Nomad of Mid-America
Another Brick in the Wall
St. Louis is a city built with bricks. High quantities of locally-sourced rich red clay combined with a desire for sturdy, fireproof structures have made St. Louis "the brick city"; a place with urban fabric woven from kiln-fired red blocks laced with mortar that have supported the residences and industries across its region for the past two centuries. But just as bricks have represented structure and foundation in St. Louis's past, they now reflect how things have fallen in more recent times--particularly on the city's north side--as population and industry have abandoned the region for more optimistic futures someplace else. The historical brick-built building stock is quite literally crumbling as low demand and a lack of love and care make this iconic architectural style too weak to stand or too expensive to maintain. At the corner of Monroe and 2nd along the north riverfront, a pile of bricks that once stood as the eastern flank of a 1890-built warehouse lie scattered across a blank foundation, one of the latest victims as brick facades around the area meet a steady and frequent demise. A more vibrant shade of red, adorning that of the Terminal Railroad Association's hefty SD60I pair, flashes by the forlorn scene on the point of a 201 transfer job from the Terminal's Madison Yard moving cars to BNSF's Lindenwood Yard on the western edge of the city.
Another Brick in the Wall
St. Louis is a city built with bricks. High quantities of locally-sourced rich red clay combined with a desire for sturdy, fireproof structures have made St. Louis "the brick city"; a place with urban fabric woven from kiln-fired red blocks laced with mortar that have supported the residences and industries across its region for the past two centuries. But just as bricks have represented structure and foundation in St. Louis's past, they now reflect how things have fallen in more recent times--particularly on the city's north side--as population and industry have abandoned the region for more optimistic futures someplace else. The historical brick-built building stock is quite literally crumbling as low demand and a lack of love and care make this iconic architectural style too weak to stand or too expensive to maintain. At the corner of Monroe and 2nd along the north riverfront, a pile of bricks that once stood as the eastern flank of a 1890-built warehouse lie scattered across a blank foundation, one of the latest victims as brick facades around the area meet a steady and frequent demise. A more vibrant shade of red, adorning that of the Terminal Railroad Association's hefty SD60I pair, flashes by the forlorn scene on the point of a 201 transfer job from the Terminal's Madison Yard moving cars to BNSF's Lindenwood Yard on the western edge of the city.