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. Cloaked in darkness, the broad expanse of St. Louis Place north of Cass Avenue, demolished for a failed industrial park, takes on a certain aura in the glow of streetlights….
Tag: Urban Prairie
St. Louis Place, Continuing to Fascinate
Despite the drought, nature has once again returned to St. Louis Place to slowly swallow up houses and storefronts long sitting vacant. Update: The Winkelmann mansion was demolished after suffering further collapse due to brick theft. The buildings below were demolished for the new National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in 2017. The City of St. Louis cut…
Desolation and Southern 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. I recently was passing through the area of the worst demolition and desolation in St. Louis, where I had been almost four years before. Nothing has changed. To many St….
Eastern St. Louis Place: Revisited
Update: The house above was destroyed by brick thieves. The City of St. Louis cut ties with Paul McKee’s Northside in June of 2018. My first experience with brick thieves occurred in the eastern part of St. Louis Place, easily the most devastated portion of the city with whole streets and blocks now vacant. Honestly,…
Council Plaza and Grand Center Part 2: Urban Renewal
Above is a Sanborn Fire Insurance map of the intersection of Forest Park and Grand Boulevards, where the Council Plaza would later rise in the 1960’s. As can be seen in the map, Forest Park used to dead-end at Grand, at a now gone Handlan Park. Looking to the east on the map, one can…
St. Louis Place, December 2010
Update: The City of St. Louis cut ties with Paul McKee’s Northside in June of 2018. All of the buildings above were later destroyed by fire or brick thieves. The east side of St. Louis Place has really been devastated since the first time I went up to the area. Streets that once had numerous…
SLU Medical Campus
Update: SLU has announced plans in 2019 to redevelop the large swaths of empty land around its medical campus. The Steelcote building was renovated into loft apartments in 2019, as well. Text updated in September of 2019. While photographing the Pevely Dairy fire, I parked on the far side of the lawn of the new…
The View from Gateway Middle School
An allegorical photo essay of the view in four directions from the site of the old Pruitt-Igoe housing complex, the night when the school board announced the closing of over a dozen schools. Temples of Capitalism, historic 19th architecture, ugly warehouses, sensationalist news trucks, urban forest, renovated loft condos, despair, and a little hope.
Slay Letter to April Ford-Griffin Regarding McKee
Update: The mayor broke his word and resorted to eminent domain in order to clear the site for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. April Ford-Griffin was given a position in the mayor’s administration. Among the many matters discussed by speakers at the Saturday rally against Paul McKee was a letter that April Ford Griffin, alderwoman of…
Calvary Cemetery Prairie
It recently came to my attention via a newspaper article that virgin prairie still exists inside the confines of the sprawling Calvary Cemetery in North St. Louis. It is worth checking out at the far northern end of the cemetery. What is even more jarring is that the city ceases to exist around the prairie,…