One enters the Soulard neighborhood from the west along Lafayette Avenue, through this gateway-like wall of west-facing 14th Street houses. Across 14th Street to the west is the endangered remnant of the Bohemian Hill neighborhood, and the partially-renovated City Hospital complex.

Rising above the rooflines are the steeples of historic St. John Nepomuk.

Much of Soulard is tattered at its fringes, and this area is no exception. I-55 passes by just south of these homes. When the highway came through, streets were wantonly and recklessly sliced off, most likely with the assumption that the rest of the street would go away eventually as well. Happenstance and an engineer's pencil determined whether a building lived or died. Houses that once faced friendly neighbors now look onto vast expanses of poured concrete and rushing traffic.