Post Office Eagle

Old Post Office Sculpture, Now Inside #2

Old Post Office Sculpture, Now Inside

Old Post Office

The Old Post Office can never seem to get a break. Designed in a style of architecture that was once reviled and now celebrated, downtown planners have had a tenuous relationship with the massive building in the center of the downtown. Once slated for demolition, then renovated into a failed mall back in the absurdly ridiculous mid 1980's, the Old Post Office now seems to be filled to capacity. But still, downtown planners are attempting to give the building too much responsibility, hoping that it will again magically revitalize downtown and the square around it. The Century Building came down because of the Old Post Office developers--something about people needing parking directly across the street or they wouldn't come.
The interior is incredible; sporting an atrium dug down into the original basements below the main floor.

Don't Get Me Started...

It would have been so easy to build the Ninth Street Garage north of the Old Post Office and save the Century Building. Heck, what is most annoying is that people would probably be moving into the Century right now--its attached neighbor, the Syndicate Trust is just about renovated. Don't tell me that the developer wouldn't have loved to renovate the Century simultaneously with the Syndicate Trust.

But instead, they're building a stupid plaza that no one will use. The Roberts Brothers still could have had their tower, and a parking garage.

Downtown Doorways

Not enough attention is paid to the entries into buildings nowadays, in my opinion. Below is the door to the Paul Brown Building.Below is the door to the Southwestern Bell Building.Below is a building's door on the east side of Old Post Office Square, which is an excellent example of Classically inspired architecture.And finally, the door to the Arcade Building.

Downtown Bank

Laclede Gas Building

The large black Modernist skyscraper in this picture is the Laclede Gas Building. While it dates to several decades after the building of the historic skyscrapers in its midst, I have to admit that the building sort of fits wells with the older buildings. Ironically, someday the Laclede Gas Building will be an historic structure, too.