A two-story red-brick building of 1873 on the corner of 14th and Hebert streets in Old North St. Louis, Italianate in style and raised on a rock-faced limestone basement studded with octagonal iron anchor plates. Its windows carry distinctive polychrome lintels — fan-shaped voussoirs that alternate pale stone with dark brick — and a band of diamond-patterned brick runs between the stories, while tall pointed-arch windows light the side elevation. A bracketed cornice with a paneled, dentiled frieze crowns the walls beneath a hipped roof edged in red tile. An ornate cast-iron address standard reading "1323" stands at the front steps.
Ames School opened in 1873 in Old North St. Louis and takes its name from Henry Ames (1818–1852). The St. Louis Board of Public Schools recorded its construction that year, at the corner of 14th and Hebert streets. A June 1937 photograph held by the Missouri History Museum shows the school as two adjoining buildings — the original 1873 block on the corner and a larger building beside it. The larger building was replaced by the mid-century school that stands on the adjoining site today, while the 1873 corner block survives, its Italianate brickwork and fan-lintel windows intact and an ornate cast-iron address standard reading "1323" still at its steps. The Ames name and the school itself remain on the block: Ames Visual and Performing Arts Elementary, a St. Louis Public Schools magnet, occupies the adjoining later building at 2900 Hadley Street. The corner survivor is the oldest standing fragment of a school that has served Old North children for a century and a half.
