A terrible fire struck two warehouses just to the west of Produce Row on North Broadway. The two buildings are apparently a total loss.

Debris from the northern building fell on the one story bookstore next door on the corner, which is now closed.

This first northern building below was constructed around 1911. These blocks may be industrial, but they are part of the original platting of the town of North St. Louis, though they became very industrial by the late Nineteenth Century, and the construction of I-70 in the 1950s assured this area, which we now call the Near North Riverfront, would remain desolate and isolated.

I stopped by about a week later and the front façade had either collapsed or had been demolished.

The fire had definitely damaged this building, even if it was left structurally compromised than the building to the south, which we will look at below.

2606-8 North Broadway, constructed around 1914 and whose front façade was completely gone when I first went by, had an interesting history. a farm implement company had long been associated with the property, and Dau Furniture occupied the building in the 1920s. As you can see on the right below, the southernmost building on the block stood for many years without neighbors right next to it, so windows that were covered by the side wall are now revealed again after over one hundred years.

These buildings seem to have been vacant since the early 1990s.