North Broadway
North city, St. Louis

North of downtown, Broadway runs past a wide variety of industrial and warehousing buildings dating from the turn of the century.

Interspersed between them are increasingly rare surviving residential buildings, holdouts from this area's history as an integral part of the Old North St. Louis and Hyde Park neighborhoods. Interstate 70 effectively bisected these neighborhoods in the 1960s, to the point that the original boundaries of Old North are no longer commonly counted as part of the neighborhood.

I entered this area hardly realizing what I was in for. I discovered block after block of amazing industrial and warehousing buildings - far too many to document thoroughly in the one afternoon I had alotted. Much like my initial 1999 survey of the city's north side, the results shown here are an initial foray. Future updates will delve more deeply into this area's architecture.

At the south end of this area stands a lengthy row of interconnected commercial buildings, recently home to various bars and restaurants (Fitzpatrick, Kat Klub, and nursery supplier Great Western Bag Company). When a fire gutted one bay of the building, biker bar Shady Jack's Cafe (1440 N. Broadway) simply cleaned out the space and now uses it as a patio.

A block north stands the former Mound City Buggy Company building (1500 N. Broadway), its southern face festooned with the faded remnants of painted signs and advertisements ("Halladay Automobiles", "Machine Tools, Jigs and Dies", "Mfrs of Inland One-Piece Piston Rings", "1,600,000 in use and going strong".)

Central Waste Material Company - 1510 N. Broadway - an active recycling concern.

The Gateway Refrigeration Company (later Gateway Cold Storage) occupies a massive, windowless refrigerated warehouse at 1800 North Broadway, a few blocks further north. The building is somewhat infamous as the site of two ammonia leaks that resulted in contaminated food making it into local school lunches.

The ornate building of the American Brake Company, at latest report in partial use as an art gallery named The Warehouse.

Standard Stamping Company / American Surplus Warehouse / Biederman Furniture Company
I don't know the status of these two red brick buildings, but the run of arched brick windows is spectacular.

Vitro Seating Products / Farm Implements, ?s, Vehicles
The building next door

A small Romanesque building, which looks a lot like a former fire station.

November 2006

November 2007

The Ford Hotel Supply Company occupies the brown brick building.

Duke Manufacturing - 2305 N. Broadway. The front door is a stainless steel confection on an otherwise plain building.