Oh...
.
This just breaks my heart. St. Louis was once stuffed to the brim with architecture that was beautiful, inspired, and complete. As an example, the first apartment I remember living in was a 2 family building. The typical brick 2 family on the South Side. It had stained glass windows, wooden floors, a cast iron soaker bath tub, and best of all; 11 ft. tall pocket doors separating the living room from the bedroom. -A bedroom that was big enough to sleep my entire family, hold 2 complete bedroom sets, and still give us kids plenty of play space.

To see bits and pieces of this architecture for sale on ebay makes me sad. Stained glass, doorknobs, terra cotta, even the precious iron stars that held our brick homes together, are offered to the highest bidder. Each of these pieces made my neighborhood a little nicer. The streets were dangerous, but the architecture made it all better. I don't have words to describe how good it felt to come home from school and open a front door with a knob like this. (buy it now for $75!)
I never minded polishing all the brass in that home. I never minded washing windows that were so tall I needed a step ladder to clean the upper pane. I loved that the glass was so old, that it was thicker at the bottom than at the top; proving that glass is indeed a liquid.
I loved that the place had seen continual use for 100 years and was still both beautiful and functional.

On a side note, I love my 1960 ranch home too. The only thing I want to change are the doors. Hollow core doors are not doors if you grew up with solid wood. I want sturdy, real doors inside my home. Doors I can cover with a patina of time and love, rather than a coat of paint.