Detail of Plate 32, Compton and Dry’s Pictorial St. Louis, 1876, Library of Congress.
Ohio Avenue between Winnebago and Miami streets has long been one of the more fascinating blocks in the city for me, creating a residential district on the edge of the South St. Louis “Lutheran Civic Center,” as I call it. I’ve looked at this street twice before, once way back in February of 2011 and then again in March of 2016.
Right on the northwest corner of Ohio and Winnebago is an interesting mix of small houses, which have been undergoing renovation for awhile. The house below sits up high; it surely was built before Ohio Avenue was graded, and thus sits up at the original lay of the land.
Then comes a collection of spectacular Second Empire houses, which as I’ve noted in the past, seem to reflect a greater income level of their builder/owners. I suspect that prominent members of the local institutions may have lived in them.
In between them is this Greek Revival house which is also under renovation, I believe.
But then just look at this duplex, renovated and looking good.
The dormers were probably simplified in the renovation.
Next up is the large Georgian Revival mansion.
Then, we see the appearance of a very blue house…it wasn’t that color a few years ago…
Finally, we see that German expression of a mixture of the Second Empire with the Romanesque Revival, which becomes commonplace in the 1880s and 90s.
And finally, before reaching Miami Street, we are left with two gate posts, reminding us of pointless and wasteful demolition for a parking lot that is no longer needed since its respective business is long closed.
Turning around and heading south, we see Holy Cross Lutheran Church, which I’ve looked at three times before, once in November of 2011, again in February of 2017 and then one more time in August of 2018.
Its large wooded lot gives the impression of what it felt like to visit the church just as it looked back when it first appeared in Pictorial St. Louis in 1876,
The church’s school to the south on Ohio Avenue is now a charter school.
On the south side of the block, at the northeast corner, a row of late four-family flats finish the east side of Ohio Avenue back at Winnebago Street.
