Alton MCM: Cherry Hill Apartments

Washington Avenue
Alton, Illinois

If you know where Fast Eddie’s Bon Air is on East Broadway in Alton, Illinois, simply take a left up Washington Avenue, and about a mile up the road is this lovely, 3-building apartment complex.  It’s called Cherry Hill, and there is a good-sized mound to the east that may qualify as a hill, and maybe it did once have a cherry tree on it.  Then again, development names are applied so randomly that it probably means nothing.

I’ve yet to find a way to look up Alton property information on-line (and if you know how, please do let me know), so am making a guess that this complex went up in the very early 1950s.  There are quite a few other mid-century modern school and retail buildings along this stretch of Washington Avenue that went up from 1952 – 1960, so it may pre-date the earliest ones by a year or so.

As seen above, the entries to each building are whimsically modern, and the original doors with a nice harlequin pattern remain in place (although somewhat worse for wear).

The buildings themselves have a stately symmetry, and those wrap around corner windows would let in a generous helping of natural light.  In the photo gallery of the apartment’s rental site, the view out those windows is pretty nice, and they have renovated the kitchens and bathrooms in an acceptable manner.  The prices are really good, too.

As often as I pass by Cherry Hill, I never see anyone milling about, or coming and going, so it seems like a mild-mannered relic of low-key modernism.  Very charming.

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Alton Mid-Century Bank

Underpass Picnic

On a beautiful spring day, the St. Louis Riverfront was crowded with folks renting bicycles, taking helicopter rides, watching a high school bandplay under a tent overlooking the river, and climbing up and down the Arch steps.

In Downtown St. Louis, a neighborhood loft tour was underway, the restaurants and hotels were hopping and tourists were walking around with cameras.

These two areas are severely divided by the Interstate 70 overpass, which creates a dark, dirty, noisy and imposing barrier people have to navigate through to get from, say, the Convention Center to Laclede’s Landing.

In this concrete, steel and pigeon poop void is where Kara and Steve Holland hosted a Picnic Under the Highway. That’s the video above. And you can see photos of the event here.

Turns out it’s people who make a place vibrant and alive. Huh. Would be nice if this simple concept could become a part of city development and planning. Maybe start with how people would use a space and work out from there. There’s been some official recommendations passed onto the powers-that-be about this very thing.  Let’s hope all the pieces come together to create a win/win for everyone.