. Update: The church above was demolished in 2017 for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. The little church you can see in the background…

St. Louis Place, Slipping Away Some More

Update: Everything seen above was cleared or demolished for the new National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in 2017. The City of St. Louis cut ties with Paul McKee’s Northside in June of 2018.

McKee Finished?

Back when this website first began in 2007, there was a mysterious shell company called Blairmont buying up houses in North St. Louis. They thought no one would notice. Someone did. I used to post “current events” articles back in the day on this site, but tend not to any more. This one is too…