Bartmer Avenue, West End

Tucked in the bend of Page Avenue are two blocks of stunning homes from the turn of the century. Laid out on curving streets like Compton Heights, Bartmer Avenue is a little rough around the edges now, but still filled with beautiful houses, including these two. I also realized I had been very close to this street several years ago, while exploring Chamberlain Avenue, but the blocked streets prevented its discovery until now.

The nearby Union Methodist Church owns the house above, and the church's guard, Derek, told us that a man once came and offered to buy the house itself and haul it away to another site. They declined.

Union Methodist is a stunning example of Modernist architecture, and look for a post in the future about this amazing building, perfectly intact for sixty years, at my colleague's site, B.E.L.T.

Falstaff Brewery Plant Five, Former Columbia Brewery

Surely the former Columbia Brewery, late renamed Falstaff Brewery Plant Five, must have always dominated the St. Louis Place neighborhood.

With the incredible amount of demolition in the area, it now rises out of what almost looks like a meadow, taller than the remaining houses by over a hundred feet.

The Romanesque Revival brewery sits right on the property line at the sidewalk, with elegant renovated houses across the street framing the complex.

And of course, there's the massive smokestack with the Falstaff logo nailed to the giant stack, which may be one of the largest brewery smokestacks in the city.

It's a massive fortress like structure, and I wonder if the beer barons, many of whom were born in Germany, were actively attempting to evoke the architecture of the powerful in their homeland.

The brewery is just as impressive as I remember when I saw the building for the first time up close several years ago.

I love the use of terracotta accents that are combined with cut limestone and red brick. These are not simple utilitarian structures, but statements of the power of the beer industry in St. Louis history.

Please visit this great Falstaff Beer site, where I learned most of my information about the old brewing company. Also, I want to thank Andrew Weil, director of the Landmarks Association of St. Louis, for additional information.

Vandeventer Place, Revisited

Four years after I first covered Vandeventer Place, there still is a paucity of information and photographs of what was once the grandest private street in St. Louis. I only could find a couple of grainy postcards that preserve the appearance of the once august street.

I often tell people that if even Vandeventer Place (or Gaslight Square, for that matter) isn't safe from decline and the wrecking ball, then none of our built environment should be taken for granted.

I drove up Spring Avenue recently, and when I passed through the block where Vandeventer Place once stood, I took a photo to the right and to the left. It is hard to believe that even just sixty years ago Richardsonian Romanesque mansions and Gothic Revival castles once stood. Instead, I saw a chain-link fence blocking one of the ugliest buildings in St. Louis, the Veterans' Hospital...

...and on the other side, a forlorn and rapidly deteriorating "youth services facility," or as one of my students who works there calls it, the teen jail.

Below, I made an attempt to stitch together the Sanborn Maps for Vandeventer Place, hoping to give you an idea of its former glory. Coming later today.

St. Vincent's Hospital

I spotted the roofline of what looked to be a Romanesque and Gothic castle recently, and after a search on Google Maps, I found out what this large, majestic building was.Closed decades ago, it is now low-income apartments. I had trouble getting a good shot, but you can see a more proficient view of the entire building here.Owned by the Daughters of Charity, the asylum began downtown and moved out to what was then the country in the 1890's. Read more about the building from its National Register nomination.The Daughters of Charity also ran nearby Marillac College, which I featured earlier this year, which is due north of the old hospital, across what is now St. Vincent's Park, which I suspect was owned by the Sisters as well.I found it interesting that there is the 1930 Census on file for the hospital, or as they called it back then, a sanitarium.I was saddened about the current condition of the building, which is beginning to show the age of its renovation in the early 1980's.Likewise, it is isolated, up a narrow suburban street, and I wonder about its long term viability. We talked to a couple of residents, and they were not happy with their living conditions.

Delavan, Illinois Churches

The two main churches I found in Delavan are nice examples of Revival architecture in Nineteenth-Century America. The first church is a simple, but elegant Gothic Revival structure on the main street of the town.The church features a wooden belfry I often see in rural churches; I wonder whether it would have originally been painted white, though.The second church is a sleek example of Romanesque Revival style, though its massing is more like that of a Gothic church.The brick is in beautiful shape, and I wonder if it was imported from St. Louis.Like I mentioned above, the round windows are more typical of a Romanesque church, but yet it feels overall like a Gothic church as far as its proportions. It would be interesting to know why the architect took such an interesting eclectic approach to the design of the church.

Union Station Train Shed

Such an amazing space, and in my opinion much more useful as a wide open space, clear of impediments.We will see what the future holds for the train shed.

Union Station, Interior

Wow, it's been a while but Union Station's mall is just about empty. What were once Dierdorf and Harts and a bookstore now sit empty. Abandonment is sort of like a snowball; if it starts rolling it can be hard to stop the momentum.But on a happier note, the hotel is still just as stunningly beautiful as it has always been since its renovation. The side lobby still elicits the same sense of style that it had a hundred years ago.The detailing, with its gilding and Romanesque Revival elements are still crisp and clean.The lighted floor, which my father said were once common throughout the United States, still impresses me.

Union Station

I've always been impressed with the exterior of Union Station, a grand edifice that sits on what was once Chouteau's Pond, as well as Mill Creek.Once the busiest train station in the world, it is much more quiet nowadays. I let the limestone, Richardsonian Romanesque Revival building speak for itself.