Month: March 2007

Categories
Brecht Butcher Buildings North St. Louis Old North

Losing It

by Michael R. Allen

My goodness, I hate passing the corner of Cass and Florissant and seeing a strange mess of masonry rubble where before the Brecht Butcher Supply Company buildings stood. It’s getting harder to know when I’m back home. I hate to engage in outbursts of emotion, but I feel that this problem is pretty logical: the loss of tangible landmarks erodes a living environment to the point of unfamiliarity.

Do you want to pass by daily a pile of rubble that may stay a vacant lot for years?  Do you want to look through that rubble and see intact and recognizable parts of the building?  Do you want to deal with the failure of any legal authority to protect the sanctity of place?

This was no mere run of the mill (method) building. The Brecht buildings were among the finest of the near north side’s industrial buildings, and completely worth the loss of reputation I risked to defend them. Additionally, they defined the southern portal of my neighborhood, Old North St. Louis. Without them, I have a vacant lot as a grave and — perhaps surprising — more energy to resist the next assault on my neighborhood. I’m not angry, I’m agitated — and that leads to action.

Categories
education Historic Preservation People Regionalism

This Week in Preservation Education

On March 13 and 14, I was fortunate to take part in an interesting architectural education program involving students from O’Fallon High School (Illinois). The 10th grade honors geometry and art students — led by teachers Kelly Wamser and Debbie Raboin — are studying and researching historic St. Louis buildings and architecture with the aid of the St. Louis Building Arts Foundation. The program this week came about through the excellent work of Lynn Josse.

The goals of the program include research, photography, presentations and — most interesting — 3-d scale models of buildings being studied. The students toured various buildings downtown and midtown with Lynn and historian Mimi Stiritz, and studied information put together by their teachers and Foundation volunteers. At lunchtime both days, the students came to City Hall where I spoke in the Kennedy Room about my work with Landmarks Association of St. Louis and how preservationists are actually architects of the future.

Programs like this are the backbone of effective historic preservation efforts. Without public education, our ideas will never become widespread. That education must be geared toward those young people nearly at the brink of lives spent shaping the world. Notable also is the great collaboration in the effort — two architectural advocacy organizations, a Metro East school, several building owners and St. Louis city government coming together to make something happen shows that at least some people get the “big picture” and are willing to share that view.

I look forward to seeing how these efforts transfer into the students’ work, this year and beyond.

Categories
Old North Rehabbing

A Strange Marriage

by Michael R. Allen

I could be doing anything right now. I could be writing a book, watching a movie, talking to a friend, taking a walk or be traveling.

Instead, I am scrubbing up after hours of work around the house. I have not had a moment to myself in weeks, and may not get the chance for weeks more. However, I am watching a building reverse a 120-year span of decay under my own direction, largely alone although experienced craftspeople have aided with masonry, carpentry and roofing.

What we can take into our own hands is where we build the most change in the world. Obviously, few people choose to take much into their hands — and many of us end up with far too much in our hands. Yet hesitate to think of what would become of the world if I did not assume this momentary burden. I hope that others do the same, but I know that I can’t make them. Not everyone could take up the task of rehabbing a large building with no supervision and little assistance, even if he or she wanted to do so. I’m not sure if the cororllary is that those who can should do so, but I note that those who can most often must do so.

When my neck starts to ache beyond the limits of medicinal Schlafly, I try to think about how each gesture composes the larger plot of one house renwed and revitalized in a neighborhood that is renewing itself in a great city that is seeing a multitude of actions like my own add up to a resurgence of energy…

(Cynically, I could note that these hundreds of hours of labor are punishment for that one moment when I realized that I wanted to live in this house. To want something is always an arrogant proposition.)

Categories
Art Events

Tennessee Williams’ First Play Returns to Town

This should be good. As someone whose undergraduate thesis was on the subject of modern drama (along with politics, architecture, epistemology and related concerns), this event holds special interest:

After 70 years, Tennessee Williams’ first full-length play — “Candles to the Sun” — is returning to St. Louis for a March 16 homecoming performance at the theater where it premiered on March 18, 1937.

The organizer of the reunion is Tom Mitchell, the acting head of the department of theater at the University of Illinois.

The play, which illuminates the struggles of coal miners and family members living in Alabama’s Red Hills mining region, was originally presented twice — on March 18 and 20, 1937 — by The Mummers, an amateur acting troupe, in the auditorium of the Wednesday Club. Since 1972, the building at 4504 Westminster Place has been the home of The Learning Center, which presents educational and community-focused programs.

“The Learning Center/Wednesday Club auditorium is a remarkable building, constructed in 1908 from designs by architect Theodore C. Link in the Prairie Style,” Mitchell said. “The auditorium features the original furnishings that Williams and his friends experienced when mounting the first of his full-length works.”

“The first-floor auditorium has approximately 500 leather-upholstered seats and a small stage that was used for recitals and poetry readings, as well as theatrical productions,” he said. “Upstairs, the Wednesday Club had a large kitchen and dining room, with several side rooms with fireplaces and a solarium.”

The March 16 production of “Candles” at The Learning Center begins at 8 p.m. Tickets are available for a minimum contribution of $10 at the door, or by calling 314-361-1908. Tickets also may be purchased in advance at Left Bank Books, 399 N. Euclid, St. Louis, or by calling 314-367-6731.

More information about the performance is available from Mitchell, 217-333-3538, or Emily Richard at The Learning Center, 314-361-1908.

