SymphonicPoet in St. Louis

[SymphonicPoet]

A friend of mine suggested I ought to post some of my photographs here. I'm at a loss as to how to organize them. I think I'll start with geography for now, though obviously as the thread grows time will become more important.

Downtown

From the top of the wicket


Wonder


Convention Center Station


Washington Avenue looking west


Railway Exchange Building


Locust looking east


3rd Street at Lombard beneath I-55


The MacArthur Bridge


MacArthur Bridge approach, I-55, and 3rd Street


TRRA High Line under the Eads Bridge


Eads Bridge looking east


UP on 1st at Ashley


UP onto the High Line


TRRA High Line along Leonore Sullivan


Ashley Street Power Plant


And a few from the 90s

MacArthur Bridge at Gratiot


1522 on the Poplar Street Wye, below the MacArthur


Walnut looking west at City Hall

[SymphonicPoet]

Craondelet

Mississippi River from Bellerive Park


Carondelet Park












Residential Carondelet

[SymphonicPoet]

Tower Grove

















Tower Grove Park






Shaw's Garden

[CastleScott]

Ahh great pics of St Louis and I bet you just might give ole JiveStL and GASM a run for the money!!

[Murphy de la Sucre]

Symphonic Poet uh, almost like a band's name. A symphonic metal band.

[SymphonicPoet]

Originally Posted by CastleScott

Ahh great pics of St Louis and I bet you just might give ole JiveStL and GASM a run for the money!!

I suspect ArchCity and GASM are both better photographers than I, but thank you. Need to check out JiveStL. Don't think I've seen their work yet.

Originally Posted by Murphy de la Sucre

Symphonic Poet uh, almost like a band's name. A symphonic metal band.

Well, to the extent that I am a band, I suppose. I've never done metal. But I do write symphonies and poetry. I bill myself a composer, poet, and roustabout. I also take pictures. (And lots of other things too, but the pictures seem relevant.)

[Centropolis]

sharing is caring, thanks!

[AJW]

Your friends suggestion was a good one.

[STLgasm]

Great little tour! It's been a while since I've shared photos on the forum, but I still check in frequently!

[Centropolis]

one of my favorite buildings in city. i miss south grand, my old haunt that i'd walk to. i sometimes forget how solid tower grove feels, like they built the neighborhood(s) to last 400 years.



not a crumbly brick in sight.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by STLgasm

Great little tour! It's been a while since I've shared photos on the forum, but I still check in frequently!

reminds me that i have a bunch of university city photos that i should post up.

[Centropolis]

carondelet really has like an ohio valley + new orleans thing going on. i cannot explain it. it feels slightly different than the rest of the city. i guess you could say the same for most of the neighborhoods that touch the mississippi river but carondelet is unique.

[Nightsky]

Nice pics. There seem to be a lot of grit in St Louis, as well as monumental buildings. Didn't know there is a subway in SL, or is it just a train station?

[SymphonicPoet]

It's a station on the local light rail system: Metrolink. Portions of it downtown and in Clayton are below grade. I'm not quite sure that I'd call it a subway system in general, but it does a nice impression of one if you squint right. Most of it is on former railroad grades. (Including that station, actually. The tunnel connects the Eads Bridge to the rail yards in Mill Creek Valley, which is why Union Station is where it is, actually. But the freight railroads needed more clearance and abandoned the tunnel, so the city traded their bridge to the Terminal Railroad for the Eads Bridge. Was a pretty good deal for all sides.)

As to grit and monument, indeed, St. Louis has both aplenty. Probably a side effect of aging. Some of the monuments start to sag a bit and the streets start to seem too tight. Clearly if we all walked more we could shake some of this off and generally feel a good century younger.

[SymphonicPoet]

Also: Thank you Centropolis. South Grand is one of my favorite areas too. Very solid stock, decent folks, and a park that can't be beat. Of course . . . I played in that park in my youth and generally drink too much coffee there when given a chance.

And yes, Carondolet very definitely has a different vibe. Some of the architecture is a little like Soulard, but without the gentrification. It's till old, industrial, and quite blue collar for the most part. And a lot of that industry is on the river, so there's still more of a connection than elsewhere, maybe. (If it weren't obvious I presently live on the northern fringes of Carondolet. I hear a whistle that surely sounds like the sort of thing that called folks to work a hundred years ago. And I hear it every weekday morning about eight o' clock. It's almost spooky. There's something out of time about this place.)

[Centropolis]

i have always heard that prior to the flood of '93 there used to be a concentration of creole restaurants down in carondelet. was this some last vestige of st. louis creole?

[maru2501]

nice. my kind of stuff

[SymphonicPoet]

I was in Carondolet only occasionally at that time, so I can't say for sure. It makes sense. Carondolet is quite old by local standards (probably the second oldest neighborhood in town, by virtue of its independent foundation). I'd actually be somewhat surprised if there aren't still old French families down here. There are in a number of nearby communities. It seems inevitable that folks are still here in St. Louis somewhere, and Carondolet and Lemay feel likelier than most places. (As do Bellefontaine and Spanish Lake.)

[SymphonicPoet]

I've gotten a little behind and have quite a few shots from fall, and winter to add. Here's a September afternoon in Midtown . . .























and two stragglers on the edges of downtown . . .

[SymphonicPoet]

And here's a November afternoon around downtown and on the borders of a nearby neighborhood called Soulard . . .