LOCAL HARVEST GROCERY
Just opened in my neighborhood and I've been meaning to pix this fleur-de-lis lock plate for months. What a score! Also picked up loads of groceries.
Presenting a collection of St. Louis bricks, sidewalk markers, and the Fleur-de-lis as architectural detail on and in city buildings, brick collecting, urban exploration, and my life by Christian Herman. Reporting from Tower Grove South in St. Louis, MO
6/8/07
5/31/07
HOOSIER REHABBING - TGS
Hoosier Rehabbing
If you look at the first post on this blog you will see the front porch of my childhood home here in TGS. Here it is again, how it looked as of two years ago.
( The bricklaying bond on the face of the porch is called Stretcher.)
The address numbers were framed behind the beveled glass above the mail box and original to the house. The front porch used to have a wood swing where I reclined and read The Post as a teenager. It was also a great hiding place while playing hide and seek. A perfect view of the whole block, the portal to the Outside. Incredible face brick!
A shrine to my childhood. 3964 McDonald Avenue. Home!
Recently a rash of hoosier contractors have bought homes in the neighborhood including my old house. I noticed the tell tale rehabbing dumpster out front one day so I introduced myself to the dipshit idiot who is rehabbing my old house and asked for a tour.
I braced myself as we walked in. The walls remain and the addition my Dad added is there. The basement was stripped of everything my parents built down there in the 60's (outdated, I was told by the 'rehabber'). I gasped. The framed walls, the built-in closets and desks were all gone. It was a bare basement.
He had pulled out the grape vines (my dad made wine), removed the three fruit trees (we canned) and yanked out my mom's iris in the back yard.
The worst was the stupidly placed new address plaque and, what I call, hoosier wrapping (this is a new fad in rehabbing, covering rotting wood with metal instead of scraping and repainting or even replacing wood).
New address plaque:
I commented that the metal seams hadn't been caulked which of course will lead to a larger problem for the new home owner.
And what's up with this inane black ornament above the porch?
If you look at the first post on this blog you will see the front porch of my childhood home here in TGS. Here it is again, how it looked as of two years ago.
( The bricklaying bond on the face of the porch is called Stretcher.)
The address numbers were framed behind the beveled glass above the mail box and original to the house. The front porch used to have a wood swing where I reclined and read The Post as a teenager. It was also a great hiding place while playing hide and seek. A perfect view of the whole block, the portal to the Outside. Incredible face brick!
A shrine to my childhood. 3964 McDonald Avenue. Home!
Recently a rash of hoosier contractors have bought homes in the neighborhood including my old house. I noticed the tell tale rehabbing dumpster out front one day so I introduced myself to the dipshit idiot who is rehabbing my old house and asked for a tour.
I braced myself as we walked in. The walls remain and the addition my Dad added is there. The basement was stripped of everything my parents built down there in the 60's (outdated, I was told by the 'rehabber'). I gasped. The framed walls, the built-in closets and desks were all gone. It was a bare basement.
He had pulled out the grape vines (my dad made wine), removed the three fruit trees (we canned) and yanked out my mom's iris in the back yard.
The worst was the stupidly placed new address plaque and, what I call, hoosier wrapping (this is a new fad in rehabbing, covering rotting wood with metal instead of scraping and repainting or even replacing wood).
New address plaque:
I commented that the metal seams hadn't been caulked which of course will lead to a larger problem for the new home owner.
And what's up with this inane black ornament above the porch?
4/30/07
1/21/07
BRICK TOSSED BY THE PACIFIC OCEAN
1/8/07
BLACK BRICK, BABY
Tim thinks this Modernist building in Granite City was designed by Harris Armstrong. The building was once a bank and is now the HQ for Granite City Steel. Part of the old bank interior has a bank of marble teller windows with a steel rail a la Mondrian. There's three little windows with chunks of Dalle glass.
The bank entrance has a modest steel slab sculpture in the front corner and enameled steel boomerang art on the interior wall (photos will follow if I get in later this week).
While we were looking in various windows a security guard pulled up and shooed us. The only information I culled from him was that all the steel used in the building had been produced at the Granite City Mill.
Here's Tim on the side of the building below enameled blue steel panels.
Full view of the building from the back:
Elevator tower with geometric design on the brick face:
Black brick with yellow flecks:
The bank entrance has a modest steel slab sculpture in the front corner and enameled steel boomerang art on the interior wall (photos will follow if I get in later this week).
While we were looking in various windows a security guard pulled up and shooed us. The only information I culled from him was that all the steel used in the building had been produced at the Granite City Mill.
Here's Tim on the side of the building below enameled blue steel panels.
Full view of the building from the back:
Elevator tower with geometric design on the brick face:
Black brick with yellow flecks:
11/26/06
11/7/06
11/3/06
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