We’re picking up the The Beauty of Dutchtown series which was left off at Number 36.

I went crazy and decided to photograph the entire length of Virginia Avenue in Dutchtown, from Bates Avenue in the south to Chippewa Street in the north. I’ve looked at this stretch before, briefly, starting way back in February of 2011, and have looked at the Virginia Theater and the Stork Inn each a couple of times. Virginia Avenue, like South Grand Boulevard to the west, is oriented at a strange angle to the street grid; it was originally known as Stringtown Road, leading up from Carondelet to the small community of the same name around Meramec Avenue. For some more background, read my recent article on Dutchtown at St. Louis Magazine.

What’s fascinating about Virginia Avenue, is that like Cherokee Street, it clearly started out mostly residential but slowly became commercial with the addition of a streetcar line. We’ll start with the west side of the street each day we look at Virginia Avenue.

There another storefront with Roman Catholic statues in the window, as well, just like in Tower Grove South. In this instance, this store is Statues Plus, whose website is here.

As we’ll do for all the days for Virginia Avenue, we turn around at Fassen and head back south and show the east side of the street. Below is the beloved Iron Barley, which moved out of the City to Jefferson County.

Then there’s a row of commercial buildings before we get back to the busy intersection with Bates Street, which has sadly been destroyed for gas stations and convenience stores on the west side.