A Surreal Walk Down Lafayette Street Pt. 1

My recent walk down St. Louis's Lafayette Street, between Jefferson and Grand, was a rather surreal experience. The most striking aspect is the number of empty lots between buildings, like this one:

These new buildings have been added on what were presumably empty lots. While infilling is almost always a good thing, and the buildings at least were brought into harmony with the area with brick facades, I'm not a huge fan of their architecture, which is out of step with the neighborhood.

(More after the jump.)

As you can see, they're near other empty lots.

Their neighbor is a cool building in need of TLC.

Between them, more empty lots.

 A wider view. Down the street, you can see my other recent "cool building in need of TLC."

Many of the streets intersecting Lafayette are cut off by

Interstate 44, as you can see. This cuts off sections of the neighborhood and inevitably contributes to decay.

 This brightly painted building on Lafayette St. is,
according to its sign, a child care center to be opened in 2011.
Note the suburban-style infilling in the background.

A wider view of the area pictured above:

More coming soon.