With the recent removal and dismantlement of the Admiral, the riverfront has lost one of the last (if not particularly healthy) beacons of activity on what was once a bustling wharf.

When I first moved to St. Louis, there were at least three more riverboats on the levee: the Robert E. Lee, the McDonalds, and the Burger King with its Inaugural minesweeper.

All those are now gone, and all that remains seems to be the riverboat cruises.

Update: The smokestacks of the Cahokia Power Station have been demolished.

Which is sad, because from the riverfront, you can view many of St. Louis’s greatest engineering and civic icons; everything is huge down here, built on a scale befitting a great city. What will the future hold? Honestly, probably not much, but at least you can still witness these grand structures without interruption.