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Warehouse Fire
A terrible fire struck two warehouses just to the west of Produce Row on North Broadway. The two buildings are apparently a total loss. Debris from the northern building fell on the one story...
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Old North and Another Fire
There are still so many great things happening in the Old North neighborhood, where houses are being rehabbed, and other buildings, while still vacant, have been stabilized, leaving them secure for...
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Chouteau Avenue, Chouteau’s Landing, Spring 2021
Chouteau Avenue in Chouteau’s Landing is still lined with a complete street wall of buildings, and they are very well preserved. The hulking mass of the western approaches to the MacArthur Bridge,...
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John Loler House, Destroyed by Fire
I was getting ready Saturday evening to head over to the Granite City Art and Design District when I glanced at Twitter, where I follow the St. Louis Fire Department. They were reporting a fire at a...
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John Loler House, In Ruins
There’s not much to say, after the fire that destroyed the John Loler House two Saturdays ago. The ruins will probably sit for a little while, and then be torn down. There was a woman living inside,...
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Another Loss on St. Louis Avenue
Right on the heels of the disastrous fire that destroyed the John Loler House, the historic fabric of St. Louis Avenue and the greater St. Louis Place neighborhood suffered another terrible loss this...
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The Central West End and The Case of the Vanishing House
Someone must know the story behind this house just west of Boyle on Laclede. I was told what happened years ago, but now I’ve forgotten. There was a nice late Nineteenth Century house there, which you...
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Cote Brilliante Avenue, Early Summer 2021
I find the long block of Cote Brilliante Avenue between Marcus and Euclid avenues one of the enigmas: filled with beautiful houses but at the same time embodying the troubles afflicting so many North...
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Former Wagoner Place Methodist Church, In Ruins
The former Wagoner Place Methodist Church collapsed into a giant pile of rubble, which frankly surprised me. On my first and only previous visit, it looked perfectly fine, and I didn’t see any reason...
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James Cool Papa Bell Collapses
When I heard about the collapse of a building on the Near North Side, I went and checked old posts to see if I could figure out which building the news was talking about. The street in question, the...
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The Half Flounder on Keokuk Street, Destroyed
Well, that just stinks. That unique half-flounder on Keokuk, just east of Virginia Avenue, has collapsed into a giant pile of rubble. I don’t know when it happened, but now any chance of it being...
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Elliott and Leffingwell Avenues, JeffVanderLou, Late Summer 2021, Part One
Back in May of 2020, I went and documented the houses to the west of the new NGA in the JeffVanderLou neighborhood, one of the most heavily damaged in the city. But I have met many proud, hardworking...
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The Environs Around JeffVanderLou
The theme this summer in many divested neighborhoods seems to be green, where plants and trees have grown up and swallowed buildings. I looked at some of these houses back in May of 2021. I’ve looked...
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The Greater Ville and Western Lutheran Cemetery, Late Summer 2021
I decided to check up on the Western Lutheran Cemetery, which I had not visited January of 2021, and had not really looked at closely nor walked the grounds since January of 2019. I came down Ashland...
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Laflin Street, JeffVanderLou, Early Fall 2021
I checked in on Laflin Street, which once had far more houses, including two more to the north of the one above. You can see them in this post from September of 2017 (third photo down). A year later,...
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Suspicious Fires Week: Warehouse on the Far South Side of Old North
Visible in the fourth photo down in this post from June of 2019, this warehouse caught on fire and burned, leaving only a ruined hulk behind. It will surely be demolished, and another vacant lot will...
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5,000th Post: The Ruins of the Freie Gemeinde
None of my friends who live up north around the St. Louis Place and Old North St. Louis neighborhoods told me they were terribly surprised when the old Freie Gemeinde when up in flames on a bitterly...
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A Sad Loss, Carondelet
Help didn’t come in time for one of the more unique and beautiful houses in Carondelet, which I had photographed back in March of 2021 (second photo) on Michigan Avenue. Only a couple of months after...
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Checking Up on McKee Land
Little has changed where Paul McKee owns vast swaths of real estate since I went by this area last year. There are still abandoned and fire-gutted buildings. The large apartment building on St. Louis...
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Another McKee Property Burns
Another one of Paul McKee’s buildings went up in flames on Tyler Street. I realized I had photographed the building way back in February of 2016 (last photo) as well as June of 2019 (second photo),...
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