Month: March 2007

Categories
Documentation Gaslight Square People

Where is Gaslight Square?

by Michael R. Allen

After work, I headed over to the Metropolis-sponsored reading from Gaslight Square: An Oral History by my friend Thomas Crone. The experience was unique, to say the least: Thomas narrated his own reading with stories about the making of the book along with bits of history and gossip that did not make it through. His presentation summoned forth ideas about a history with a palpable intangibility. After all, the reading took place in one of the new houses on Olive Street that sits on the site of long-gone building where the famous events went down. Through the windows of the new house, all one can see are other new houses occupying the sites of building vital to one of the most culturally formative stages in St. Louis’ recent past. (The exception is the brick building that once housed Ben Selkirk & Sons auction house, newly rehabbed at the southeast corner of Whittier and Olive.)

Listening to Thomas invoke the history of this place in its stunningly reference-stripped incarnation gave me great appreciation for his work. While his account is not a thorough narrative of the events that went down, it is an essential record of impressions, memories, ideas and connections between his interview subjects and one place that doesn’t even seem like itself anymore. Without buildings or other landmarks, an urban place could very well die in collective memory over time. Those who directly experience a place during a particular incarnation won’t live forever, after all.

However, with Gaslight Square there is an enduring key to a place otherwise lost. Even away from the place itself and the author’s voice, the book offers a chance to help us know where Gaslight Square is — in many senses. Thank goodness the book exists!

Categories
Infrastructure

Years Later, Sidewalks Still Dark

by Michael R. Allen

In the early 1960s, St. Louis began switching from shorter single- or double-globe street lights to taller “cobra-head” mercury vapor lights. Apparently, the new lights were not well-received by pedestrians. According to “Plaza Square Street Lights Leave Sidewalks in the Dark”, an article in the October 23, 1960 issue of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, new lights around the Memorial Plaza area and other parts of the city increased light in the streetways while short-changing sidewalks. The new lights were also at 400 watts, replacing those of 500 watts.

“All agree that under the city’s new street-lighting system, streets in residential areas may be somewhat lighter but sidewalks definitely are darker,” states the article. Concerns raised by the darker sidewalks included increased danger of holdups and low visibility to motorists of pedestrians stepping into the street.

The article quotes acting St. Louis chief electrical engineer Frank M. Kratoville, who boasted that the new lights directed light straight down onto the street instead casting light into all directions. One of those directions, of course, was the sidewalk. However, Kratoville and others at the time were concerned with making lighting responsive to motorized forms of transportation. Unfortunately, the city’s effort ignored the needs of pedestrians at a time where there still was a strong pedestrian culture in the city. Once cannot know how much damage the street light system did to that culture, but years later pedestrian life in the city is greatly diminished.

Almost forty-seven years later, much of this “new” system remains in use in the city. Sidewalks all over remain fairly dark. In some areas, such as on Washington Avenue downtown and Delmar Boulevard near the city limits, recent street lighting has included ample sidewalk illumination. As the city reverses the mistakes of its past, street lighting should be high on the list for improvement.

Categories
Local Historic District National Register South St. Louis

What Landed on the Hardt Building?

by Michael R. Allen

Blame it on a bad mood at the moment, but seeing last night the Hardt Building at the northwest corner of Chippewa and Brannon bearing a huge wooden growth was quite a shock. The “growth” appears to be a one-story frame penthouse addition; a search of Geo St. Louis shows no corresponding building permits.

Here we have one of the finest examples of art deco architecture on the south side, standing in the dense and intact historic “Northampton” or Kingshighway Hills neighborhood. The Hardt Building’s stark, streamlined look is reinforced by the later, neon-robbed curved Keller Apothecary sign at the corner. Its visible addition of a third floor and its kissing cousin on Hampton (discussed by Toby Weiss here) add some intrigue; the obvious bow of the Chippewa elevation wall adds drama.

What does the addition add, besides more office space? It adds architecture at odds with the dramatic lines and parapets of the building below. It adds a visual focal point that overpowers the building below, capturing the eye and pulling it away from the bliss of jazzy polychrome masonry.

To get a better view of the addition, I headed west in the alley north of Chippewa. While the streets of this area are obviously packed with lovely brick buildings from the early-to-middle twentieth century, the alleys retain an amazing abundance of historic garages. Here we have an area west of Kingshighway and south of Arsenal more ripe for historic district status than many areas that are already listed on the National Register of Historic Places or City Landmark rosters. While a local district status is unfathomable for this area at present time, a national district would bring the tax incentives to discourage inappropriate alterations like the one rising on top of the Hardt Building.

Categories
North St. Louis St. Louis Place

St. Louis Avenue

by Michael R. Allen

Those seeking an interesting spring stroll and ride should consider St. Louis Avenue between Florissant and Parnell in St. Louis Place. There, historic 19th century townhouses in Romanesque Revival, Italianate, Second Empire and other styles meet the soft colors of red bud, forsythia, Bradford pear and daffodil thriving in unusually warm weather. Many of the blocks retain high density of historic architecture, and most buildings are lovingly kept on a street that bears the name of its city.

