Intersection of Gravois & Heege
South St. Louis County, MO

In 2008, I wrote a piece about this intersection, and the bits about the former Gravois Bank have generated comments and updates ever since.

Here’s the original post.

And here is that post, printed out and hanging in the lobby of the very same bank! Look how long it is when printed out. And I am touched that someone took all that time to cut it down and tack it up.

But they’re pretty cool about the pride in their building. Not only does this lobby retain easily 90% of the original fabric from the mid-1950s remodel, they also have this tacked up on the bulletin board:

It’s a capsule photographic history of their building! They’re only 4 years away from their centennial – how cool is that?

I learned about the bank posting my blog post from my friend Rob Powers, who stopped by to get photos of its Emil Frei stained glass panel. The panel can be seen just to the right of the motorcyclist in the photo below.

I had no idea it had Frei glass until Rob stated his mission. This is why he is such an architectural treasure. And this bank building just gets cooler by the minute, right?

Here’s his detailed photos of the bank and its Emil Frei stained glass.

Since I was alreadyin the lobby, I walked into the bank to take a quick snap of that stained glass. Only when they stopped me did I realize that we just can’t do things like taking pictures in a bank anymore. We’re a security-crazed society now, like it or not.

But when I told the bank manager about how great it was to see a post I wrote about their bank in the lobby, he immediately put 2-and-2 together, figured out I knew Rob, and he allowed me to walk up and take this photo of the Frei glass:

It was wonderful of him to allow another building geek to take photos of this art glass, and he does so while completely protecting the security of the bank.  Proving once again how much these people love and respect their building, and that they know some things are just as important as money.