What impresses me about Dubuque is its abundance of successful public spaces; here is Washington Park, which possesses the Post Office on the south side. Designed by James A. Wetmore, it opened in 1934. I strongly suspect this Art-Deco edifice was part of the New Deal, and it even has some WPA murals on the interior.

But oh my, what do we have here, on the west side of the park! Bluff Street, so named because obviously it is the last street right below the dramatic bluffs that rise up to the west of downtown, contains some amazing residential architecture.

It’s a little less perfectly rehabbed, and it’s older, but just look at this apartment building below, in a lavish Second Empire style.

It forms a perfect “wall” on the west side of this public space.

The rest of the buildings along Bluff Street heading north are even older, perhaps before the Civil War, dating back to the housing for the men who worked along Dubuque’s waterfront, I was told. They are simple houses, like you would see in the oldest parts of St. Louis.