Quality Hill, West of Downtown, Kansas City, Missouri

Here's a novel idea; build and rehab houses just outside of your main business district so people who work downtown can walk to work.

The area around Kansas City's cathedral is a combination of original Italianate houses combined with housing that looks like it was built in the 1990's or slightly earlier.

Regardless of its date of construction, the in-fill fits in well with the surrounding historic architecture and supports a thriving neighborhood.

St. Louis could learn about the idea of having healthy neighborhoods surrounding its downtown; currently St. Louis is surrounded by interstates, vacant lots and undesirable housing projects. When was the last time you walked to downtown St. Louis from your house? Never? It's not like that in every American city.

The Rebirth of McRee Town

I'm interrupting my tour of Kansas City architecture because I was so excited to see the recent developments in McRee Town, which for a long was one of the most troubled neighborhoods in the city.

Combining sensitive in-fill with the conversion of four-family flats into two houses and the renovation of other notable single family houses, the Botanical Grove redevelopment is doing everything right that has so often been done wrong in St. Louis.

For starters, pre-existing homeowners were not run out of their homes with eminent domain arranged with corrupt officials in smoky backrooms.

Secondly, the remaining housing stock was renovated into viable real estate, and priced at market rates.

Finally, the in-fill housing is very cool; it doesn't try to pretend it was built in the Nineteenth century, is unashamedly modern, but the massing and materials match the neighborhood and city.

If the first phase on McRee Avenue is successful, it will spread to other streets, and hopefully the rest of the city.

College Hill, Part 2

College Hill really is on a hill, and these views show how high it is. This mansion above is surrounded by nothing but sky, quickly clearing after the storm.Looking downward, you can see how this street was truncated by the interstate. Below is this tidy row of houses, like you might see in Hyde Park to the south.This burnout is interesting, as it doesn't follow the normal flat, box like design of most rowhouses in St. Louis. Perhaps it was an older house in the neighborhood.This house sits surrounded by overgrown foliage. Elsewhere in America, this exact house could fetch $400K, but here, it rots in obscurity.

Adventures in McMansion Land

Enjoying the weather Sunday afternoon, my parents and I decided to check out our favorite place for ridicule, Ladue just south of Clayton Road. We were not disappointed; we saw our favorite McMansion in the whole wide world off of Warson Road, which you can see above.Here are a couple of other beauties that replaced the original houses in this area.
Finally, we took a spin over to Huntleigh, where we filmed some exclusive video:

Bohemian Hill Moving Forward?

Woah, when no one was looking, the Bohemian Hill project has begun in earnest. While no signs of the grocery store construction are present, the Walgreen's is clearly almost done. How did we miss this?

For background, read my earlier posts here and here as well as that of other websites.

Norwood Square, Wells-Goodfellow

Norwood Square has already been thoroughly and eloquently documented here, but I offer up my own pictures as a chronicle of the rise and fall of Norwood Square.
According to a neighborhood boy, this is where the "rich" people live.
It is sad to think that the settling of the ground, so visible in the bends and cracks on the houses, will eventually claim many of the wonderful homes on this unique subdivision.

Washingon, Illinois Town Square

The beautiful town square of Washington, Illinois demonstrates how a walkable downtown can continue to thrive, even with the construction of new buildings in the late Twentieth Century.Correct building frontage is maintained, and there is no surface parking other than metered street parking around the square. The one small parking lot is tucked behind the buildings of the square.Sadly, one must still run willy-nilly across the streets to avoid being run over by cars. Luckily traffic is not nearly as stressed out as in major cities, so the crosswalks are a bit safer.Abraham Lincoln once traveled through this square while living in Illinois.

They Don't Build Them Like They Used To #2

I came across this bizarre sight while on my survey of Hyde Park last weekend: a row of unfinished buildings lining a street cleared of all historic structures. All the houses are unfinished, unsecured, falling apart, and cheaply built, but the one on the end is the most shocking. I constantly rant and rave about the fact that the housing of today will never make it as long as the buildings of 19th Century St. Louis, but rarely have I seen such a naked example than here. Admittedly, no siding on the house equals major water leakage problems, but still this should not just be left like this.

This Is What They Tore Down Prince Hall For

Eastern Central West End/Western Midtown

I get a little depressed on the broad avenues that stretch west from Grand Blvd towards the heart of the Central West End along Euclid or Newstead. What was once clearly a thriving, and absolutely beautiful neighborhood, is still in the process of fragmenting into urban prairie, and perhaps even worse, banal suburban in-fill. It is frightening to me that some aldermen in the city still think the way to revive the city is to copy the suburbs. The Central West End's development is spreading east, and I only pray that responsible developers win the race to link up Midtown with the CWE before SLU or Grand Center Partnership get their grubby, parking lot loving hands on all those prime blocks of real estate.

Lafayette Square In-Fill