Guest Post: Taverns in the Town

Mark, a reader of my website, sent me some photos of corner bars in South St. Louis and Lemay; long-time neighborhood institutions, these taverns are rapidly disappearing.

But luckily, many of them still carry on, beneficiaries of a loyal clientele and stable neighborhoods.

It seems like the southern end of our city and the near suburbs have a larger portion of these corner bars, where you could once get brain sandwiches or a bucket of beer delivered by your children to your house, so they say.

I want to thank Mark for taking the time to send me these images, and for reminding me how cool many of these bars are, and how they help anchor the neighborhoods they serve.

All photos by Mark Preston

Old Coca-Cola Bottling Plant

Long before modern manufacturing plants moved to the suburbs or surrounded themselves with gigantic parking lots, industry sat cheek to cheek with the houses of its workers.Imagine, an America where most people walked to work, from the rows of tidy and modest rowhouses that Carondelet possesses in such great number.The Coke plant is not elaborate in its decoration; in fact, it is an austere building, but perfect for its function as an industrial building.Now converted into loft apartments, the plant has seen new life after rehabilitation.I like the ornamentation around the front door.

Carondelet

Punctuated by churches throughout the neighborhood, Carondelet remains one of the most intact and stable areas of the city.Churches range in style, from simple Gothic Revival to more elaborate styles.It's cliche, but Carondelet really does feel like its own separate city, with the obvious note that it once was until I believe the 1870's.It seems like every architectural style in the city can be found on every block, unlike the rest of the city where you tend to find a more homogeneous, if still beautiful, streetscape.The Italianate house above sits just down the street from the more sturdy and square shotgun house below.The street wall undulates back and forth, as different eras and attitudes about the proper distance from the street mix together in a strangely harmonious manner.

Patch, or Southern Carondelet

An eclectic area of South City, the government calls this area Patch. However, many people I talk to simply consider this Carondelet, if the very southern tip of it.Shotgun houses are everywhere, as well as common four family flats you might find in Dutchtown.However, there are older buildings which reflect Carondelet's history as one of the oldest parts of the city.

More Carondelet

I made it back down to Carondelet and explored some more.This time, I went down to Broadway, which has a plethora of historic buildings, many of which date to before the Civil War. You can almost imagine the clanking of hammers at Ead's shipyards as the ironclads being built there took form.It's cliche, but Carondelet really does feel like its own thriving small town.

Bellerive Park, Looking North

Carondelet Shotgun

Carondelet Highlights

Many people know that Carondelet was one of several small, established towns that was later annexed by the city of St. Louis. It really does retain some of its small town feel, such as the above street shown above.Below is a fascinating church; the older, more severe structure has been partially enveloped by a later Romanesque Revival building.Carondelet was also the recipient of a Carnegie Library, as this beautiful structure anchors the main drag, Michigan Avenue, in the downtown area.And finally, the wonderful convent of The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet.See an aerial view of the area here.

Bellerive Park

Ever wonder what that majestic bridge stretching over South Broadway in Carondelet is for? It is one section of what was to be a glorious "Kingshighway System" of dramatic boulevards that stretched around the entire city, before the interstate highway system put such plans to rest. Small portions of the entire parkway system were actually built, such as Christy Blvd and Bellerive Blvd in Carondelet.At the terminus of Bellerive Blvd is an amazing Renaissance Revival pavilion that overlooks the Mississippi River from high above on the bluffs.
Looking south, you can just see the Jefferson Barracks Bridge, miles to the south.Looking to the north, you can see the Cahokia Power Plant in the distance, as well as much of downtown.

Carondelet

Carondelet Coke

Carondelet Coke is in its final days as a ruin. Partially demolished, it is sitting in limbo, right on the edge of Carondelet and sitting somewhere in the realm of here and nowhere. From seeing friends' pictures, Carondelet Coke was much more impressive, and to be honest, at this stage of demolition, it is very depressing.It clearly is a place for teenager hoedowns, as the empty beer cans and still smoldering fire from the previous night's festivities can attest.I hope they save the smokestack; they have a way of become icons of the cityscape in the same way skyscrapers or church steeples do.Make it out to Carondelet Coke before it's completely gone, which is going to be very soon.Here is an aerial shot, and here are links at Ecology of Absence to much better pictures than mine from when the ruins were at their prime.

Carondelet Corner Tower