The public housing down by the river, which I first spotted way back in December of 2008, are finally being demolished. I had discovered they were built when Peoria demolished the red light district where Richard Pryor had grown up.
The new buildings going up are nice, and they even feature the latest navy blue and board and batten styling of the middle class, but I can’t help but think if I live long enough, that St. Louis Patina might be featuring their demolition in fifty years…
Meanwhile, in those diagonal streets northwest of downtown that I’ve studied for the last decade, things seem to be largely the same.
The last time I’d been by, apparently, was back in 2021.
For the most part, the houses range from abandoned to trashed to well-kept to lavishly rehabbed. It is such an interesting cross section of society.
There is still industry between the neighborhood and the river.
Let’s head over to the South Side, which I’ve discovered recently and have been examining as an example of a neighborhood under economic stress in the Twenty-First Century.
I was trying to figure out what they’re doing to the house above.
There are many nice houses.
But then there are many houses that are abandoned, with evidence that they have been boarded up recently.
Storefronts are boarded up and vacant, as well.
St. Ann’s Catholic Church sits on the edge of the neighborhood, near where urban renewal cleared away much of the original streets.
