Sunday, September 11, 2011

More St. Louis Photos

See prior posts.

Continuing my tour along Kingshighway Boulevard.  I saw one Parthenon-like building, and a block away, another.


Vacant. 


The building on the corner across the street, another pillared-porticoed building, is for lease, too.  I don't know about the Jewish school building next to it.



This imposing church, with an overgrown courtyard (not photographed, it was too sad), is also vacant and for sale.


I turned a corner and wandered down a side street.  I looked up an alleyway that showed me the bell tower of the imposing but now vacant church fronting on Kingshighway Boulevard.


A few steps further and I crossed the street and found myself on Westminster Place.


The facade on this house caught my eye.  I don't know if it's stone or concrete made to look like stone. I love the little fence around the front yard and the dignified staircase.

The young lady I talked to lived near the beginning of the street.  She was working in her front garden.  I noticed scaffolding at the front of the house so I stopped and called out a greeting, and asked if she was renovating the home, a red brick two story with mansard-style roof, newly shingled, and a deep front porch with a center entrance.  She stopped her work and said no, they were having new rain gutters installed...

We chatted for a good 10-15 minutes.  She and her young family have lived in the house 9 years.  They moved in when the neighborhood was still somewhat "iffy", but a nearby hospital and university that have spent a lot of money redeveloping the area had acted as a stablizing influence, and adventurous urbanites began to venture back into the neighborhood of huge imposing homes because of their dirt cheap prices. 

Some people, of course, never left.  The young woman said that some of her neighbors had been in the area for 40-50 years, from which I deduce that they probably inherited houses in the neighborhood that were built around the turn of the century.  To respect her privacy, I did not ask if I could take a photo of she or her lovely house.  Instead, I pushed further up (down?) the block toward a church she told me was a few blocks away, one she said was worth seeing.


Another interesting facade on Westminster Place.  I love the punctuation of the old-style streetlamp.



This house is just before the parking lot area of the church in the next several photos.  I don't know if you can see him, but a very large fat squirrel munching one of the many chestnuts from the trees in the area was sitting in the ornamental tree, just about centered over the red cap of the upper post at the top step.  He's a sort of dark blotch!  I tried but failed to get a photo of him in close up.  He saw me with my camera and decided he did not want his picture taken.


Through the trees, I saw an imposing roofline.  I crossed the street to get a better view.





I said goodbye to Westminster Place and headed in what I thought was the general direction of the hotel. It isn't hard to get my bearings, as it is the tallest building in the area and I never felt "lost."  On the way back toward Euclid Avenue, I passed this well-preserved brick alley.  This would have been a mews area a century ago, filled with horses and carriage houses!



I could have stayed on Euclid, but I see another gated street and I head down it, instead!


This street looked especially well cared-for, with liriope blooming in many curb strips.


This street was filled with one beautiful house after another.  The air was so still, though, and heavy.  I was tired.  I'd been out nearly 2 hours.  I knew I was not going to make it to the club to watch Rounds 3 and 4 today; I still wanted to stop at Straub's to pick up a few things.  I'd left Georgia at the hotel, still sick in bed.  I thought she must have food poisoning, but that doesn't last for more than 24 hours at the most.  She's been sick off and on since Friday afternoon.

So, I headed to Straubs.  I took a few more photos along the way, some that didn't turn out.  For instance, there are still plenty of robins down here whereas back home in Milwaukee, most have already left for the season, and there are only a few left, probably the ones who are going to stay to winter-over.  When I espied a robin redbreast, barely out of fledgling stage, I tried to capture him on film, but he was leery of me and my camera.



Do you see the robin?  I caught him in flight, he was headed away from big scary me!



A second later, he landed on the railing and I was able to get a second shot before he flew away.


Bricks and concrete are no match for determined tree roots.

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