Wyoming Street near the old Union Brewery/later Falstaff Plant No. 2 has a row of exceptional houses that I’ve looked at before. I wonder if some of the upper management of the brewery originally lived in some of these buildings.
After those first two exceptional four-family apartment buildings are a row of houses that show a new feature for the neighborhood: tan brick. That is something I usually associate with the West End, and certainly with the Twentieth Century.
As I mentioned before, these are actually two-family apartment buildings, even though they look like single family houses at first glance.
The corner store looks to have been built by the same developer as the houses to the west. It’s interesting to see how the glass window storefront was clearly filled in, most likely in the 1950s or 60s.
What was the reason for so many 2 family flats in the city instead of single family homes? is it because once upon a time the population in St. Louis was so much higher?
Definitely. St. Louis was one of most densely populated cities in the United States, if not the world at one time. Consider this: back in 1870, the same number of people lived east of Jefferson as now live in the entire City today. Just think about that!
I miss the days when all those corner stores were still open and doing business.Most neighborhoods had multiple corner stores and taverns within walking distance and were pretty much self contained. The popularity of the automobile slowly changed everything. Most of those stores started closing in the 1970’s as the convenience stores like 7-11 came to town.
And places like 7-11 have become such nuisances in the City, as well. I wish there were more local convenience store owners who cared about and were invested in the community.