Adventures of a Brick Nerd on a Saturday night

Click on the subject line for some in-depth reading.

Feast your eyes on this water struck brick:

Grill work

Speaking of grill work, I'm getting a tooth implant to go with the rest of the hardware that's been installed in my body during the last few years. I'm trying to persuade my dentist to have the Lab create a fiber optic tooth for me. Gold grills are so dated.

Cherokee street:

Forest Park and Vandeventer:

Cherokee street:

Kingshighway Hills:

True Grit Brick

Sand was used to line the mold of these bricks and they are sublime. The color in each brick includes sepia, russet, spinach and crimson.
Click on the photos to enlarge.



Original mortar that looks as if it were pushed into place (by finger) to accommodate the little cervices in each brick. I find this immensely endearing.

My tea house

Sometimes I refer to it as The Veranda when I'm feeling southern goth.
I designed the tea house and had it built 5 years ago and stained the whole contraption the color of brick.

Every late Spring I invite choice neighbors over for an evening soiree. This year the deck boards are being freshly stained. This means cleaning the deck (14 x 6 feet) to a pristine surface before applying the stain.

Painted brick

I came across this tragedy while driving through Richmond Heights a few weeks ago. I actually had to make a U turn to gawk. It's a bright purple. Seriously, bright purple.

Tom Krepcio

Tom Krepcio lives in TGS and has his studio here. His medium is glass and his scholarship is extraordinary.
Click on the subject line to jettison to this blog.

Getting even

I'm betting those glass cube windows were once long vertical glass panes.

Glazed Green bullnose bricks

Located on The Hill:

Triple Arches - Mediterranean Revival

Going, going...
38 Olive

Any chance of what the city makes off those parking meters covers the cost of mowing those Lots?





I used a flash trying to illuminate the interior white glazed bricks.

The white glazed brick looks like it was covered with moss but its the remnants of pulled ivy. On the right side there's a rough brick course where a building was demoed.
Read about it here: http://vanishingstl.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html.

The east wall is a solid brick:

Across the lot, back view of a carriage house:

The Arts and Crafts Dream House

This house is located in Richmond Heights. I drove by thirteen years ago while trying to find a short cut to work. When I saw it I exhibited all the usual signs of awe: jaw dropping, eyes widening, along with a squeal of delight immediately followed by the sorrow of knowing I could only look and not touch for This is the House of My Dreams (except for the zoysia grass).

I was very late to work that day.

The porch is L shaped with two staircases. Check those chubby columns: exquisite!
I know some guy I dumped years ago reads this blog.
I will make it up to you via weekly phone call visitations if give me this house.



Matching garage

That 'hole' is actually a porch drain

Nifty pergola

One of the unique, cohesive (and now lost) architectural features in our cities were the gold and black numbers above the doors and many still remain. What interesting industry.

When I was a child we visited the family doctor in the Arcade Building downtown. All of the office doors had the same gold lettering and numbers. When office tenants changed, we'd see workers removing the lettering with a blade.

The gold numerals start to disappear west of Kingshighway in the South part of the city.

A means first floor:



Oops: home depot doors with tiny windows and no transoms.

3964 McDonald Ave

This is a reprint of my first blog post.
Shortly after taking this photo the house sold to a hooiser (or red neck if you're not native to St. Louis) contractor who removed the beveled glass because it 'looks old'.
It was a very bad day for me.
I took a brief tour of the house when he was remodeling. He removed the original quarter saw oak door and replace it with a door from home depot. Can you freaking believe that? He also ripped out the entire basement saying it was outdated. My dad and mom had built three rooms in the basement (loads of kids in that one bedroom bungalow) with plenty of storage space: built in closets, a book case and two drop down desk tops. Two toy chest were built into one wall with cushions on the top. The other side of the basement was the laundry, the scary furnace and a wall of closets with my parents clothing. It was there I found the suit my mother wore when she married in 1948 and my first introduction to vintage clothing.

Monday, July 10, 2006
3964 McDonald Ave
This is where it all began, 3964 McDonald Ave in the Tower Grove South area of St. Louis. My childhood home! I now live less than a mile from the one bedroom Craftsman bungalow.

