Not everyone realizes that what is now primarily a commercial corridor on North Meridian Street, south of 38th Street was once lined with mansions that put the ones still in existence (above 38th Street), nearly to shame. There could be months of features on all the breathtaking mansions of 100+ years ago, and assuming this website continues to flourish, that will eventually come to fruition.

Despite all the construction, renovation and additions to parts of the street, it never quite measures up for me, sentimental sort that I am.

For example: the west side of the 1500 block of North Meridian Street.SP_paytonwells

This is the vacated eyesore property immediately south of the Walgreens (not so much a fan of that either, but I know most people say ‘well, at least it’s new,’ which isn’t going to win any arguments with me, either).

I started thinking about the glorious homes that once lined this street and found that it must have been right around this building, perhaps slightly north, that early retailer and wholesaler, Charles Mayer once lived. 1510 North Meridian was his official address. North of him, the Honorable Charles Warren Fairbanks–former vice-president of the United States, who later moved a mile and a half or so up the road, to a home that does, thankfully remain.

 

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above, looking north at Charles W. Fairbanks home circa 1910. Teddy Roosevelt visited here. Ever heard about that drinking debacle? It was here. No sign of that now.

The other two homes whose ghostly remains lie under Walgreens and its expanse of asphalt: the home of Reverend and Mrs. Frederick E. Taylor and Fredonia Allen’s Tudor Hall School, which was on the southwest corner of Meridian & 16th.

My Sunday Prayer is: can we get something along this strip that isn’t a bunch of horrible commercial nondescript schlock that you could find anywhere in the country? Please? Build an amazing restaurant or how about anything that’s a little easier on the eyes? Considering what was once there, this is deplorable!