Hardcore Arch Porn (and 45-ish non-Arch shots) - ST. LOUIS
 

I usually avoid the stereotypical Arch shots in my St. Louis threads, but I got to experience it from a couple interesting angles recently, so I decided to post those Android phone shots and a random handful of others (50 in all).

Note that I run a blog on St. Louis development (read: small scale rehabs), so a lot of the shots were not intended to be sexy streetscapes or cool graffiti, but rather oblique angles of buildings being rehabbed. Scroll down below at your own risk of boredom.


01. From East St. Louis MetroLink light rail platform – what a view!
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps825fab2f.jpg

02. Fire dancing from Malcolm Martin Memorial Park, also in East St. Louis (spectacular, front and center skyline views):
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps49893263.jpg

03. The Arch from St. Louis’s tallest habitable building—the Metropolitan Square:
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps05f2e7c1.jpg

04. The Arch viewed from five miles west, peeking out from behind the Chase Park Plaza:
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps64292d8a.jpg

05. Okay, enough with the Arch. Here’s an unlikely rehab going on in the city’s Near North Riverfront, a primarily industrial area:
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps1c54c6f0.jpg

06. Skyline, sans Arch, viewed from a rooftop in the Washington Avenue Warehouse/Garment District.
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps44b8abd9.jpg

07. A cool, spray-painted garage (with matching door!) in an otherwise squeaky clean, tidy St. Louis Hills neighborhood on the far southwestern edge of the City.
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps86ba7f97.jpg

08. A cool, red brick Victorian under rehab in the Benton Park neighborhood:
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...psb1c9e372.jpg

09. Brand new bungalow constructed in the Shaw neighborhood:
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps04f077e6.jpg

10. The Lacassian Lofts Project on the western edge of Downtown. The decorative cornice, long gone from the building, is being restored.
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps01ec0e3f.jpg

11. The North Sarah development is being constructed on what was once barren urban prairie in a heavily disinvested neighborhood. The addition of three story mixed use buildings in such an area is visually jarring – in a good way. This is Phase II.
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps8ebe4d64.jpg

12. I love it when corner storefront buildings boast their date of construction. This 1890s vintage building has lost one of the numbers.
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...psb9957be7.jpg

13. A vacant Fox Park home with some creative graffiti (okay, so I have at least one “cool graffiti” picture in this set).
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps8e83d043.jpg

14. A Benton Park home with wrought-iron balcony and extensive rear building under rehab:
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps9652a960.jpg

15. Sideways Soulard streetscape shot.
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...psb0243a1b.jpg

16. St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church – a German church that was the city’s tallest building until the early 1900s. The spire rises to 300 feet.
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...psbd386ea3.jpg

17. A Lafayette Square Victorian home on a private court:
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps544b48ab.jpg

18. A rehab plus new addition to a building on Lafayette Avenue in the city’s Gate District.
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps109a1948.jpg

19. Vacant for at least a decade, this Benton Park West building didn’t seem a likely candidate for a $350,000+ rehab. Unlike most rehabs, which de-densify, this rehab is turning what is assessed as a two-family into 3 units.
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...psa1838d3d.jpg

20. On the Lafayette Square Spring House and Garden Tour:
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps0c77862a.jpg

21. More Lafayette Square:
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps3abe3f2b.jpg

22. A storefront tucked away in the Lindenwood Park neighborhood.
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps95b2053a.jpg

23. Bonus shot: Downtown Carlinville, Illinois (about an hour north of St. Louis).
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...psdb15cdc7.jpg

24. A recently completed rehab in Tower Grove South:
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps02be00cd.jpg

25. The MoPRO “Dutchtown Classic” bicycle race in the city’s Dutchtown neighborhood – so named for its original population of “scrubby Dutch”, a misheard version of Deutsch (German).
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps1fbe3964.jpg

26. The zany Cinco de Mayo parade rolls by on equally unpredictable Cherokee Street:
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps65e0c5ad.jpg

27. A beautiful and somewhat rare stone home in Tower Grove South:
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps16b3d67c.jpg

28. Another view from the Metropolitan Square building downtown, this time facing west:
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...psf28f1d9e.jpg

29. A 1939 era church in the St. Louis Hills neighborhood – stunningly modern, spare, and small.
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps379241e4.jpg

30. Crazy brickwork in the Benton Park neighborhood:
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...psb9bd87ce.jpg

31. An impending rehab in the Skinker-DeBaliviere neighborhood on the western edge of the City:
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...psa265b359.jpg

32. Streetscape shot in Benton Park – I’m waiting for that corner building to get its rehab permit.
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps9d7c6cd9.jpg

33. Blurry shot from a dirty bus window of a cohesive commercial row in the Marine Villa neighborhood:
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps2ea3e3b2.jpg

