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KPLR 11, Back of Sun Theater
I never noticed before, but the back of the Sun Theater features the logo of KPLR.
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Pius XII Memorial Library, Saint Louis University
I’ll admit it; I wasn’t a huge fan of the Pius XII Memorial Library on the campus of Saint Louis University. But up close, I discovered there is a simple beauty to the straight lines that repeat...
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Cupples House
I forgot how amazing the Samuel Cupples House is; perhaps because it’s now on a pedestrian mall in SLU (admittedly justifiable due to the poor treatment of pedestrians in America), it’s just not a...
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Saint Louis University
The SLU campus has a wide variety of buildings, including this old Jesuit church, which is now the Museum of Contemporary Religious Art. Nearby was an interesting, almost Modernist grade school. I...
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Chinese Restaurant, Grand Center
I have always been intrigued by this Chinese restaurant east of Powell Hall on Washington Avenue; its cool lines remind me of the Greek letter Psi, so that is how I am going to start describing this...
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Third Baptist Church, Grand Center
Anyone who’s ever gone to a show in Grand Center has seen the welcoming lights of the Third Baptist Church at the corner of Grand and Washington. It is not the first Third Baptist Church at the site,...
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Grand Center, November 2012
It was a cold day, but Grand Center was devoid of human life except for the automobiles driving by on Grand Blvd. Word is the building below, which once held the Department of Health, is going to be...
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Washington Avenue, Looking East from Grand Center
The width of Washington Avenue, and other Midtown streets, is no longer justified in their current level of use. This isn’t 1946 anymore.
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Interesting Building, Washington Avenue, Grand Center
Now what appears to be a half-way house, this building intrigued me when I saw it (and parked in front of it). What was its original use? It looks like it was a school originally.
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Sun Theater Exterior, Revisited
I recently had the opportunity to go on a public tour of the long-suffering Sun Theater in Grand Center. I looked at the exterior several years ago, and it was fun to come back. The sign, by the...
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Sun Theater, Interior
Not much to say about the interior of the Sun Theater other than it will be stunning when renovated; it is currently in a state of rehabilitative demolition. The pictures speak for themselves as it...
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Metropolitan Building, Renewed
Saved from demolition, and from tricky and somewhat poor original building materials, the Metropolitan Artists Lofts is now open and almost full of new tenants. It’s not the largest building in Grand...
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Embarassing Blight on One of the Most Important Thoroughfares in St. Louis
Imagine, instead of the Church’s Chicken, stately mansions once sitting on this exact stretch of North Grand just blocks from Powell Hall. Luckily, some of those houses still exist, but sadly, they...
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Sun Theater, Released from Its Sign
The sign on the Sun Theater was never really historic or part of the building originally, so it’s been removed, and now for the first time in at least a long time, you can now see what the facade was...
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Residential Relic, Grand Center
This house, built in 1885, reminds us that Grand Center was once a tony residential district, built up in the decades before the World’s Fair. There are a fascinatingly large number of houses left...
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Eastern Midtown, Sunset
East of the giant parking lots that sit empty most of the year is a rapidly developing neighborhood with great businesses. The architecture is usually from the early Twentieth Century, replacing the...
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International Photography Hall of Fame Now Open
A great new resource for photography aficionados has open in Grand Center, above the Triumph Grill. The International Photography Hall of Fame will have rotating exhibits of its collections as well...
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A Unique St. Louis Style: The Second Empire-Italianate Hybrid
While the Itataliante and Second Empire styles can be found throughout America, in St. Louis in the late Nineteenth Century some interesting happened. Someone took the characteristics of both styles...
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Two Stupid Demolitions
The Preservation Research Office brought to my attention that two unique and threatened buildings are now either demolished or targeted for demolition soon. Above, a lone survivor on Olive Street of...
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