In recognition of Black Friday and the holiday shopping season, may we suggest Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water done up Lego-style? Because it’s plastic, you could suspend the finished product over running water and not face the water management issues the real-life version has.
The Guggenheim is also available, at a much cheaper price. Lego also offers up the Empire State Building, the Space Needle and other architectural gems. Very cool gift idea for building-minded folks of all ages.
5230 Hampton Avenue, South St. Louis City, MO
While yet again photographing the former Buder branch of the St. Louis Public Library, I had a literal “light bulb went off over my head” cartoon moment of realization. All of the original pole light fixtures of this 1961 building (which still work, courtesy of the great up-keep from the Record Exchange), look like the ones that are now missing from…
…this 1959 church in Black Jack which I covered here, previously. Checking my photo archives verified that, yes, it is the exact same light fixtures. Vandals killed off the light poles in the church parking lot, so it’s a relief to have some representation of them still in existence.
I love how the same light fixture was used on two different ultra-modern mid-century buildings, and how diverse the two locations are. One is South St. Louis City and the other is deep North St. Louis County. And I wonder if the Buder Building architect (still unknown to me) may have seen the light poles at the Independent Congregational Church and did a direct copycat? Or was this just a popular lighting choice for MCM architects during this 3-year period, thanks to the hustle of some lighting vendor?
I ran across this picture in a 1964 issue of LIFE magazine, and gasped with pleasure. Click to enlarge it and see Harris Armstrong, George Kassabaum and Hari Van Hoefen floating above downtown St. Louis. The swooning teenage-girl thrill I got from finding this photo reminded me of the first time I saw this:
Here’s David Bowie, Iggy Pop and Lou Reed in a moment overloaded with rock power. They have given the world some of its most awesome music.
The Rock Star Architects gave St. Louis some of its most awesome buildings.
A Hari Van Hoefen greatest hits package would include Northland Shopping Center. The George Kassabaum best of (on the HOK label) would include the Planetarium, and Harris Armstrong already has a box set highlighting his best known hits and B-side rarities.
The music of Bowie, Pop and Reed is treasured and re-mastered and re-released because it matters very much. I hope that soon – very soon – St. Louis will learn to do the same with the works of Armstrong, Kassabaum and Van Hoefen.
Morgan Ford at Poepping Street
South St. Louis City, MO
Subdivision entrance monuments, like the one shown above, are always interesting to observe. They are often the first thing to go up when a new subdivision is developed, and the design and materials chosen either reflect the aesthetic of the subdivision or wind up at great odds with what resulted. But mainly, entrance monuments are about place-marking, a means of declaring to passers-by (and in the early days of development, potential buyers) that “we are a proud and unique community.”
One morning at the end of July, I pass by the entrance to Al-Clare Meadows and see one of the signs down and scattered. I’m assuming it was a car because of the extent of the destruction, and how suddenly it occurred: Tuesday it was standing, Wednesday it was splattered in the neighbor’s yard.
Based on current costs of masonry repair and labor, I naturally assumed this entry marker was eternal toast, that the pieces would be carted off, the homeowners lawn repaired, and Al-Clare would continue unperturbed with a lopsided entry.
I made this assumption because of where it’s located and its age. The small-to-modest size tract homes of Al-Clare Meadows (the name came from combining Alberta and Clarence Dalton, the subdivision developers) are a bit south of the River Des Peres, and a scootch away from the St. Louis City/County line. So it’s in that nebulous part of town that’s not quite city, not quite county; not quite old, not quite new; not really distinct but certainly unoffensive. Honestly, people tend to overlook this unassuming part of town unless they – or someone they know – live there.
It took a couple of months of waiting, but there it is, rebuilt!
(SIDE BAR How odd that the pile of rubble remained undisturbed that entire time… I assumed outsiders would just help themselves to some masonry because that’s what tends to happen in some of the older city neighborhoods. Hell, they even purposely yank down walls to get at it… but that’s another story, right?)
When considering everything that had to transpire for that marker to be rebuilt (patience, funding, protection, masonry craft, etc.), my heart swelled with gratitude for this neighborhood’s pride of place that made it possible. And I was embarrassed by my rash assumptions about the neighborhood and the fate of the sign because it was snobbism, plain and simple. I am humbled by what I don’t know, and I’m thankful that – within the big picture – something so comparatively small really did matter to the people it represented.
So every time City Hall pulls another WTF? out of their trick bag, I think about the resurrected Al-Clare entry monument, because it is things like this that truly reflect and represent what makes St. Louis City so special – the people and their love of place.
Theiss Road, South St. Louis County, MO
While discovering a new neighborhood in South St. Louis County, I ran across the above scene in a 90-degree curve on Theiss Road. A large front yard thoroughly festooned with thousands of magenta, pink, red and white petunias. It was such a gorgeously florid display that I nearly crashed the car!
I even did a U-turn to go back and take it all in again, which is when I noticed the gardener tending to his beds. He was tall, thin and suntanned, with a wide-brimmed straw hat against the sun, and he and his flowers were breathtaking in the most poetic way possible.
From the limited view I could gulp down while driving, I wondered if the beds were in particular shapes. An aerial view of the home (obviously taken off-season) shows a distinct heart-shaped bed, which just melts the heart, and also shows how extensive his work is. He has obviously cultivated these beds for several years, and all petunias. That dedication to one flower over such a wide swath of ground spins all kinds of imagined romantic yarns.
