A Tour of Downtown St. Louis
Last week, I spent a lot of time walking around downtown St. Louis. I was staying at the Renaissance Hotel on Washington Street, and out my window I could see the roof of the Orpheum Theater and the old post office (currently undergoing renovations):
Of course, the first place I walked to was the Gateway Arch, and, afterwards, as I was walking north looking for Union Station, I came across one of the masterpieces of American architecture, the Wainwright Building:
The building still has a decorated cornice, something that's missing from many of Chicago's classic office buildings of the same era. It now houses government offices, which seem to have required a cancerous addition to its north end.
Just down the street, I came across another Louis Sullivan building, the Union Trust Building (the middle building on the left side of the street), which has gargoyles bursting from its Chicago school frame:
Later in the week, as I was whiling away some time at the library, I read that remnants of the Union Trust Building's original circular windows on the second floor could be seen if you walked down the alley from Olive Street. I braved a maze of dumpsters to bring my readers the following shot:
As I wrote earlier, the whole of downtown St. Louis had a strange vibe to it. Everything -- the huge buildings, the wide streets, the grand public spaces -- has a feeling of being way too large for the handful of people currently wandering around. As I left the old library, I wondered what an early twentieth century resident would think to find that such care and civic pride put toward building a great metropolis had been squandered -- the grand library's mullioned windows and coffered ceilings traded by their grandchildren for the empty expanses of a suburban mall.
A bonus pic: Morgan and Sadie on their way to Minnesota:
Of course, the first place I walked to was the Gateway Arch, and, afterwards, as I was walking north looking for Union Station, I came across one of the masterpieces of American architecture, the Wainwright Building:
The building still has a decorated cornice, something that's missing from many of Chicago's classic office buildings of the same era. It now houses government offices, which seem to have required a cancerous addition to its north end.
Just down the street, I came across another Louis Sullivan building, the Union Trust Building (the middle building on the left side of the street), which has gargoyles bursting from its Chicago school frame:
Later in the week, as I was whiling away some time at the library, I read that remnants of the Union Trust Building's original circular windows on the second floor could be seen if you walked down the alley from Olive Street. I braved a maze of dumpsters to bring my readers the following shot:
As I wrote earlier, the whole of downtown St. Louis had a strange vibe to it. Everything -- the huge buildings, the wide streets, the grand public spaces -- has a feeling of being way too large for the handful of people currently wandering around. As I left the old library, I wondered what an early twentieth century resident would think to find that such care and civic pride put toward building a great metropolis had been squandered -- the grand library's mullioned windows and coffered ceilings traded by their grandchildren for the empty expanses of a suburban mall.
A bonus pic: Morgan and Sadie on their way to Minnesota:
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