This stretch of St. Louis has the Fleetwood and Sons bar, the Polish Falcons “nest” (formerly the mansion of brewer Carl G. Stifel), the Black World History Wax museum, a genuine old-school rooming house, vintage gasoline pumps, lots of native Missouri granite, wrought iron fences, buildings owned by famous developers, lovely churches, a wonderful city park and enough St. Louis charm to topple the most stubborn cases of the blues. Anyone searching for sweet refreshment before or after a stroll can head to Crown Candy Kitchen at 14th and St. Louis to the east. All is well with the city, at least for awhile.

Categories
Documentation LRA North St. Louis Northside Regeneration Old North St. Louis Place

New Blairmont Map Online

by Michael R. Allen

We have a new Google Earth map of north St. Louis properties owned by companies controlled by developer Paul J. McKee, Jr. See the map here.

The map, created on March 13 and sent by a concerned resident of the St. Louis Place neighborhood, shows 637 properties owned by McKee’s companies.

For reference, this map includes pinpoints on adjacent properties owned by city-owned corporations like the Land Reutilization Authority, Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority and the Planned Industrial Expansion Authority. Also included are properties owned by Pyramid Construction and the partnership between the Regional Housing and Community Development Alliance and the Old North St. Louis Restoration Group.

Categories
Bohemian Hill South St. Louis

Landmarks Association Reports on Bohemian Hill

The January/February issue of Landmarks Letter features a cover story on the controversy surrounding Bohemian Hill. Read it online here (in PDF format).

Categories
Documentation Events Gaslight Square People

Crone Reading from "Gaslight Square" at Gaslight Square

Thomas Crone will be reading from his book Gaslight Square: An Oral History on Thursday, March 29 at 6:00 p.m. in Gaslight Square. Well, our literary friend will be reading at one of the new houses standing where this history went down — at 4155 Olive Street, to be exact.

The event is sponsored by Metropolis St. Louis, which asks that people RSVP to policy@mstl.org.

Categories
Demolition Laclede's Landing

Demolition for Switzer Building?

by Michael R. Allen

According to records on Geo St. Louis, on Clarinet LLC applied for a demolition permit for the Switzer Building on March 6.  The Switzer Building, located at 612 N. 1st Street on Laclede’s Landing, sustained major damage, including the collapse of its eastern wall, during a fierce storm on July 21, 2006. Emergency stabilization work commenced after the storm, but rehabilitation work in progress at the time never resumed.

Categories
Abandonment Regionalism

Magic & Life

What has become of the abandoned buildings mentioned in my whimsical short essay “Abandoned Buildings in Saint Louis: Magic & Death,” published in 2004?

Enright Middle School: Under renovation.

Carondelet Coke plant: Scheduled for demolition.

City Hospital Tower: Already gone then (although it still haunts the dreams of the restless); site still undeveloped.

Armour Packing Plant: Proposed for demolition; site now for sale.

St. Mary’s Infirmary: Purchased for renovation; listing on National Register of Historic Places in process.

These are big changes. In a few short years, the architectural narrative of the region has changed as major abandoned buildings have been renovated or demolished. Urban explorers occasionally complain that there are no “big buildings” left accessible. That’s not entirely true, especially on the Illinois side of the river, but reflects a distinct reclamation by developers. While my theoretical bearings are still formative, I see abandonment diminishing in favor of reclamation as the dominant narrative of marginal property around St. Louis. Reclamation is value-neutral, though, so this shift in the major narrative is no guarantee that the stewards of these places are making wise decisions.

Reclamation demands a counter-movement that clearly and consistently promotes an ethic of architectural stewardship based on a respect for history, knowledge of ecology and an embrace of urbanity. That’s a lot more difficult than waxing poetic and punch-drunk about the views from the rooftops of forgotten factories (although I do that), or automatically celebrating new development because it replaces something troublesome and frightening.

How about a counter-movement that aims to resolve the contradictions of reclamation in order to rededicate St. Louis to metropolitan life? Who’s in?

Unexpected magic lives on, though, as long as there are buildings, full moons and flowing rivers. As I age, I take less advantage of these moments than I did even three years ago — but seek them out as much as I can. The rest of the time I spend on the ideas needed to ensure that no matter how much our region changes we still have the places that fill us with awe.

Categories
Bohemian Hill South St. Louis

Bohemian Hill Residents Converge

by Michael R. Allen

Someone who attended the first meeting of the Bohemian Hill Neighborhood Association on Thursday night had this to report: There were about 50 people in attendance, including Democratic Central Committee chair Brian Wahby. The discussion was intense and at one point centered on how Alderwoman Phyllis Young has yet to meet with residents of the small neighborhood, and at another centered on how people don’t want to live next to a strip mall.