Golden Dragon

Gravity Defying Houses, Saint Louis Place

I'm amazed sometimes at the steadfast resilience of some of the brick rustled houses in St. Louis Place. Despite having all of their brick walls removed, they still stand. Metaphors for St. Louis Place, or merely curiosities?

St. Louis Flower Market

Who realized that the wholesale flower market is on LaSalle Street just southwest of the intersection of Jefferson and Chouteau?Despite most of the area around it being demolished for the Gate District, the street is almost completely intact.One can only imagine how amazing it was when all the houses around this street were still standing, and this wasn't some weird isolated pocket of occupied buildings.I wish I could have seen Compton Hill, as the area was called before urban clearance. Instead of dense urban fabric, we are now treated to generic suburbia in the heart of the city.Feel free to send me hate mail for criticizing the Gate District.

Chouteau's Landing

I plan on making many, many more trips to Chouteau's Landing, the warehouse district underneath the approaches to the MacArthur Bridge just south of the Arch.Though mostly abandoned nowadays, the narrow streets probably created quite the hustle and bustle back in the day.The second oldest church in St. Louis, St. Mary of the Victories, still resides in the area, though the population it serves no longer lives in the neighborhood.What is also amazing is how intact the area is; there are almost no vacant lots, but the oppressive shadow of I-55 hangs over the western edge, unfortunately.Stay tuned for more pictures in the coming months.

Clemens Mansion

I took a look at the Clemens Mansion this weekend, the long suffering country home turned convent originally built by the uncle of Mark Twain, James Clemens, Jr. What was once "out in the middle of nowhere" is now deep within the city, on Cass Avenue. Many things had changed since the last time I drove by; there were obvious signs that the long anticipated renovation of the mansion by Paul McKee had begun.It doesn't seem to have gotten very far, and I hesitate to use the word "stabilized" when referring to the structure. The original mansion, seen in the first two photos, still has much of its original cast iron columns and architectural elements, though the theft so many years ago of many pieces of iron have left the front porch with a bedraggled, unstable appearance. Those paired columns just to the right of the doorway look like they're about ready to fall off the building. Looking at earlier photos at Built St. Louis, it's obvious that much damage has occurred to the structure in the last decade.An archival photo at the Preservation Research Office website you can see here shows how idyllic the complex must have been in its day. The most remarkable change has come in the chapel portion of the complex, built when this was the Convent of Our Lady of Good Counsel. The infamous collapse of the chapel's roof happened almost three years ago, and as can be seen from the photos taken last Saturday, much of the presumably damaged or weakened masonry along the second floor chapel's east wall is gone. See pictures from two years ago that show the interior before partial demolition here. What was once an incredibly unique space in St. Louis is now largely gone.The picture below illustrates how much of the east wall apparently had to be removed. Due to the falling of the roof trusses and the subsequent two and a half years of water damage, I suppose it's only logical that the brickwork will need to be replaced.The back of the dormitory portion, built out of the back of the mansion looks well sealed and should remain stable for the near future.I always enjoy looking at the old Sanborn maps of the city. Apparently the convent once had chicken coops in the backyard, of which no trace that I know of survives. The brick wall around the buildings, apparently not original, continues to deteriorate, and will not require much demolition to remove its remnants.We'll see if this project gets done before the ravages of time or vandals destroy this important historic site.

Warehouse Coming Down, Near North Side

It seems that more demolition is occurring north of the old Schnuck's site on the Near North Side. A careful examination of the right-of-way reveals that the warehouse was not going to be in the path of the entrance ramps. It seems the building is being torn down in anticipation of increased land values in the area when the bridge is complete.Looking at an aerial view, it is clear that the complex was a series of buildings all combined together at some point. Regardless of different construction years, they all now share the same date of destruction.

Carmelite Monastery, Ladue

I made it out to the Carmelite Monastery in Ladue last Sunday and was pleasantly surprised. I wasn't able to find out much about the convent, but here is their website.The church is a beautiful example of Italian Romanesque Revival, and the door is welcoming.I like the use of terracotta, which gives off a warm glow even on a freezing cold day.The flat ceiling is actually fairly common in Italy, continuing the authentic feel on the interior.The convent is next door, and according to pictures on the website, it has a cloister on its interior.The bell tower features wonderful twisted columns, which often appear on Italian churches.It's hard to see the church in the summer because of the leaves on the trees, but in the winter, the building comes out of the woods along Clayton Road.

I Can't Wait to See the McMansion Going In Here!

