My friend Paul Hohman, a well known architect who specializes in renovations of historic buildings helped get Missouri Preservation to list the “JeffVanderLou Green Board Buildings” as one of their 2024 Places in Peril. JeffVanderLou, which I’ve featured many times over the years, in one of the more heavily demolished neighborhoods in the City, but ironically was once one of the top two or three densest back before the 1970s.
JeffVanderLou is the neighborhood with all the slanted white and blue lines that is sort of triangular in shape.
I thought it would be interesting to take a look around at some of these houses, easily recognizable by A) the green boards, and B) the red paint the JeffVanderLou organization painted their buildings. the houses above are just west of the buildings I photographed back in December of 2013 when I spoke to Dan, a resident who moved out at some point after our talk. I even photographed the little guy above in the 2800 block of Madison, which had just been gutted by fire.
The buildings above and below are on the 1700 block of North Leffingwell Avenue. From what I understand, Macler Shepherd, the founder of JeffVanderLou, lived on this block. I looked at this block back in December of 2013, as well, and again in September of 2021 in two parts.
Houses that had been hit by brick thieves around the corner are long gone, their ruins cleared away at some point in the last decade.
The building above is on Elliott Avenue.
Down on Howard Street, some houses are nothing but ruins now.
The famous red/green houses, which many of my friends have photographed over the years, are looking rough, sadly. I took pictures back in February of 2012.
There are many more in the immediate vicinity.