34. The Skinker-DeBaliviere neighborhood again.
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps060c3418.jpg

35. Back in St. Louis Hills. I’ve always admired the rows of “gingerbreads”, but especially those with the decorative terra cotta outlining the swooping roof lines.
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...psa77c4883.jpg

36. Park Avenue in Lafayette Square at sunset:
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...psf0fdfa17.jpg

37. An awesome rehab in Tower Grove South that removed a disfiguring 1980s storefront remuddle and exposed an old brewery sign.
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps041ae266.jpg

38. One way to protect your tree lawn (Southampton neighborhood, near St. Louis Hills).
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps6b246289.jpg

39. New signs put up by the new owner of St. Louis Union Station, once the busiest rail passenger terminal in the world.
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps7a68b7bb.jpg

40. The Bevo neighborhood (where I’m from). This is the commercial district that fronts the actual Bevo Mill (you can see the Mill barely visible at left in the picture). These buildings recently were placed in a National Register historic district.
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...psbc984501.jpg

41. A very late snow for St. Louis (March 3rd); in the DeBaliviere Place neighborhood.
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...psa1394732.jpg

42. Right across the street from my house in Benton Park.
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps0d254033.jpg

43. A recent rehab in Benton Park:
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps53ad169a.jpg

44. From that same early March snow as before, but this time in the Soulard neighborhood:
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps6d8cc590.jpg

45. A new “passive house” constructed in Dogtown.
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...psc602b880.jpg

46. A new contemporary home in otherwise staid St. Louis Hills:
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps05cc802a.jpg

47. A Fox Park corner. Did you spot the pooch on the balcony?
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps04bb25d7.jpg

48. St. Louis’s Civic Center, viewed through the lens of the Scottrade Center (home of the St. Louis Blues):
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps11690ab1.jpg

49. Another view from the top of the Congress building in DeBaliviere Place. The Arch is hiding behind the Chase Park Plaza (Art Deco tower) in this photo.
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps40606e76.jpg

50. It’s only fitting to end with yet another (partial) Arch picture. This one is looking east on Chestnut Street towards the iconic Civil Courts building (pyramidal roof) and the new St. Louis University Law School building, which took one of downtown’s most plain/boring mid-century buildings and is refurbishing it into something more visually interesting (the building with the “T”-shaped glass cutout):
http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...pseab63377.jpg

Hope you enjoyed!

I wanna have your babies!!!!

There it is-- one of America's most distinctive cities.

Holy shit, this is one of the best STL threads I've ever seen. Love it!!!!!!

I've never been - but St. Louis seems to have an amazing housing stock

Very nice to see these rehabs. The city has so much unrealized potential.

absolutely brilliant. this actually makes me want to mount urinals on either side of my front door and plant flowers in them or something. bird bath? mail box? i'm doing it. for real.

http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps8e83d043.jpg

always a pleasure to see a new mmourning thread. also, i didn't realize you were behind stlnabedev–thanks for doing that! some days it's the only reason i get out of bed.

Some cool views there.

I have always loved that big old building on the middle left of this photo. That scene reminds me of the street walls around Central Park.

http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps40606e76.jpg

Sweet! Awesome arch + rehab tour!! I really think our older cities are going to make a huge comeback :tup:

I always look for that pooch when I pass by on Russel. Nice set!

Excellent photo essay. It is also very encouraging to see the new stuff built at a proper scale in relation to neighboring buildings, but the rehabs look like they are well done and this is what sprs better redevelopment. The more care is taken in rehabbing older buildings, the better chance of redeveloping old hoods and raising potential values.

If the title of this thread was about almost any other city, the comments would've hit two pages by now. What is it about St. Louis that generates such comparatively little interest? Aren't threads like this one the reason people visit the forum in the first place?

Awesome pics, great to see all the rehabs as well. Reminds me of the rowhouse rebuilds/infill you see in north philly.

An A+ thread and commentary. I enjoyed the informative tour. St. Louis appears as interesting as I've imagined it to be.

signs and wonders!

http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/...ps40606e76.jpg
http://i1206.photobucket.com

I feel like this photo highlights the split personality of st. louis - this being the more great lakes-y side of the city.

I have worshiped the Chase Park Plaza all my life. If someone made a "Chase Park Plaza Porn" thread I'll leave the first 20 comments on it.

Arch porn is good, too. I liked it. Thanks!

Great to see all the rehabs - those beauties need to be loved. Even the new construction infill in #09 is done very well and blends in nicely.

thanks for the great thread. it's inspiring to see these restorations and replacement infill.

-

Beautiful images and great things happening in a superb gemstone of a city.

Amazing how I live here and it never gets old. I think living here, you sometimes take it for granted. This type of thread wakes me up to that awesome reality. Great pics!