Dutchtown

I explored the Dutchtown neighborhood a bit today in order to check out an old Roman Catholic parsonage at Iowa and Osage Streets. The house is a great example of architecture in the inner ring of St. Louis.Like a good, dense neighborhood, the houses are built right up to the alley right of way, to maximize density.Likewise, in the back, the garage is tucked in the rear of the house, in order to leave the street front open for windows and socializing, unlike the suburbs, where many subdivisions' streets take on the appearance of early 20th Century alleys--all garage doors and no communal public frontage.The church at the corner is a perfect example of your normal city church, elegant but unobtrusive and designed to be easily accessible by foot. The steeple looks like a classic example of a steeple that was never built because of cost or one that was felled by Mother Nature. Does anyone know the former name of this church?Below are two well restored examples of the vernacular architecture of Dutchtown; the door is on the side of the house for privacy but windows beckon from the facade.Below is a great example of what looks to be 1950's Modernist in-fill; providing a convenient lawyer's office in the heart of the community. The brick is a totally different color than the surrounding red brick, but yet it somehow fits into the streetscape.Below is an example of how multi-unit buildings and single family houses coexist next to each other in the neighborhood; there is no segregation of incomes that has become the hallmark of suburbia.And finally, down Iowa Ave is the unique Laclede Park, seemingly almost an after thought in the planning of Dutchtown. On the west side of the park is a row of garages, serving the houses on California Ave. Only later, on the east side of the park, do later houses embrace the wonderful park space that spreads out before them. It almost seems like California Ave's houses were built before the park was laid out. Ooops. Check out a bird's eye view of the park to see what I'm referring to. The house below is a great example of a house in the neighborhood facing the park.I could see Dutchtown really exploding in development in the next couple of years with its close proximity to South Grand and Benton Park.