H.F. Ahmanson & Co. was a California holding company named after millionaire Howard F. Ahmanson, Sr. It is best known as the parent of Home Savings of America, formerly one of the largest savings and loan associations in the United States

If I remember right the S&L was called H F Amoundson or something to that effect.

*My dad managed the loan department

If you go to a popular search engine, type in “White Castle building” and click on images you’ll see pics of what the Castle looked like. Where the transom windows are located, there was marble-ized carmel colored stain glass with milk glass Gothic-style type saying White Castle. The photo I saw (out-of-state location) was the reverse image of our Castle whose entrance was on the Chippewa-side corner.

When Lindell Bank went up, my first thought at the time was that it looked like it shot to the future from the New York 1939-40 Worlds Fair. I’ve always liked the scupltures which reminded me of the sculptures that were on the grounds of that fair. With that in mind, I thought then that possibly the designers were trying to play on the deco element that is more prevalent in that part of the city (thought there is also a lot of Tudor-styling).

That aeriel photo site is addictive for this first-timer! I’ve been studying the Hampton/Gravois intersection and can babble a lot about the changes there too but I’ll hush now.

Correction: When I commented a few weeks ago about the BelAir Hilton…I meant it was on Lindell, not Euclid. I’ll have to take a photo of the ashtray my mom permanently borrowed.

George again (who grew up across the street from the Buder Library.) Haven’t looked at your site for a few weeks. Darren beat me to the punch. The White Castle on the SW corner, I read years ago, was built in 1937 and the first one in St. Louis (?). It was very small, only standing-room capacity. Stein Bros. Bowling was definitely still in business in the late 70s/early 80s. I remember playing arcade games there 78-80 and bowling in the early 80s. The building stood on the site until the bank was developed. I do remember FYE as National Supermarket but in my world it will always be Peaches with the huge airbrushed album covers outside that hung on the building. They would change periodically. I still have my cassette crate from 1979 and a mint condition t-shirt.

A.T., I very much remember the handprints. I never heard that story. I assumed they were in a landfill. I’ve always wondered what happened to all those huge album covers.

The strip of stores across from FYE had Brooklyn Bridge Pizza circa 80-81, which was voted by local mags/papers as the best pizza in St. Louis at the time. The building on the NE corner is a Goodyear (later Dobbs) auto & tire garage circa 58. The building just north of that was a Morgenthal (sp?) Cleaners for many years. It was built in the 40s and also originally was an auto gargage. I could see where all the auto bays were walled-up over the years.

In the mid-80s that entire intersection was changing. The bank was built. Castle was knocked down. Hampton Village had their 40th Anniv. in 1987 and received a minor facelift along with the new Schnucks bldg. One of the storefronts had neighborhood photos and aerialviews from previous decades. The Morgenthal and Brooklyn Bridge strips were renovated and moderne-ized with a cool paint job and pink and aqua-green neon outside to accentuate the streamline features of the Morgenthal complex. The deco-like billboard on the roof was painted over with pink flamingo silhouettes and a list of tenants. The background paint was a buff color. Lindell Bank was much more in context at that intersection with what was going on at the time across the street. The pink and green on the bank very much tied in with the neon color scheme across the street.

In late 2001/early 2002 the Goodyear garage, the Morgenthal building, the colonial-styled shops circa 1946-50 along Chippewa (ie: Catholic Supply) and the art-deco apt. building where I lived right behind Morgenthal and Catholic Supply were knocked down for a Walgreens and a new Dobbs. I had to deal with runaway landlords and a useless politician who I stopped in his tracks in City Hall coming out of a meeting. He never called me after asking for my number and me making several calls to his office to find out how to get my deposit back. (I finally got it back through no help of his. His name slips my mind. Sonderman, perhaps…)

I could go on and on since that was my neck of the woods. I like seeing those old aerial shots.

Happy New Year, Toby!