My parents and I came across this tear-down in progress on Litzsinger Road. What will rise in its place?

Old Streetcar Right-of-Way, Ladue

Yes, Ladue once had mass transit passing through it, as this right-of-way, just off of Litzsinger Road demonstrates. Here is a picture of the track in use at the Post website. Looking at old streetcar maps, the line that passed through Ladue had an indeterminate ending point. According to a family friend who lives in Ladue off of McKnight, the streetcar line never did very well. There actually is still a small, ornate pavillion at the entrance to his subdivision where the streetcar stopped. It's still hard to believe sometimes that mass transit, streetcars in particular, were often times the domain of the wealthy.

Cool Modern House, Ladue

I passed by this great house facing Litzsinger Road in Ladue. With southern facing windows, the light in the house must be wonderful.

Snakes

Black Hole

Apparition

Union Trust, Downtown

The lesser known of the two remaining Louis Sullivan buildings in St. Louis is a gem, even if it's hard to photograph it in its entirety. I guess it's a good thing there are other building blocking the view, in the overall scheme of things.

How Important Is a City's Link with Its River? A Look at Rome, Italy

All the discussion recently about the new Arch Grounds competition and how St. Louis has lost its soul by being disconnected from the Mississippi River raised some interesting questions in my mind. I started thinking about how various cities that I've visited around the world embrace their natural environment, and in this case, I'll focus on rivers.In the case of Rome, Italy, a large river, the Tiber, flows through the city. AS is the case, I think, with every major city that has a river flowing through it, the river played a major role in the city even existing. In the case of Rome, the Tiber Island, pictured above, served as a ford over the river, creating a natural nexus for trade in the Latium region.Sometime back in the Nineteenth Century, the city's residents became tired of the disastrous floods that would erupt over the Tiber's banks from time to time, and essentially built large retaining walls that block off not only access, but any real use for the citizens of the city. In all the times I have walked along the Tiber, I have never seen anyone other than vagrants walking along the lower promenade; locals see it as a no-man's land where there is no real reason to go. See the river flowing through Rome from the air here. As is common in other cities, such as along Berlin's Landwehrkanal, Rome's traffic engineers built two, one-way roads on either side of the new river embankments, further isolating the Tiber from its city.And you know what? The city of Rome is still a bustling, culturally rich and amazing city despite it. It poses the question, if the city is functioning perfectly fine up on the river banks, how important is it, really, that the city be connected to its river?Improvements to St. Louis's riverfront are needed, but it will not be a cure-all to what still ails the city. The real work must be out in the neighborhoods, where people live and work, and have to spend their lives. The age of the "Jolly Flatboatmen" is gone, and we must live with the present.

National Stockyards' Pre-Columbian History

It turns out there was a major Mississippian culture city under the National Stockyards around one thousand years ago. Read the article here before it expires at the Post-Dispatch website.

St. Louis: Playground to the Entire Region

Why does it seem like everyone who wants to engage in illegal activity feel the need to come down to the City of St. Louis to cause trouble? I've started to notice--and it's a trend that certainly has been going on for a long time--that many of the high profile crimes in the city recently have been committed by non-St. Louis City residents.

Take the drag race on the Near North Riverfront a few weeks ago where a teenage girl was hit by two other teenagers racing by her. Neither of the drivers, using open, public streets that any innocent person could have wandered into in the middle of their race, were from St. Louis City. One suspect was from Glen Carbon, the other from South St. Louis County. After scanning Google Maps, I located several places where these young ruffians could have engaged in their 'sport' without having to drive to the big, dark, scary city:

Bluff Road looks like the perfect place for young Trenton Pinckard to have raced his car without having to put the citizens of another municipality in danger.

Likewise, William Mack Sapp could have easily "kicked butt" in a drag race along arrow-straight Union Road; the curve over the I-55 interstate bridge could make racing there have a new twist.

As I arrived for work at the Art Museum, I stepped over beer bottles left by revelers on Art Hill who had come to sled on its famous slope. Since when did the City have to absorb all of the region's troublemakers? Couldn't they cause trouble in their own communities?

Sunnyside Up #2

Here is the second installment of my finding a sunnyside-up egg on the ground. See the first one here.

Christmas at Fourth Baptist

Regardless of your religious views, you have to admit that it's a shame that the tradition of celebrating Christmas at Fourth Baptist Church came to an end in 2008. For another year since the devastating fire, there will be no Christmas service at the church. Will Christmas ever be celebrated within its walls again?

Jeff and Randy Vines