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.

Zoo Babies!

My roommate and I went and visited the St. Louis Zoo, expressly to see Priya, our newest elephant on her public debut. She was born on April 26th - so she's not even one month old. She is so tiny and precious - especially in comparison to her mother... don't you agree?



     


And while we were there, we saw THREE other zoo babies!

A joey out of his/her pouch:



A baby zebra:



and a baby Bactrian camel:



whose family posed for a family portrait:



There's really nothing better than getting surprised by super-cute zoo animals. This is why I love the Zoo!

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.

Bellefontaine Cemetary

Better late, than never, eh?

I may have blogged about Bellefontaine Cemetary before, but here I am again. My mom and I drove through on a summer's day and explored its vast acreage, and historical plots. I drove through again recently with a friend of mine, and I saw things differently. We did less hopping out of the car (actually almost none) and I became 'obsessed' with doors on all the mausoleums.



There's also just some beautiful gravestones:



One of the historical graves, Eads:


And sites:

And two for my opera friends:



And a few more things crossed off Photo Project 2011: