Guess the Neighborhood 5:01 PM

A couple pictures...strategic information blocked out. Where are these pictures from? (Answer: the city's website, but no peeking now). No, seriously, which neighborhood would you guess hosts this architecture?

 

 

 

Have at it. Which of St. Louis's 79 neighborhoods do these pictures come from?(Yes, they're all from the same neighborhood).

Amazing St. Louis Neighborhood Photography 8:19 PM

Nick Findley's Flickr page features some great St. Louis photography--mostly architecture, but there are some quirks too, like numbers (as in addresses and such). Check it out!

Here's the Soulard tour, for example:

St. Louis Photography Projects Capture the Soul of the City 1:25 PM

The Urban St. Louis Forum's famed member "JuiceinDogtown" unearthed this gem of a project: Forest Park 365. Photographer Edward Crim has pledged to visit what he continually refers to as America's greatest urban park every single day of this year. His photography is spectacular, capturing flora, fauna, architecture, weather, and the human activities that enliven the park. If you didn't already appreciate Forest Park, this photography project should give you a boost.

Here's an example, from March 29, 2009:

As if this weren't enough St. Louis photography, yet another Urban STL forumer (DeBaliviere, or Brian, author of Downtown St. Louis Business Blog) alerted us to dArt St. Louis.

From their website:

On April 30th, 2009, one hundred St Louisians stepped up to the line and threw their dart at the giant map of St Louis City. They then had a month to visit the block where their dart landed and make a photograph. And here are the results!

And here's a sample shot, from Curt von Diest, of Kennerly and North Taylor, his dart throw's chosen block.

What great, yet divergent, windows into our photogenic city.

Gateway to Bevo 2:13 AM

Photograph by me, February 2009.

Beautiful Benton Park Twins 3:40 PM

A photograph by me. McNair Street. January 3, 2009.

Southampton Neighborhood, on the last day of 2008 11:13 PM

My first original photography! 12:40 AM

Hope everyone is having a splendid holiday season!

Thanks to my haul on Christmas day, I am now a happy digital camera owner.

Accordingly, I have snapped photos of the South Side all week!

If you want to check out my first work, which actually predated my own camera (I borrowed it from my sister), check out this Skyscraperpage thread.

Thanks.

In the old Mill Creek Valley "Slum" 12:34 AM

2723 Pine Street -- September 1936.

Today, a part of the A.G. Edwards (I mean...Wachovia) campus.

AND



3127 Laclede (circa 1960?).

Today, part of the SLU campus.

Thank you, Midtown Institutions, for your stewardship.

While we're on the topic, check out the sliver of a historic building just west of the still present Cupples House on West Pine in the heart of the SLU campus (photo circa 1988). They sure do have a thing for demolishing historic mansions.



Thanks, HABS, for depressing me as usual.

Upcoming exhibit showcases impressions of Cherokee Street, Benton Park West 1:14 PM

Recall my earlier post about children from the College School in Webster Groves observing and reflecting upon the Cherokee Station business district and surrounding neighborhood.

It seems that Cherokee Street is a hit with students whose instructors want them to witness a 21st Century diverse neighborhood.

The Photography Project, sponsored by the Public Policy Research Center at UMSL, equipped children ages 8 to 18 with digital cameras and set them about exploring the Benton Park West neighborhood.

The project is about capturing, with photography, the diversity of human experience through the eyes of a child. It's also about bringing strangers together and, thereby, inspiring a level of comfort and safety perhaps missing from the neighborhood at present.

UMSL is hosting an exhibit of the children's work. More information is below. Click here to read the South Side Journal article.

What: "Point-Of-View: Cherokee Street and Benton Park West Neighborhood" photography exhibition

When and Where: Sept. 16 to Oct. 26 at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, 362 Social Sciences & Business Building. Hours are 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Oct. 25 to Jan. 10 at the Cherokee Business Incubator, 2715 Cherokee St.; hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Admission: Free

For more information, call:

(314) 516-5273.

And if you can't wait to see some of the photography, it's already up on Cherokee Street Photos website. Here is an example from a child named Andre. Enjoy!

Cherokee Street Before and After 11:40 PM

The Cinderella Theater (date unknown--probably turn of the century)
2731-39 Cherokee
(Source)

THEN:



NOW:



The Main Street Program I've referred to in many previous posts could really help buildings like these be restored to their original luster.

Isolated Buildings Study - Chicago/Gary 5:33 PM

A friend and classmate of mine, Larry Massey, forwarded me David Schalliol's project of documenting sole-survivor scenarios among buildings in Chicago and in Gary, Indiana.



Below is his description:

These Isolated Building Studies are the visual confluence of my interests in urban dynamism, socioeconomic inequality and photography. By using a common composition to eliminate physical variables from these solo subjects, I hope to draw our attention to new ways of seeing the common impact of divergent investment processes on Chicago neighborhoods.

You can read more for yourself here and here.

Schalliol's photography speaks to the importance of these individual structures despite their apparent lost context. After all, the presence of so many of these holdouts, these unlikely islands of urbanity, presents its own context when viewed all together: the disinvested city, more often than not.


Check out the amazing, heartbreaking, surprising photo collection that, despite the extraordinary status of the subjects of the photographs, truly reveals that preservation is more about preservation of urban context than any one building itself. Or at least it should be.


Check out Ecology of Absence's post on the Near North Side Greek Revival structure that is about to expire after a slow, painful death process. As noted on that blog, the Near North Side, built up in the mid-18th Century, used to feature whole rows of this sparely-ornamented but elegant style. Now, would-be survivors like 1219 Clinton are reduced to freakish scars on an increasingly pristinely green landscape.

Can we go back? Please? 1:47 PM