I spotted another one of those concrete block house in the Walnut Park neighborhood along West Florissant Avenue on my way to check on the former Club Imperial (spoiler: it’s a grassy lot). I find the concrete block period in St. Louis architecture fascinating due to its short life and rarity. Also, note those capitals…
Tag: Walnut Park
Southern Walnut Park
After looking at the hulking industrial buildings yesterday, I explored a little of what I consider to be southern Walnut Park but what the City officially calls the Mark Twain neighborhood. I think there’s this image that the entire area is bombed out, but that is just not the truth. There are many streets of…
Ben Hur Construction, Former Heine Boiler Company
This massive complex along Shreve Avenue intrigued me, so I dug into its history. Originally, it was the Heine Boiler Company, founded by Clem Meyer. The purchase of the land, southwest of West Florissant Avenue was originally the Winkelman property. These were not just little boilers in private homes! They were gigantic. The name of…
Thekla Avenue Between Mimika Avenue and Riverview Boulevard, Walnut Park West
Thekla is an interesting street name and probably comes from an early saint, which you can read about here. In fact, most of the “east-west” streets are named after women’s given names. As usual, the houses on the first block west of Riverview Boulevard are in styles such as the Arts and Crafts style, as…
Harney Avenue Between Park Lane and Mimika Avenue, Walnut Park West
Harney Avenue is named after William S. Harney, a St. Louisan who served in the military but who also had some loyalty issues during the Civil War, apparently. It’s an interesting block, which again, makes me suspect that while this is the West Walnut Park Addition laid out by Julius Pitzman in 1906, makes me…
Park Lane Between Harney and West Florissant Avenues, Walnut Park West
Formerly Butler Avenue, the street that bisects many of the streets in Walnut Park West is now named Park Lane, no doubt a result of the platting of the North Pointe neighborhood across West Florissant Avenue. While most houses are built facing the northeast/southwest facing streets, there are a handful of homes built on the…
Riverview Boulevard, West Side, Walnut Park West
Riverview Boulevard has been known by many names over the years: Tracy Road or Avenue until 1907, Kingshighway Northwest until 1925 and Partridge Avenue at some point. Regardless, it forms the southeast boundary of Walnut Park West and has been a major artery since the Nineteenth Century, traveling to the northeast where it intersects with…
Sherry Avenue Between Mimika Avenue and Riverview Boulevard, Walnut Park West
Doglegging across Mimika Avenue (whose name is an interesting choice–was it from a daughter of the Jennings family or the people in Indonesia?), we look at the block of Sherry closer to Riverview. The housing is much older than the block to the west, and much of it is in worse condition or abandoned. A…
Sherry Avenue Between Goodfellow Boulevard and Mimika Avenue, Walnut Park West
I realized that I had never looked at Walnut Park West, which is nestled far up in the northern reaches of the city. Bounded by Interstate 70 on the southwest, Riverview Boulevard on the southeast, West Florissant Avenue on the northeast and the city limits on the northwest, Goodfellow Boulevard cuts through just to the…
Engine House No 12, Walnut Park
Just up West Florissant from the former Sixth District Police Station is Engine House No. 12, built around 1920, I suspect. It has some nice classical motifs around the front portal. But the side is relatively unadorned, left exposed by presumably the demolition of the neighboring building.