One of the most interesting neighborhoods in St. Louis is Norwood Square, which I first looked at way back in August of 2009. It sits on the site of an old quarry, which is settling badly (I tried to figure out what kind of quarry it was, but it does not show up on this…
Tag: Wells-Goodfellow
Wells-Goodfellow, Post-Federal Conviction
Former alderman Jeffrey Boyd went off to federal prison a week ago today, and I thought I would go check up on the heart of his former ward, which is the Wells-Goodfellow neighborhood. It’s a huge neighborhood, and I discovered this church that I had never seen before at the northeast corner of Hodiamont and…
Former Blessed Sacrament, Revisited
It turns out that Most Blessed Sacrament, which I looked at back in December of 2020, was founded in 1907, and originally worship occurred in a wood frame structure with dimensions of 73 x 30 feet, that was built in six weeks at the behest of its first pastor, Father P.H. Bradley. The whole campus…
Union Boulevard Between Dr. Martin Luther King Drive and Wabada, West Side
Passing by MLK Dr., we see increasing abandonment to the west in Wells-Goodfellow. The houses are also more modest. Judging from the brick patterns on above the doorway and the two upper windows of this four-family, I suspect this buildings front façade was once far more ornamented. Storefront churches often fill the old corner spaces….
North Western Motel, Ventilated
The North Western Inn will be out of business for awhile, considering the FBI and other law enforcement fired tear gas canisters through each window of the small, weekly rate motel. Contrary to what the owner said to a news reporter the day of the raid, city records show he did not recently sell it…
A Tour of the Sites Mentioned in the Federal Indictment
Update: As of August 26, 2022, all three former aldermen plead guilty to the allegations made by federal prosecutors and have been sentenced by a judge. The text of the following post has been updated to reflect the changes from allegations at the time of the original writing to guilty pleas. By now I’m sure…
Gundlach School, April 2022
It seems like the most popular school post I’ve done is when I looked at Gundlach School in Wells-Goodfellow back in September of 2014 (I went back in March of 2017) so I thought I would check in on how the building was faring after over a decade of continual abandonment. As seen yesterday with…
Pierre Laclede School
Opened in 1914 according to designs by William Ittner, Pierre Laclede Elementary School is at least the second school to hold that name in the St. Louis Public School system. The first was deep in the city and was a typical design that can still be seen in designs such as the Blow and Des…
Enclaves of St. Louis #1: A Corner of Wells-Goodfellow
I’ve become intrigued recently with little enclaves of houses left behind when industry, highways or other constructions have cut off or isolated what was originally larger neighborhoods. The first one I’m looking at is an area of around a dozen houses reached by what is technically Hamilton Avenue south of Natural Bridge Avenue. It was…
Wells-Goodfellow, Autumn 2021, Part Two
Just beyond that well kept block of Hebert we are confronted with the abandonment of Clara across from the Horseshoe, which has not gotten any better than when I walked down these streets back in March of 2017. The Horseshoe is gone, of course, and is serving as parking for this church as well as…