Columbus Square, St. Louis — Area Guide & Where to Stay

What are the main landmarks in Columbus Square?

The Shrine of St. Joseph anchors the neighborhood on North 11th Street. Jesuits founded that parish in 1843 for German Catholic laborers, and a healing recorded there in 1864 remains the only miracle the Vatican has authenticated in the American Midwest. Columbus Square Park lies directly south of the church at Biddle Street, a shaded circle of lindens and redbuds with stairs on all four sides.

Patrick Henry School fills two blocks. William B. Ittner drew its Tudor Revival front along North 10th Street in 1906.

What is the history of Columbus Square?

German Catholics settled first around 11th and Biddle, and Irish families took the ground near 6th and Biddle that became St. Patrick's parish. Tenement rows two and three stories high went up after 1840, and the alleys behind them earned the names Castle Thunder, Clabber Alley and Wild Cat Chute. Industry followed the Civil War.

An Italian community formed near Carr Street after 1900, and Russian and Balkan arrivals followed. Public housing replaced the tenement blocks: Neighborhood Gardens with its twelve brick walk-ups, then Cochran Gardens in 1952, then the Columbus Square Townhomes and the Castles between 1985 and 1987.

Where is Columbus Square?

Cass Avenue closes Columbus Square on the north and Cole Street on the south, while North Broadway and the interstate lanes beyond it hold the east side back from the Mississippi River. Carr Square adjoins it westward. Tucker Boulevard and North 13th Street mark that western edge. Old North St. Louis begins on the far side of Cass Avenue, and the downtown core begins on the far side of Cole Street.