Wednesday, December 12, 2012

St. Louis Central Library Reopening: 19th Century Art

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St. Louis Central Library Reopening 13 BW

There is a lot of interesting art around the restored library. No idea how much of this was on display before the project began. I could only shoot parts of what's now on the walls because of the crowds.

The first piece is a illustration of the downtown waterfront in 1855. Almost no resemblance to what it looks like today. The only link is the dome in the center, the top of what we now call The Old Courthouse. All of the surrounding warehouses and tenements were cleared out for the Arch's park in the middle 1960s. 

I didn't see any date on the second picture. Propeller screws replaced paddle wheels for propulsion some time in the 19th Century. Any St. Louisan knows that the building in the background is the Anheuser-Busch brewery and that opened in 1852

We will go a century forward tomorrow.   

St. Louis Central Library Reopening 14

4 comments:

cieldequimper said...

Don't you sometimes wish you could be a time-traveller for a few hours?

Olivier said...

je trouve la gravure vraiment magnifique.

William Kendall said...

It'd be nice to take a brief jaunt into the past...

Well, not the Inquisition, obviously.

Jack said...

I like seeing the old maps and cityscapes and trying to identify what has changed. In St. Louis' case, it seems that a lot has changed. In Hartford, less so.