Author: Michael R. Allen

Categories
Architecture Downtown Historic Preservation

The Marquette Building Has a Cornice Again

by Michael R. Allen

The cornice is returning to the Marquette Building at 314 North Broadway in St. Louis. At least, a fiberglass-based replication of some of the original cornice details is being installed by the Lawrence Group. The new cornice’s bracket detailing matches the original, but the projecting frieze had detailing not present on the replica, on which that area is flat. Even an incomplete cornice replication is a novelty among historic rehabilitation projects these days, since few other developers replicate removed cornices. (Pyramid’s recent renovations of the Curlee and Mallinckrodt buildings on Washington Avenue come to mind.)

The Monward Realty Company built what would become the Marquette Building from plans by renowned local firm Eames & Young. Completed in 1913, the building was briefly known as the Monward Building until Boatmen’s Bank leased much of the new building following the 1913 fire that destroyed their headquarters at Fourth and Washington (the site is now where the Missouri Athletic Company Building stands). The building became known as the Marquette Building after completion. An annex building was added in 1918 and expanded in 1920, but demolished in 1998 for a parking garage that was part of a terrible and failed plan to redevelop the Marquette Building. The Marquette is now under renovation for reuse as condominiums and the garage is part of the Federal Reserve Bank’s “campus.”

Categories
Downtown Green Space

Idle Men in Lucas Park

by Michael R. Allen

In 1940, the Salvation Army opened an Industrial Center for job training adjacent to the YWCA Building at 1411 Locust Street, now the New Life Evangelistic Center. A January 1940 report from the Advisory Committee of the local Salvation Army on establishing the center notes with concern that a “floating population of idle men fills the benches in the park back of the library [sic].” This park, of course, is Lucas Park and this situation, of course, continues to this day.

The building housing the Salvation Army’s Industrial Center, by the way, has been demolished for a surface parking lot.

Categories
Central West End Churches Metal Theft

Architectural Heritage Threatened By Metal Theft

by Michael R. Allen

This is St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church at the northwest corner of Pendelton and Olive streets in the Central West End, just west of the old Gaslight Square area. On Friday of last week, church members noticed that the original copper guttering was missing. Then, they noticed that the flashing and other copper pieces from the roof were gone, too.

With limited means and no insurance on the church, the congregation brought out the buckets to endure the weekend’s rain. Hopefully, a more permanent repair can be made with the help of generous St. Louisans and the Lutheran synod.

However, no building will be very safe as long as metal recyclers are allowed an exception under city law that requires dealers of reused items to keep on file a photo ID card of each person who redeems items for cash. With metal prices high recently, thieves have been actively stripping buildings both vacant and occupied, with no end in sight. The Board of Aldermen needs to pass a bill requiring each metal recycler to obtain a photo ID from each customer before paying for their load of metal. That would guarantee that police officers investigating thefts can actually have a basis other than hearsay for investigation, and prosecutors can file charges against metal thieves. Honest scrappers who glean alleys and do gut demolition work would be unaffected. Metal dealers might experience a loss in profits, but would be more protected against charges ever being filed against them for accepting stolen property.

Theft of architectural items is as big a threat to the historic fabric of St. Louis as bad urban planning. St. Stephen’s Church is seriously at risk of sustaining major damage until roof repairs can be made, and that may take awhile. Vacant buildings that have their guttering stolen don’t even have half of the chance of surviving that an occupied building does. We cannot afford to lose buildings so that thieves and metal dealers can make a few bucks; the consequences will live on long after they spend the money.

St. Stephen’s originally was St. George’s Episcopal Church, and was built in 1891 from plans by Kivas Tully. Tully, who also designed parts of Christ Church Cathedral downtown, had conceived of this building as a wing of a larger sanctuary, but that plan was never built. The church is a key part of a pending expansion of the national Central West End Historic District drafted by Landmarks Association. This expansion basically restores the proposed original boundaries of the district north to the alley south of Delmar (but including Delmar Baptist Church at Delmar and Pendelton) and east to Pendleton.

Categories
Central West End Local Historic District North St. Louis Preservation Board South St. Louis

Chairman Callow, Boring Buildings and a Denied Demolition Permit

by Michael R. Allen

At its Monday meeting, the Preservation Board elected a new chairperson: Richard Callow, the public relations consultant who edits Mayor Slay’s campaign website. New board member David Richardson nominated Callow after Melanie Fathman nominated architect Anthony Robinson, a reasonable voice who would have done well in the position. Callow received the votes of Richardson, Luis Porello, Mary “One” Johnson (who presided over the vote rather clumsily), John Burse and new member Michael Killeen. Robinson received Fathman’s vote, and the nominated parties abstained. Mary Johnson was the only nominee for vice chairperson, although she so quickly called the vote after her own nomination was seconded that observers at the crowded meeting wondered if there was a chance for another nomination.

