Art Deco Four Family Redux

Click on the title above to see photos of my first sojourn to this building.

We had the good fortune to meet an exiting resident of this building today and he invited us in to view the interior.

Plaster walls gently curve to meet the ceiling.

Kitchen grotto: Probably designed as a resting spot for the phone which would have been Bakelite.


Deep mint green tile with a black border that resonates with the black vitrolite on the exterior of the building.

Matching bathtub.

The best: The brass peep hole on the back door of the apartment. There's a U track below the slates with a brass ball.

Slide the brass ball to either side and the slates open.

Twin Brick Columns

Located in TGH, stunning half round twin columns. Terra cotta egg and darts and a perfect arch.
I would love to come home to this porch.

Top Brick Picks of 2008

Last week I received two emails asking why I haven't been posting.
Winter is when I get my work on and 10 hours a day online is enough.

So here's my top picks of brick for the year and hey, I'll be back on the hunt in early January.

Best of show:



Multi color sand finish

Brain brick

Sand finish brick

Blistering brick with black mortar

Best palette

Wire cut brick in diaper bond

The elusive accordion brick

Honorable Mention for unique color and tidy mortar.

Wire cut brick in situ

Enright and Goodfellow 1944

My mother, grandmother and aunt in front of their apartment on Goodfellow and Enright.
The buildings in this photo were razed in the 70's.
Those old street lamps were removed in the mid 60's (but left in Tower Grove Park) and Deskey lamps installed.

Anatomy of a zipper - For Bruk

Psychedelic Dog Grooming in TGS

One day I was driving around not minding my business when I stopped by The Dog Next Door:

oh...baby.

Earth Tones

Dreamy mortar with flecks of quartz and white and cream feldspar.

Every single brick presents with an astonishing range of colors:

Mottled ruffled face bricks freckled with round black iron spots.
I want an interior wall of this brick.

An Art Deco Haven

Not a corner but a curve.



OK, the mail box is a keeper and the red tile is crazy cool but the awning over the door made me giggle.

Roman brick.

Holy Family

I attended Holy Family grade school (now Marian Middle School) in Tower Grove South. My favorite room was the third floor library which I had little access to, it was rarely open. I didn't know the room existed until I was in the sixth grade.


My infatuation with abstract expressionist painters Mark Rothko and Ad Reinhardt has roots here:





Rothko painting (he was a brick groupie too):

Galloping Gertie

Click on the title.

I asked Bad Tim what went wrong:
Modernists were jumping all over each other to create a sleeker, more streamlined suspension bridge, and this one was the absolute masterpiece. Unfortunately, they neglected to account for the heavy winds thru the narrows and didn't realize that they would create a resonance in the span. it was like striking a tuning fork. Once the vibration got started, the wind kept feeding it until it started swaying like that.

This is why suspension bridges are often double-deckers or have deep, open trusses under their decks. It makes the deck stiffer so it won't oscillate a lot of them also use grates for the deck instead of concrete, so the wind can blow thru without setting off the wave action.

It was a gorgeous bridge, though, wasn't it? It's tragic about the dog.

The Corner Store

Way back in the mid century in Tower Grove South many people didn't have cars (most families just had one) and did their grocery hopping within walking distance. Stillwell's Grocery was on Roger which is currently a furniture restoration business. Smaller 'confectionaries' were on every other corner with glass display cases of candy. They also carried the basic staples.

For the weekend family grocery shopping we drove to Kroger's on Grand (now Jay Asia).

There was a room in our basement called the root cellar where canned food was stored on shelves. Anything on sale was bought and hoarded there along with all the necessary items in the event of a nuclear attack from the Commies. It was my dad's version of a bomb shelter two decades after The Scare.



In the 70's this was called Brawley's Confectionary.

Grand and Arsenal circa late 70's

Tillman's Restaurant was torn down to create a parking lot in the 70's. Across the street was the Kingsway Grill.

In the late 70's a bookstore was on either side of the Kingsway. It had entrances on both Arsenal and Grand; an L shaped store that carried every new release from Grove Press.

There was a solid wall of storefronts to the first residence with no curb cuts.

I believe this photo is by Walter Gunn.