These large stones are laid together to resemble a ruined facade, including some broken columns, the whole having an irregular but graceful outline, and the green vines that now cover them heighten the picturesque effect, adding, also, a suggestion of antiquity. There is a fountain in the centre of the pond, and a lower water jet on each side, some little distance away, and the silvery sprays are thrown to a considerable height. The water is turned on during music hours, and on all other occasions when visitors are numerous. In 1867, shortly before Henry Shaw deeded the land that would become Tower Grove Park to the City of St. Louis, the Lindell Hotel burned to the ground. As he had done with the columns removed from the Old Courthouse during a remodeling, Henry Shaw had a great pile of limestone blocks from the hotel transported to Tower Grove Park.
Nothing beside remains.
Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The loan and level sands stretch far away. The recycling of stonework from downtown buildings continued even after Shaw's death in 1889. When the pond was enlarged in 1916, the balustrade was again rebuilt, this time on a new more stable concrete base.