Callow demonstrated the tenor of his chairmanship by conducting the meeting much more efficiently than usual, although hopefully his motivation is to respect people’s time and not to glide over potential controversy. His customary pointed questions certainly enhance his chairmanship and give good direction to debate often marred by divergence and anecdote.

Is Callow’s election a political move or a pragmatic one? While the Preservation Board’s decisions can be overturned by less democratic bodies like the Planning Commission, the decisions often hold sway public perception of urban design and preservation issues. The approval of a plan or demolition permit by the Preservation Board can give proponents great backup for painting opponents as unreasonable. Time will tell what game, if any, is being played here.

One wonders if Mayor Slay will again write about the Preservation Board in his blog, given the new circumstances.

The Board unanimously granted preliminary approval to a bad new development project that would demolish the South Grand YMCA for a stale, wide block of Chicago-style tedium. Claire Nowak-Boyd registered an objection.

Another unanimous vote included final approval of the condominium building at Euclid and Lindell proposed by Opus Development, which although improved in design has a few problems with the scale of its base along Euclid and with the unmitigated expanse of its shaft. Alderwoman Lyda Krewson and politico Lou Hamilton were in attendance, presumably to monitor this vote.

The Preservation Board denied the Department of Public Safety’s request to demolish the house at 5309 Cabanne. The denial seems superfluous given the approval of demolition of the YMCA Building, which seems better posed to find reuse in the near future than the house. Also, of course, denial of the permit will not stop water, wind and fire from taking their toll. However, I am glad that the Board and Cultural Resources Office staff still regard the integrity of Visitation Park as an important thing to preserve. That neighborhood stands to benefit from the creep of the Delmar Loop’s success.

Categories
Chicago Events Louis Sullivan

Louis Sullivan at 150

by Michael R. Allen

Louis Sullivan was born in Boston on September 3, 1856. Admirers have launched Louis Sullivan at 150, a series of tours, lectures and other events that celebrate the Sullivan sesquicentennial. The festivities happen in Chicago, although there is no stopping folks in cities with other Sullivan buildings of some importance of coordinating celebrations.

Part of the Sullivan at 150 program is a three-day symposium October 13-15; a tour of the interior of the Charnley-Persky House led by John Vinci, who oversaw the home’s restoration; and, most impressive although mostly coincidental, the completion of the replication of the cornice on Sullivan’s 1899 Schlesinger & Meyer Department Store Building (now the Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company Building).

Categories
Preservation Board

Preservation Board Has Two New Members, Will Elect New Chair

by Michael R. Allen

While the agenda for Monday’s Preservation Board meeting has not been posted online, two items are certain:

The Board will induct two new members recently appointed by mayor Francis Slay, one to fill an open seat and one to replace a current member.

The Board will elect a new Chairperson.

The meeting begins at 4:00 p.m. Monday, August 28, in the 12th floor conference room at 1015 Locust Street.

Categories
Adaptive Reuse Housing Schools South St. Louis Tower Grove East

Grant School

by Michael R. Allen

LOCATION: 3009 Pennsylvania Avenue; Tower Grove East Neighborhood; Saint Louis, Missouri
DATES OF CONSTRUCTION: 1893; 1902 (southern addition); 1965 (gymnasium)
ARCHITECTS: August H. Kirchner (original building); William B. Ittner (1902 addition only)
DATE OF ABANDONMENT: 1983 – 2005
OWNER: Cohen-Esrey Development LLC

A dramatic transformation took the abandoned Grant School, which the St. Louis Public Schools closed in 1983, from a state of decay to one of restoration. Cohen-Esrey Development purchased the school building in 2005 and completed a multi-million-dollar renovation using state historic rehab tax credits. The new use is a complete change from the original purpose: now Grant School houses apartments for senior citizens.