Categories
Mid-Century Modern North County SHPO St. Louis County

Two North County Municipalties Making Progress in Preservation, Design Review

by Michael R. Allen

Black Jack creates architectural review board – Brian Flinchpaugh (Northwest County Journal, March 13)

Critics including Toby Weiss and I have long lamented the lack of preservation review in parts of St. Louis County where mid-century buildings lack protection and appreciation. Others have lamented the lack of sound planning policies in the county, and pointed to the inherent difficulty of creating meaningful policy amid 91 different municipalities. At least Black Jack is making the best of the current system.

Program could help Normandy preserve historic structures – Sonia Ahuja (North County Journal, March 13)

Meanwhile, Normandy is examining participation in the Missouri State Historic Preservation Office’s Certified Local Government program. The mayor and several aldermen are already backing participation, which would entail the establishment of a preservation commission.

Categories
Century Building Downtown People

That’s Mickey McTague

by Michael R. Allen

Today I was walking down Ninth Street when I ran into someone who was eager to tell me something about the Ninth Street Garage, the jaundiced hulk that is finally nearing completion.

“Look at that new building. I hear it’s called the Century Building,” he said

“Is that a fact? I swear that the Century Building would be marble clad. This appears to be a concrete building — perhaps they upgraded the plans,” I replied.

“And that nice archway there that leads to the Century Theater,” pointed out the guide with a case of gallows humor.

This guide was none other than Mickey McTague, a resilient wit and storyteller who is always a welcome surprise on the downtown streets. His family ran a basement restaurant — McTague’s Cafe — in the fallen Century Building, so he’s understandably upset by its demolition. Yet he’s quick to find something amusing and poignant in all of the terrible decisions he’s seen in his years watching city politics, and he’s perhaps even quicker to point that out to a friend.

I walked away from seeing with a smile when before I had a scowl as I examined the garage’s hideous interplay with the graceful Frisco Building across Olive. If I could turn that thought into a good joke, I’d have life made.

Categories
North St. Louis Old North Rehabbing

Smokestack Lighting

by Michael R. Allen

One of my most favorite moments of any long day of rehab work on this house is when dusk arrives and the floodlights on the Columbia Brewery smokestack come on. This is a perk of having a flat roof with a great view — I can go out, beer in hand and wait for the sudden moment when the dark smokestack is almost silver bathed in light. I rarely check the time, because I like the full surprise. (I never guess right when I think I’m moments away.)

Usually, I can see the Continental Building beacon in the far distance blinking as if to wink at my wonder at what is actually a pretty mundane event.

Sometimes, the mundane is magical.

Categories
Bohemian Hill City Hospital Flounder House South St. Louis

Bohemian Hill and City Hospital

Here is a view east toward City Hospital from just south of Picker Street in Bohemian Hill, taken by me in 2002. Here we see visual density and variety giving way to the relatively monotonous architectural mass of the City Hospital. The distinct individual buildings mitigate the impact of the hospital complex, which otherwise might be overbearing. The relationship also makes full use of that human-scaled unit with which we build towers and flounder houses alike: the brick.

While each building is the sum of its parts — here those parts are largely brick — each urban vista also is the sum of a multitude of elements. Limiting the complexity by reducing the number of and small disparities between each element diminishes the view as well as the pedestrian experience.

Five years later, this view does not exist — but we have the chance to remake it. However, we should keep in mind that the view seen here was over 100 years in the making, and just as the brick or the building becomes an element that composes a larger view, so is each year during which the view emerges. While it is easy for a person to manipulate space and material, it is impossible to manipulate time.

Categories
Abandonment East St. Louis, Illinois

The Lights of East St. Louis

by Michael R. Allen

With a cool spring breeze and great jazz on the truck radio, I found myself driving through East St. Louis last night. I don’t mean driving on the highway, either — I came in from the south through Rush City on 19th Street, headed east on Bond Avenue, north on 17th Street, east on Broadway until I was on the Eads Bridge headed back home. This was around 6:30 p.m., and already the sun had set to make way for a charcoal night sky.

While it was dark out, East St. Louis was very dark. There are several reasons, but foremost is the lack of remaining occupied houses. The loss of buildings has meant the loss of life and light, factors that keep a neighborhood from feeling like a ghost town after nightfall. There is also the lack of adequate street lighting that enhances the feeling that one is not in a city but some other ethereal place not quite settled enough to be a city but too populated to be a rural area.

As I drove north on industrial 17th street, where almost every building, factory and lot is abandoned and there are few streetlights, I glanced eastward. There I saw the St. Louis skyline glimmering as if no ghost town at all stood just to the east. I had a strange feeling, and felt vulnerable.

No, I did not fear any trouble at human hands. I felt a worse fear — that East St. Louis is something that has life only in the past and death in the future. The present moment is thus a terrible recognition.

Of what? Perhaps the painful conclusion that just east of my city another city may be effectively dead — but still inhabited by people who need jobs, schools and city services that a dead city cannot provide.

Categories
Mullanphy Emigrant Home North St. Louis Old North

Mullanphy Effort Accepting Online Contributions

The Old North St. Louis Restoration Group has launched a PayPal account through which donations for the effort to rebuild the Mullanphy Emigrant Home‘s collapsed southern wall.

While some temporary structural stabilization work has been completed, the effort is still over $100,000 away from reaching the money needed to rebuild the masonry wall.

We are a generous city with much wealth and love for our history. Can we not rebuild that wall? It seems like a reasonable goal with no ambiguity — every dollar collected will literally go to the needed bricks, mortar and labor.

The result will be that a neighborhood in the midst of renewal will retain one of its most significant buildings as an anchor for continued development.

Tax-deductible contributions now can be made here.

(PS: For candidates seeking to do good with leftover campaign funds, this is a great cause.)