The Old Print Shop here in New York has a number of great old St. Louis maps and prints of buildings and scenes from around town. Just do a search for "St. Louis" on their web site.
They even have a copy of the first print of St. Louis depicting The Gateway City in 1832. The Mercantile Library has a copy along with the original painting the print is based on I believe.
I do not know where you can get blueprints, but the owner of "The Purple Cow" on Cherokee's antique row would probably know. He has some giant books that contain the plans of St. Louis neighborhoods. He will not sell them, but he might know where to find some great stuff. I have reason to believe that he has something from the Admiral too, but I can't confirm that information.
Landmarks Association has some blueprints, but they are a really random collection of things that have just kind of washed up in the office over the years. I would recommend that 1. You figure out who renovated the building where your loft is and call them up. If blueprints exist, they probably sniffed them out as a component of the rehab. 2. Figure out who designed the building where your loft is originally and see if there is a descendant firm. Many existing architectural firms have roots in old firms from a hundred years ago or more. They frequently will have archives that stretch back a long way. The books at the Purple Cow on Cherokee sound like Sanborn fire insurance maps. They will show the footprint of the building, but are a far cry from blueprints. Good luck
After taking a stroll down Cherokee this past weekend I visited The Purple Cow and the guy who runs the shop owns a reproduction of the Compton Dry Pictorial (that's next on my acquisition list) and has no vintage blueprints in the shop, neither do any of the other Antique Shops on Cherokee (though very friendly and informational folks). While spending way too much time at STL Style's Shop I was told of Landmarks Association's possible information on vintage blueprints and will be following that lead soon.
landmarks wrote:You figure out who renovated the building where your loft is and call them up. If blueprints exist, they probably sniffed them out as a component of the rehab. 2. Figure out who designed the building where your loft is originally and see if there is a descendant firm.
FYI - I am intererested in any STL-related vintage blueprints (preferably true-blueprints not 'newer' whiteprints) although given my urban planning background I am more interested in old plat blueprints as of recent.
Though I might just give up and use my photoshop magic to turn a late-1800's STL City Map I downloaded at high resolution and create my own 'blueprint'.
geoffksu wrote:Though I might just give up and use my photoshop magic to turn a late-1800's STL City Map I downloaded at high resolution and create my own 'blueprint'.
Matthews-Northrup 1895 STL City Map + editing and inverting colors in Photoshop + layering with scanned blueprint texture = original creation (crack open local brewed beer, kick back and enjoy).
geoffksu wrote:Though I might just give up and use my photoshop magic to turn a late-1800's STL City Map I downloaded at high resolution and create my own 'blueprint'.
Matthews-Northrup 1895 STL City Map + editing and inverting colors in Photoshop + layering with scanned blueprint texture = original creation (crack open local brewed beer, kick back and enjoy).