I love the brass mailbox and beveled glass address plate. I used to polish it when I was a kid. It expands into a box inside the wall with an interior flap door. I would run my fingers over the surrounding brick, fascinated with the crevices and various values of color. Original black mortar.
I loves me some brick.

St. Louis Brick Confidential

Photographed at dusk these distinctive bricks exhibit a warm rust color that's framed with a subtle pink mortar. Used on the large scale of a building they serve to soften areas of brickwork and resonate with the landscape. The random addition of iron ore fines serve to rivet focus and create a volatile and active surface.

Contemporary brick can only aspire to mimic the exquisite and uniform construction of these bricks manufactured circa 1900 (if not earlier).

This summer I will begin working on a series of paintings:
St. Louis Brick Confidential.

OK, I admit the above was a mocking nod to Clement Greenberg and his fey gushing over Pollack's work. I still submit that Pollack leaned against a brick building (probably while taking one of his infamous public whizzes) took a close look at the bricks, and thought: HOT DAMN (I know I have).

Flatiron Building

Located on Potomac and Arkansas.
I intend to collect them all.

STL School Closings Demonstration - Thursday

Received a call from Rebecca Rogers, who was at the Mann meeting on Monday with the following info: a demonstration has been organized against the school closings, tomorrow, Thursday, @ Gateway Classic building, where the SAB will be announcing the SLPS closings.

Gateway is located on Jefferson. Be there @ 5:25 pm. Signs are provided.

Steak and Shake's white bricks

Two emails to Steak and Shake with no response.

I had asked if the brick cladding on the building was granite or manufactured. Granite would be expensive. Any thoughts?

I love Steak and Shake stores with the black and white exterior and matching landscaping.



The bricks are as white as Marilyn Monroe's hair (which she called pillow case white). Crappy photos. They don't capture with accuracy the brilliant white and the flecks of (I think) quartz.

Poetry in Static

Click on the subject line to read a page from the Vermont Brick site.

I read this page four times impressed with the scholarship and charmed (yes, charmed) with the poetry:

... firing manifests itself as a patina unachievable...In addition to an uncommon and rugged handsomeness... This combination of unique beauty and near indestructivity defines the fabric of daily life...

Mann School Closing-Open Meeting 2/23/08

Mann School is one of the St. Louis public schools projected to be closed. It's the largest school, over half of a city block. Click on the subject line to read the AIA St. Louis Response to the Comprehensive Facilities Review.

It's not my intention to discuss the politics of STPS.
The complex physics of the lives affected is more important to me as a resident of Tower Grove South than the math of STPS bottom line. I also concerned about a mammoth building being shuttered in TGS but that's at the bottom of my list.

There's 250 students at Mann which is operating at capacity.
I asked Mann principal, Brian Zimmerman about the number of children living in TGS: 200 and for 52% of them English is a second language.

These children are from refugee families where the parents speak less English than their children. Who will advocate for these families? Who will explain to them the complex politics involved in their neighborhood school closing? And, what will the impact of the shuttered building have on Tower Grove South?

Concerned with these issues, The TGS Block Captain Steering Committee (a group of five volunteers here in TGS) are holding an open meeting at Mann School on Monday, Feb. 23 at 7 PM.

Speakers:
Brian Zimmerman, principal of Mann
Andrew Gondzur, President, PTO Mullanphy School and TGS block Captain Coordinator
Chad Beffa
Holly Knights of Urban Future, a program housed within Mann School.
Ariel Burgess. Director of Resettlement, International Institute.
15th Ward Alderwoman Jennifer Florida.
Michael Allen of the Ecology of Absence blog: http://ecoabsence.blogspot.com/ (the only blog I make the time to read)

Unconfirmed Speakers:
Mayor Slay
Cara Jensen of OPEN SLPS

Please join us at this meeting,:
Feb. 23 at 7 PM at Mann school gym (on the east end of the building).

On a recent visit to Mann I found a copy of the original plans by Ittner. What I like best about Mann School is the two copper vents on the roof. They serve to cool the building in the summer and vent the boiler in the winter. One hundred years after being built they are sill functional.