Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Daily Dose of Blairmont 78

    Left to right:
  • 2129 Madison Street (Noble Development Co. LLC, May 2006, $105,000)
  • 2125 Madison Street (Noble Development Co. LLC, May 2006)
  • 2123 Madison Street (Noble Development Co. LLC, May 2006)
August 2003:


May 2008:


This trio of party wall buildings stands just beyond the south end of St. Louis Place Park. A decade ago, this might have been fertile ground for redevelopment. But around 2003, a large building project filled this block and several blocks around it with new construction, fitting new buildings in among the remaining historic ones. Why Paul McKee would buy into such a location is a mystery, considering that he seems dead set on total site control. It should be abundantly clear that this neighborhood isn't about to go anywhere.

The buildings themselves are memorable for their strikingly odd white-with-black paint job. The group includes a single house, a twin house, and a ground-floor store with apartment above. It's a good sample of the kind of diversity inherent to the area's original building stock.

August 2003:

The houses appear to have been occupied when I first surveyed the area in 2003, but now they're vacant and boarded up. Still, considering the top floors got a proper board-up job, they're a step up from the usual Blairmont abuse. Perhaps with so many neighbors nearby, the usual slipshod board-up and upper-floor window removal couldn't cut it.

May 2008:







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