July 10, 1931. The Great Depression was in its second full year. Nationwide unemployment stood at 16% (it would rise to 25% by the end of 1932), and year over year growth constricted by 8.5%. Even the news seemed slow that Friday. The afternoon’s Post-Dispatch noted Secretary of State Stimpson, concluding disarmament talks with Italian dictator Mussolini. The German Reichsbank, reeling from its efforts to pay postwar debts and struggling to remain solvent, sought an international loan of $400,000,000 from the Bank of England, the Bank of France, the Federal Reserve Bank and World Bank.
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1951: An Anchor On The Corner In Lafayette Square
What’s in a building? It’s entire history, for one; and in Lafayette Square, that can be considerable.
2001 Park Avenue has been holding down the Northeast corner of Mississippi and Park Avenue for a long time. It appears in the Compton and Dry map of 1876, looking much like itself, but for today’s first floor windows and the long single story extension down Mississippi Avenue:
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