I was visiting Granite City to see another amazing GCADD exhibit, so I thought I would photograph the downtown again, it having been five years since the last time. Everything looked the same, but there were some differences. For starters, the Moose Lodge has been demolished. The steel mill is still there for the time…
Tag: Vacant Lots
The Stockyards and Industry Today, St. Joseph
Opening in 1887, the St. Joseph Stockyards was just one indication of the importance of the city to the burgeoning trade in the West. It once stretched to 413 acres and moved a half million animals a year in the 1920s. A beautiful exchange building sat at the front door, and according to my research,…
North Up Blair Avenue, North of Penrose Street, Hyde Park, March 2024
Heading north from Penrose Street and continuing our tour in Hyde Park, we see that Ferry Street is blocked off again, no doubt due to another problem with the sewer underneath in what was originally a deep chasm in the natural topography of the earth before the neighborhood’s development. We detour to the east down…
North Up Blair Avenue, South of Penrose Street, Hyde Park, March 2024
Heading north up Blair into Hyde Park, we pass by those streets with little bungalows built in the early Twentieth Century. I know there are many more that are abandoned now than when I first came up this way in 2008. The house below hasn’t changed for the better since I photographed it in January…
North Up Blair Avenue, North of St. Louis Avenue, Old North, March 2024
North of St. Louis Avenue, things were quiet, and little has changed. There aren’t really any new collapses, or demolitions to speak of. We reach Branch Avenue, which is the border with Hyde Park.
North Up Blair Avenue, South of St. Louis Avenue, Old North, March 2024
I’ve decided to make “North Up Blair Avenue,” my periodic journey up that street through the inner Northside neighborhoods a tag. I also decided to take a much more detailed look, and start further south in the Old North neighborhood, around Howard Street. There is a lot of vacant land, including where the German Singing…
Shelbina, February 2024
It seems like I visit Shelbina every eight years. The first time, in 2008, I photographed a beautiful building that was sadly destroyed by fire. In 2016, I went deeper, seeing more of the gorgeous houses back on some of the side streets. Our first stop revealed the Vesper House was resplendent as ever; I…
Sad Loss in Bohemian Hill
A critical surviving component of the rapidly disappearing Bohemian Hill neighborhood was severely damaged by fire on January 15, 2024. While the front was clearly replaced in the early Twentieth Century, the building itself surely dated to well back into the Nineteenth Century. (Note: You can actually see the belltower of the church damaged in…
Schirmer Street East of St. Boniface
The houses east of St. Boniface are very old, including these two above. Sadly, their neighbor to the east didn’t make it. It was a very old two-story half-flounder, and while it had some structural issues, I wonder how bad it had gotten. Development is slow in this neighborhood, unfortunately. There’s some nice wood frame…
St. Louis Avenue, JeffVanderLou, Winter 2024
I had originally headed west on St. Louis Avenue based on an unfounded tip that Sarah Lou’s had caught fire. Thankfully, it had not, and I ended up having a great conversation with an older gentleman waiting for the bus out front about the restaurant’s amazing fried chicken instead. Sadly, from the looks of it,…