Tower Grove East is a strange neighborhood. In the eyes of many people, it is a junior version of Tower Grove South, or should I say, Tower Grove Heights, with its rows of early Twentieth Century suburban houses. But in reality, the eastern portion the neighborhood has roots going back to the mid-Nineteenth Century, when the area was rural.

Consequently, as we look at the edge of the neighborhood, which is Nebraska, we see houses in the Greek Revival style, next to later buildings built in the latter decades of the 1800s.

We also have large amounts of in-fill, as well. The houses above and below replaced a large greenhouse that was demolished sometime before the formers’ construction after World War II.

I always liked this duplex; I even looked at the one on the right, but the basement consisted of a dirt hole in the ground with the hot water heater sitting at a crooked angle in the corner. Not what I was looking for.

This houses is also one of the older ones on the street.

This is interesting… fire insurance maps and Compton and Dry reveal there was some sort of country home on this next parcel where the church is. But the church sits largely where the house was, so it raises the question of whether they reused the foundation hole to some extent.