CITY DAILY PHOTO JANUARY THEME - PICTURE OF THE YEAR

 

New Year’s Day, and time for City Daily Photo members to give us their best shot, so to speak. This isn’t St. Louis but it is my home town, so that’s good enough. Taken from a taxi window somewhere in midtown Manhattan last summer in the haze of late afternoon. It’s a real piece of New York. Will you dine with me? 

City Daily members from around the world show us their very best stuff today  https://citydailyphoto.org/category/theme-days/ .                

NEXT YEAR IN . . .

 

The last day of 2024. I understand that at the end of the Passover seder it is a tradition for the assembled to wish each other “next year in Jerusalem!” I’ve heard Jewish friends use the phrase as a fond farewell. On New Year’s Eve in our house, the toast is “next year in Ireland!” With good health and fortune, that will happen to us. My father’s family is from County Clare in the west. We will be in Dublin on Easter, which could be interesting. 

And we hope to be in some other places next year. Should end up in Costa Rica at some point. We always seem to. Who knows where else? We’re retired. We have time.

So Happy New Year from St. Louis to our friends around the U.S. and the world.                       

ANOTHER ELEGANT TOWNHOUSE

 

Imagine the life of a prosperous family at the end of the 19th Century. It looks so proper, so elegant. Roll forward a few years and you could hear a couple of cheerful young women singing Meet Me In St. Louis in the parlor. (Nobody ever wanted to meet you in Milwaukee.) Lafayette Square is surrounded by homes like this.                

INSIDE LAFAYETTE SQUARE

 

Lafayette Square is a couple of blocks on a side. It contains what may or may not be the first official city park in the U.S. west of the Mississippi, established in 1836. I don’t think I've been there in decades, despite having worked my whole career less than 10 minutes drive away, so I took a walk through yesterday. To say that it is charming is an understatement. More to come.              

LAFAYETTE SQUARE

Lafayette Square, not far from downtown, contained the homes of some of St. Louis’ wealthiest residents in the 19th Century. The grand homes are a mix of French and German styles. They are all built with brick to prevent spreading fire, easily done with the large supply of good clay inn the area. All of them facing the park and for a couple of blocks around have been lovingly restored.