Kitchen and Bath Outlet

I love this building on North Jefferson; the solid, red brick structure stands defiantly at a corner that is surrounded by numerous vacant lots. This is how an industrial building should look.

TGIF

Photo by Jeff Phillips

Tower Grove East

Howard Bend Flooding

See, this if why there shouldn't be large scale commercial development in Howard Bend.

Gate District Re-examination

I decided to re-examine the Gate District in response to the impassioned arguments of one of the neighborhood's residents that the area does have life in it, despite its reputation among local preservationists and others.What I found were several streets of very beautiful houses along Lafayette Avenue, with some abandonment and some new in-fill construction.I still think there is a major problem of a lack of nearby restaurants or other "hang-outs," which I presume were planned but never materialized.Time will tell if this area retains its dichotomic nature, or fuses into a cogent neighborhood.

Grand Water Tower Decay

On Your Side in the Post Dispatch covered the deterioration of the Grand Water Standpipe on Monday. While it is in no risk of complete demolition, we could all wake up one morning to find the cast iron capital of the column in a giant heap at the base. Let's not wait the ten years for that to happen.

Carrollton, Bridgeton

A couple of Sundays ago I headed out to the Carrollton subdivision in the northwest St. Louis County suburb of Bridgeton. Alerted by a Post-Dispatch article, I knew I had to examine and photograph one of the great tragedies resulting from the expanded Lambert Airport.Bought out by the city of St. Louis for noise abatement, the subdivision has been targeted by arsonists as the houses sit, waiting to be demolished.What is left is an absolutely surreal landscape; trees delineate where houses once stood, and the remnants of crumbling concrete streets dominate the landscape.Apparently the area is the playground for local teens looking for a place to party and engage in a little "harmless vandalism."It certainly is what is called an attractive nuisance: an area that seems perfect for bored suburban teenagers looking for something to do, however delinquent, instead of ending up at Steak and Shake for the fiftieth weekend in a row.The presence of asbestos has apparently slowed the pace of demolition, which is where the arsonist(s) come into play. I call them "guilt-free arsonists," individuals who somehow think it is less immoral to burn down buildings that are under construction or abandoned. Never mind that there is always the risk of someone getting hurt in any uncontrolled fire, however remote.A former resident has been documenting the demise of her beloved subdivision at 56 Houses Left. This website can imbue the sense of loss that the residents are feeling as they watch their neighborhood disintegrate, much in the same manner as St. Louis Place or JeffVanderLou. Failed government policies lead to yet another devastated neighborhood.Also, make sure to check out the bird's eye (or pilot's eye) view here. I can assure that there are far fewer houses left than the satellite image reveals.Of all the exploration around the "bad parts of town" in the St. Louis metropolitan area, I can admit that this was the first time I really felt scared. This area is desolate; it's sort of one of those areas where if something happened to you, no one would hear you scream.That said, it is still worth a visit just to see the decline and destruction of a whole community.

SLU Medical Campus Abomination

Heading North Up Grand at Twilight

Grand View Apartments

I remember these two apartment towers from when I first moved to St. Louis in 1985. Probably what is most striking are the large medallions anchored high up the side of the one tower. The taller tower has a fascinating abstract pattern that arches its way up the east side of the building. It is infamous nowadays in that the brick has been falling off the facade for a couple of years now.It is a great example for my students to illustrate how the walls of skyscrapers don't bear the weight of the structure, but rather the steel skeleton.The whole complex exudes a funky 1960's Modernist feel, and it is even plopped right down in the middle of Highway 40, Forest Park Parkway and Grand Blvd.The mostly disable residents of the building are basically stranded in this small island of Modernist apartments.Below is one of the great, funky medallions high on the side of the building.

Below is the infamous wall of the falling brick facade.

Down below is an empty commercial wing, presumably originally designed for the residents of the complex, but now completely vacant and apparently awaiting rehabbing.

See the complex from the air here. What a great example of Modernist superblock urban planning sucking the life out of the center of what was once the Mill Creek Valley.

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.

Murder and Geography

Interesting...while murders have increased in the City of St. Louis overall, there has been a dramatic decrease in the southern half of the city. See the interactive map here.

Howard Bend

The last great swath of undeveloped bottom land in St. Louis County is set to become history--at the hands of Maryland Heights. As the continued balkanization of St. Louis County tax revenues continues, the "city" apparently believed it had to compete with nearby Chesterfield Commons in the Gumbo Flats along Highway 40. Below, you can see why this new project in the Howard Bend area of Maryland Heights is now moving forward: the Page Avenue sprawl connector seen from the overpass of River Valley Road.Why should preservationists care that the farmland of Howard Bend remain agricultural?Firstly, it encourages local produce to be grown close to home, cutting down on shipping costs during the growing season since your tomatoes don't have to come from Chile.Secondly, the development is more of the same sprawl economic model that has currently pushed gas prices up over three dollars because America has created cities (for the first time in human history) where walking is next to impossible if not outright ridiculed.On a more personal level, I love the Howard Bend area because of its beauty: fields of corn, tree covered bluffs in the distance, and the knowledge that this little bit of rural St. Louis County is right in the middle of the metropolitan area.Oh and by the way, when the levee fails twenty years from now, your tax dollars will go to the reconstruction of development that never should have occurred in a flood plain. Whether you live in the city, Wentzville, Collinsville or even Seattle, you should be angry that the government is insuring businesses and municipalities who built in an irresponsible manner.There is history down here still as well, as you can still see the Howard Bend Pumping Station, where much of the City of St. Louis draws its water from the Missouri River. See an overhead view here, and also read here how residents are trying to stop this abomination