Crown Square (14th St. Mall) Open House

From the fine folks at the Old North St. Louis Restoration Group:

You are cordially invited!

On December 23^rd from 3-6pm, the Old North St. Louis Restoration Group will hold a holiday open house and sneak peak of the Crown Square redevelopment in the former Parks Drug building at 2720 N 14^th Street at St. Louis Avenue. Light refreshments will be provided.

If you come while it’s still light outside, we’ll be offering hard-hat tours of the development, including our new office space, which is currently under construction. Everyone is invited and welcome to join us in celebrating an incredibly eventful and successful year. Feel free to bring along any others who might be interested in celebrating with us or seeing the progress.

This will be a great opportunity to check out the incredible progress on the buildings that are part of this project. Come over to the neighborhood and check it out if you have a bit of time. Check out the new Restoration Group website as well. It is completely redesigned and utilizes a content management system for easy updating by staff. The New Old North Blog is now integrated into the website as well.

If you can't make the open house, you can check out some of my pics from December 11.

Mullanphy Timeline

Yes, I am simply reposting an image from the New Old North Blog, but it's my image. Click on it to make it larger.

Summer In Old North

Just a quick update here since I haven't had much time to post anything lately. I happen to have an internship this summer at the Old North St. Louis Restoration Group. You may remember I have actually been here since January. I'm doing a series on the New Old North blog featuring various scenes from throughout the neighborhood. I'm putting new pics up several times a week, and they are just random shots from around the neighborhood. Check out the pictures, and other news from the neighborhood at newoldnorth.blogspot.com.

What A View

I was able to take look today at the pics from inside the Mullanphy Emigrant Home from my tour on Monday. I saw it in person obviously, but they reminded me how awesome the view is from the second and third floors. I have always thought that the best view of the skyline came from the north, and the pictures definitely confirm this. The density just seems to cover the whole horizon from east to west. I would love to wake up to the view out the third floor every morning. The views to the other directions, while not quite the same, show the urban character of the city as well as anywhere. St. Louis is a pretty impressive city from the Mullanphy vantage point. Just imagine a Metrolink line coming up the street below, and all of the empty lots infilled with high density urban buildings full of new residents and retail. With some time and commitment, St. Louis will be known worldwide for it's comeback to status of one of the greats. Everything is there just waiting for those of us with visions of grandeur to take the initiative.

There's something about standing in that crumbling building that just shot my optimism through the roof (which would not be a good thing to happen while standing in a building that is open on three sides). I don't know if it is just me living in a dream world, but I have this sense that everything will turn out beyond anything anyone could have imagined just a year ago.

A few pictures are included in this post, many more can be viewed here.

Downtown as seen from Mullanphy

We can't explain it either

Old electrical equipment

Yours truly

Snow, Again

The snow is back again, and seems to be more beautiful this time. With the temperature so cold the snow has the powdery consistency that we don't normally get around here. This allows the crystals to shine a little more brilliantly from the bright street light across the street. And with the temperatures so cold there won't be any melting to ruin my pictures tomorrow, or basically the next 10 days. And my camera is now back in perfect working condition, so I shouldn't have any problems there (always keep soda away from your camera, especially when it's sitting in your front seat and a cup happens to tip over). Hopefully I'll have some pics to post tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Update 2-2-07 12:57 am
Looks like I didn't have time to get any pics besides a few in front of my house and of the arena construction at SLU. If I see anything good I'll post, but I doubt there is anything noteworthy. Looks like we could get a major snowstorm in the next Friday- Saturday time frame. Hopefully I can get something good then.

Built St. Louis

While I was checking out the update to the State hospital Page on Builtstlouis.net today I just so happened to spy a pic of myself on the first page. The photo contains my brother, best friend, and me sledding in Tilles Park after a snow in the winter of 1997. I can guarantee that it is us because the coats match what we would have been wearing at the time, and the sleds are exact matches to what we still own. And going on my incredibly good memory, I think I may even remember someone taking pics from below the hill that day.

Mullanphy Progress

As one of my tasks today I took some pics of the work now occurring to stabilize the Mullanphy Emigrant Home. The roof is now secured from collapse. The south wall is still completely exposed to the elements, and hopefully the workers can get that closed in soon.

Snow

If you have spent any appreciable amount of time with me, you will know that I am a weather nut. I came oh so close to majoring in meteorology at SLU instead of Urban Affairs. I find 70 degrees and sunny to be quite boring. I'll take extreme heat, cold, tornadoes, or ice storms any day. Besides St. Louis, this is most definitely my biggest passion. The near miss of the ice storm last week was quite painful to me. I can sit in front of my computer for hours uninterrupted and follow the progress of a storm. In fact, that's what I have done all tonight. I got off work at 9:00 pm after the precipitation had started, and as soon as I got home I planted myself right in front of the keyboard and started watching. And I had the bloggers on Chris Higgins Blog over at Myfoxstl.com to keep my company.

What does this have to do with a blog about the built environment of St. Louis, you ask? Well, I'm not sure if there is anything more beautiful than watching a fresh snow blanket the city. The gloom of the barren winter landscape slowly disappears as the snow accumulates inch by slow inch. The street lights provide a glow that is reflected off the fresh powder making it seem as bright as day. Auto Activity seems to come to a halt. Imperfections are slowly covered. The world seems to slow down briefly. Nature takes over what we think we have control of. And I get to take some different pictures from the normal scenes. I'll update tomorrow night with some of the pictures I took tonight and tomorrow.