An overwhelmingly lovely sight like this surely brings gawkers into his drive way, as there’s no shoulder or sidewalks along this road. And it’s such a vivid sight that it must elicit enthusiastic responses. But in the two brief moments that I entered his world, I could not bring myself to invade the peace and contentment his body language conveyed. It was more than enough that the time, love and care he puts into these gardens for himself also enriches everyone who drives (or flies) by.
If you ever need an enchanting break from reality, do cruise Theiss until you find this minature wonderland, and if any of you know this man or his story, please do share.
Happiest of Easters to you, from me and Raymond J. Skosky Family Dentistry.
It’s a very confusing religious holiday. Eddie Izzard explained it best. View his clip to understand the comedic poignancy of the following anecdote.
Made the traditional trip to Crown Candy to get molasses puffs for my Mother. The place was sardine packed, so I had plenty of time to stare down every piece of chocolate. One of them made me burst into laughter…. a chocolate rabbit hauling a wagon of eggs!!
Viewed from a pagan perspective, just absurd! Viewed from a Christian angle… yeah, still pretty absurd. But still just as tasty, don’t ya know.
May your sugar highs be plentiful on Easter Sunday!
Bates & Virgina Intersection
South St. Louis, MO
May the luck of the Irish be with you today.
At this intersection is an old building – built in 1912 – that can easily go unnoticed. The ground floor has been remuddled into a mute brown wooden shadow, and over the years it has been hard to discern if Raymond J. Skosky Family Dentistry was still actually open for business.
But he most certainly is, and I’m guessing that last year he got a new employee that noticed the three display windows facing out onto Bates, and decided to embrace the opportunity.
This past Christmas was when I first noticed an elaborate display in each window, and they have yet to miss a major holiday.
I had completely overlooked that St. Pat’s was coming up until I passed by the Skosky windows the other night. So, not only have they made a majorily positive difference within their small section of the South Side, they are the most enchanting and reliable holiday calendar one could ask for. Thank you for doing this!
In honor of Barbie’s 50th birthday, they created a real-life Barbie Dream House on the Malibu beach. Click here to see a photo gallery of this fantabulous place.
I’m getting all 3rd grade on ya, and sayin’ I love every single thing about this house. Everything! I would not change a pillow or wall hanging. I thought Elle Wood’s apartment in Legally Blonde 2 was the ultimate, but nope! It’s gotta be Barbie’s Malibu Dream House.
You gotta check out the shoe closet, and don’t be drinkin’ or there’s gonna be a spit take. For reals. Seriously, this is the ultimate pad for the girl on the go. No, seriously. It is!
Double-click to see this picture in more detail.
While digging through piles of personal history, I found another relic of my built environment past. It’s a 2-sided World Book Encyclopedia Cyclo-Teacher Learning Aid poster from 1972. The side shown above is titled “City Picture,” the side shown below is titled “Farm Picture.”
Double-click to see this picture in more detail.
I got this poster in 2nd grade through the Scholastic Book Club, and it stayed on my wall until junior high, which is, of course, when everything became instantly uncool.
I dutifully flipped sides depending on which scenario was more pertinent, because my life was pretty much divided between urban and rural. Post-divorce, my mother and I lived in Black Jack, MO with frequent trips to see her mother who lived in North St. Louis until she died in 1992. My father moved to a 10-acre ranch outside Alton, Illinois, and the last weekend of every month found me playing farm girl with my own horse and dogs and cows. I understood the details of the different settings, had appropriate wardrobes for each, and thought it perfectly natural to live this city/country duality.
I always thought the Farm Picture was a bit fantastical. Life on my Dad’s farm was not this crowded. Squirrels did not run down the tree toward a dog, puppies and kitties did not peacefully coexist in such close proximity, and farm animals did not walk loose in the front yard.
Look how much is going on in the top right quadrant: farming a field, a rural highway, a train, the Big City across the valley and a heinous storm rapidly rolling in.
Those storm clouds always bothered me. I was never afraid of storms until seeing them in the unprotected fields of Illinois. And I knew firsthand that if a storm of that intensity was that close, all those animals would not be casually meandering around the front yard. They’d all be under trees in the lowest spot of the property.
So, the Farm Picture was way busier and far more surreal than the reality of rural life. Which is why I preferred the City Picture.
We had a stadium that looked like that one, and similar looking skyscrapers pretty much positioned in the same place. So did a lot of other cities; this was real life.
There is so much going on within the City Picture; the more you look at it the more you see. Within the bottom left quadrant are the following places: movie theater, medical building, garden shop, newsstand, record shop, dress shop, post office, grocery store, cleaners, cafe, barber shop and sporting goods shop. There are lots of people, both men and women (rather than the token female in hot pants on the Farm side) and it’s a natural bustle rather than manufactured.
By 1972, this view of a city was already idealistic and nostalgic, but it’s such a compelling idea that we can’t let go of it. Urbanistas are always wanting to return to that place, and now that I have the poster back up on the wall, it is the only side showing.
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Hanging from the new overpass for Hwy 40 is the world’s biggest jumpsuit, custom-made for a very, very tall person.
The more I stared at it, the more it truly looked like a jumpsuit. There’s the zipper running up the middle, the slightly cinched waist, the cute little cap sleeves… Is this an elaborate MoDot practical joke? A renegade art piece?
Only by passing right under it could it be discerned that it’s a tarp covering some sort of fixture.