Lafayette Square, December 2011

Photo by Jeff Phillips

Old Farmhouse, Lafayette Square

There is another house dating from the early years of the Common Fields on Mackay Street. This house was apparently only one story originally, but then a second floor in brick was added at a later date.

The Sanborn Maps helpfully label the building as "stone, 1st fl."

Old Stone Building, Lafayette Square

I learned of the existence of a very old stone house on a side street in Lafayette Square, predating the platting of the area in the 19th Century.

You can see it in the Sanborn maps, and its clear orientation against the street grid that was laid out by the city when it began to take over the common fields south of the city.

This building is in bad, bad shape, whatever its original use was. I suspect it might have been a farmhouse or other outbuilding in the Adams-Motard Farm, but I can't find much information about this angle.

One wall has collapsed, and the rest of the building is not in very good shape.

I wonder what the long term plans are for this building; there used to be a brick building next door, but it was torn down recently. Hopefully it can be restored, and the neighborhood near and can move from industrial to residential.

Does anyone know more about this building?

Back Door, Benton Place, Lafayette Square

The famous private street in St. Louis apparently once had a door in the retaining wall on the north side of the enclave. How long it has been cemented shut is a mystery.

Lafayette Square Side Streets

I forget sometimes that the strength of Lafayette Square lies not in the mansions on the square--though they are certainly amazing--but the side streets where more modest, but equally majestic homes help anchor the entire neighborhood.Here is a vestige of Lafayette Square losing prominence in the early 20th Century: a storefront built out the front of a house.Above is a great example of Mansard Roofs, in the restrained manner that I love so much in neighborhoods inside Grand Blvd.There are a few Federal style houses as well, as this interesting juxtaposition of Italianate and Federalist rowhouses demonstrate.I like how the owners of this house left the door with its rough patina intact.

Star Shoe Factory

One of the great ironies of the Lafayette Square neighborhood is that while it was born in the mid Nineteenth Century as one of the wealthiest sections of the city, it has spent much of its history as a low-income area, peppered with factories and many of its grandest homes carved up into boarding houses.



The boarding houses are gone, but many of the factories that appeared in the late Nineteenth Century remain, adding to the fascinating mix of old industrial rehabs, modest row houses and grand, restored Second Empire mansions.

Abandoned Grocery Store

It never amazes me that a grocery store at the corner of Jefferson and I-44 could not stay in business. Was it because they offered crappy, expired products to the locals? Was it shoplifted blind? Who knows, but I find it bizarre that no one can think of a use for such prime real estate across from the Lafayette Square neighborhood.

Lafayette Square Funeral Home

St. Mary's Infirmary

While St. Mary's Infirmary has been heavily photographed and documented at other sites (and much more adeptly than me) I thought I would post a couple of pictures that I snapped while driving by one day.What is striking about this building is that it is hiding in plain view, so to speak. It sits right in the middle of a parking lot, and within throwing distance of Lafayette Square.Regardless, it should be restored, not just to stop the complete demolition of all historic structures south of I-64 and north of Chouteau, but because it would be a great adaptive reuse of an historic structure.Here is a bird's eye view of the old hospital. As it sits for now, devoid of development, one can only wonder what will become of it.

Lafayette Square In-Fill