Servco Warehouse

With Photo Flood St. Louis, we made it to one of my favorite areas in downtown - an old industrial district with all sorts of aged warehouses. Most of them are not in use, but this warehouse caught my eye because of the bright red building topped with a silver building.



On Monday, this building inexplicably caught fire (4 alarms). Thankfully, it was only housing one tenant. However, said tenant had furniture and mattress which in fire speak equals a high fuel load - a lot of stuff that burns and I believe burns hot. (I'm no fire expert but I've read a few books on the subject).

I kept meaning to go visit all week, but finally made it today. I was not fully prepared for the devastation that had befallen this warehouse.

Here's almost the equivalent view from the visit in August:



And more:



























I had no idea that the building was triangular in shape, because of the rail line that runs behind. I met a guy there who worked in one of the neighboring buildings (the one right below the Servco silver top), and he said that what saved the two adjoining buildings were the fire doors. The one closest to the Crunden Martin one was all cinderblock and had a fire door, though its roof caught on fire. The other one between his and the demolished one also apparently had a fire door that saved it. While that building doesn't have power back, the 3rd one apparently does.

He and I walked fully around the building -though the media seems to believe the homeless started this fire to keep warm, he doesn't believe it. I've found more reports that seem to say that the fire started on the third floor which leads me to guess that it was electrical. Again, I'm no expert, but I would expect the homeless to stay on the ground floor to make a quick escape.

I'm curious to know what will befall this land - he didn't know, but he suspects it'll be cleaned up quick.  It wasn't an exciting building like some of the others in the district but it was classic in its architecture and had historical significance to the district though I can't find much data on whether it had any other significance. I'm hoping one of my more researched friends may help me out there.

Update:  Paul of Vanishing STL wrote a well-researched post here.

Urban Decay in St. Louis - Wright/Arcade

The great/bad thing about St. Louis is that there are many beautiful buildings that sit abandoned. In the case of this one, it had been abandoned for awhile (early 80s?) and had a recent attempt at rehab which came to a screeching halt when the company (Pyramid) collapsed. Arcade has a new buyer and hopefully will get rehabbed to its former glory soon.

The thing about the Arcade in its current state is that it is beautiful in its decay, yet I can't wait to see it back to what it was. What we call the Arcade building is actually two buildings connected with each other. The Wright building was built in 1906, and the Arcade building was built in 1919 and wraps around the existing Wright building. Inside, there are several floors that are not exactly at the same height and have small sets of stairs inbetween. A lot of the floors have beautiful white marble walls. The Arcade building had ground level stores and shops with a Gothic vaulted ceiling as well as a variety of other offices upstairs. Ranging from jewelers to a radio station to a law-oriented printing office. There seemed to be small factories, a music store, several doctor's offices and that's all we could tell from the 9 stories that hadn't been internally demo'd and stripped down to its bare bones.

I recently got a chance to tour the building prior to the new rehab attempt and I jumped at it. It was worth totally worth it, as you can see from the pictures.

To see all 133 photos from the set, check it out here. I really encourage you to do so, this is just a smattering of the gorgeous beauty within those walls.

                                   


                                                    

Can you believe it? You can see the potential, right? I cannot wait to see the finished product.

Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis

I have had only one other opportunity to visit the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis - midnight mass on Christmas Eve with a friend of mine who was kind and generous enough to explain what was going on to a non-Catholic. It was a beautiful Mass and it was a beautiful building and I told myself I'd come back. A local photography group had a meetup there, and I made sure I was able to go - we spent about 2 hours photographing our brains out and I don't think I saw HALF of the place.

It started in 1907 and was finished finally in its current state in 1988. It was designated a Cathedral Basilica by Pope John Paul II who visited in 1999. It is grand both in size (several of the domes are multiple stories high) and in decor - from Tiffany glass to gold in the mosaics that decorate most of the surfaces in the building.  The mosiacis contain 41.5 million glass pieces in more than 7,000 colors including various shades of gold and a shade of red that can never be replicated. The mosaics cover 83,000 square feet, making it one of the largest mosaics in the world.

I could talk for awhile on the beauty and splendor of the place, and even though I'm not a Catholic, you can't help but feel a deep respect and appreciation for the beautiful building. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:

                                     


           

To see more, check out this set.

Urban Decay in St Louis

St. Louis is a city (and county) with a lot of history, and a lot of transition as people move from place to place. Unexpected disasters happen, both economic and natural and skeletons of buildings are left behind. Sometimes that's literal and sometimes that's figurative.

As a neighbor, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want an eyesore like these near my house. As a curious human being, I really like finding these relics, photographing them and then trying to figure out what it used to be - if its not just a regular residence. I've found former mansions, an former gymnasium,  a lost, sunken city and a former hospital with many lives this way.

Recently, I've had a chance weather-wise and time-wise to "wander" about in places I don't normally go. I found the following gems - especially ones to add to my Windows and Doors 2013 sets. One of these was a rundown ex-church/school, another was just a regular residence and a few were abandoned industrial/office buildings. I even found a few vacant schools, that made me sad for their abandonment for various reasons. For the record, my "wandering" was limited to driving by in my car and photographing out the window, often with the doors locked. I may be slightly crazy for urban decay but I'm not stupid nor do I have a death wish. And I trust my gut instincts.

               


               

I found this in a dangerous ghost town of a city - a hidden gem that I almost missed:



In fact, this was my first time to this particular city. I drove about two blocks each way off the main intersection, on what clearly used to be the main street. Once you get past that two to three block boundary, the neighborhood picks up slightly. But it is absolutely shocking and saddening to see the state of decay and disrepair in what once was surely a thriving town. Almost every building is broken down and/or boarded up. So very sad. :(

There are plenty more in my Urban Explore 2013 sets and Urban Decay sets on flickr.

Sunday Photo Drive

This Sunday afternoon, I got to drive around with my friend A, who is a fellow photography enthusiast like me. We kept planning on photographing the first snow, but it kept happening at NIGHT and both of us have crazy schedules. So when we both found out we had time off this weekend, we decided to drive around together.

I introduced her to the USS Inaugural, which has started to have been scrapped but the mighty Mississippi has risen, so that has put the temporary kibosh on it:

Old photo first, and new photo second:

  

And then we went to see how the destruction (*sniff*) of Powell Square was going... and it's nearly done...

  

Oddly enough, I can't find an earlier picture of the place. I know I have one, but I'll be darned if I can find it at the moment. At any rate, I also took some shots of the Crumden Martin place that caught fire 2 years ago. I hadn't been down that part of the street because it'd been blocked off but now is open for construction traffic.

But our main goal of the day was Creve Couer Lake. We didn't arrive early enough to scout, since I was try to shoot along the theme of "When Night Falls", but we found a great location and walked about a mile down the shore and back. We saw several HUGE dead fish on the shore which confused us:

   

But the sunset was gorgeous - there is very little or no enhancement on these photos:



              

We capped off our photo exploration with some delicious wings at Sybergs! That was an afternoon well-spent. And we have a future exploration planned (exact date TBD - we didn't have time to do both)

We also pledged to revisit Creve Couer Lake and explore more of it in the daytime before dusk hits. I need to find, as well, a place to watch the sunrise in St. Louis... suggestions taken!