This is a good turn in the life of the school, which was on the brink of terrible changes. Water coming in through the broken cupola had rotted a lot of the flooring and compromised structural timbers. The hipped-roof school building is one of the schools built while August Kirchner was chief architect for the Board of Education and was completed in 1893. Kirchner’s symmetrical Romanesque Revival design with prominent center gable is not as innovate as the later schools of architect William B. Ittner, but nonetheless is a significant expression of the local vernacular in native red brick and limestone. A later addition by Ittner is unobtrusive and adds a distinctive projecting bay that was hidden for many years behind a modern gymnasium addition that the developers demolished. The school building, named for Ulysses S. Grant, replaced the old Gravois School at Gravois Avenue and Wyoming Street that had opened in 1867 to serve the growing south side.

Photographs from August 17, 2006 (Michael R. Allen)

Photographs from November 2003 (Michael R. Allen)

Categories
Downtown

"A"

One letter in the Famous-Barr sign on the Railway Exchange Building comes down last week. Photograph by Lynn Josse.

Categories
Chicago Downtown

Macy’s Letters Go Up, A Legacy Comes Down

by Michael R. Allen

Yesterday, crews arrived to downtown’s Railway Exchange Building to begin installation of the giant Macy’s sign that will replace the already-removed Famous-Barr sign atop the building. (Famous-Barr’s midtown warehouse already sports new lighted Macy’s signs, although at night the old signs show behind them and read “M–Y’s and “MA—S” instead of a confident “MACY’S.”) This passage of signage is the fulfillment of a year-long transition that ends the lifespan of St. Louis’ last local department store chain. Famous-Barr was an original tenant of the Railway Exchange, built in 1913.

While the May Company had long allowed the downtown flagship to diminish in quality and allure, the store was a reminder that St. Louis was once a vibrant metropolitan city that had developed fine examples of the modern downtown department store. After the other downtown department stores — notable Scruggs-Vandervoort-Barney in 1967 and Stix, Baer and Fuller in 1984 — closed, the downtown Famous-Barr remained open and seemed like it would be open forever. Its hours cut back over the years, and its patrons were a small group toward the end. Yet the cultural value of its presence showed that downtown St. Louis still kept one tradition alive, and not in a second-rate fashion but in a particularly local way.

Now the downtown space will be occupied by one of the hundreds of Macy’s stores, a fact that insults both St. Louis and New York. Both cities have lost the uniqueness of the brand identity, albeit slowly: the stores had long become chains, changed ownership and standardized merchandise long before Federated bought both Macy’s and Famous-Barr. Now, the slump hastens and only the most culturally deprived shoppers will be enthusiastic to shop at Macy’s, a name that now denotes only a department store rather than a certain sort of store.

Of course, the downtown department store itself is an endangered species, and has been close to extinction since the late 1960’s. Now that downtown St. Louis real estate is highly valued again, perhaps the downtown store here is about to go extinct. The value of the Railway Exchange Building to Federated Department Stores exceeds the value of the store inside. With their move to cut jobs downtown, there will be empty office floors to remodel. The company is also planning to consolidate the store on the five lower levels of the building, vacating two floors used by Famous-Barr. Could it be only a matter of time before the store is liquidated and the building converted to condominiums? The crews working on converting the store have not been remodeling the space as much as putting a new coat of paint on surfaces. The work looks tentative, as does Federated’s commitment to downtown.

Whatever happens to the downtown Macy’s store, the period of the urban department store is effectively over in St. Louis. We have lost our last downtown department store, a passing that even forty years ago would have attracted more attention than it does today. With the combined factors of population dispersal, market dominance by discount and specialty retailers, the retail downtown centered on the Galleria shopping mall and the May Company’s own treatment of the store, the downtown Famous-Barr is mourned by few. Contrast that with Chicago, where Federated is stamping the meaningless Macy’s brand on the meaningful and loved downtown Marshall Field’s store. This move provoked anger and a petition campaign, neither of which prevented the destruction there because neither caused any economic consequence to Federated’s decision.

The cultural consequences of the loss of downtown department stores and of downtown commercial culture are pretty big, though. Still, as long as few people recognize those consequences (and people have had fifty years to recognize them), what difference does closing the the last local downtown department store make to all but a handful of people?

Categories
Downtown Infrastructure Missouri Legislature Streets

Despite Some Flaws, MoDESA is Good for St. Louis

by Michael R. Allen

I’m definitely a supporter of the Missouri Downtown [and Rural] Economic Stimulus Act (MoDESA), which permits cities to take up to 50 percent of both state sales taxes and state withholding taxes generated by new development projects. The law gives cities up to 25 years to continue using this share of state taxes, and restricts use to infrastructure needs.

As someone who works downtown and who has been walking the streets of downtown since I was a child, I am excited at the prospect for infrastructure improvements downtown. Beyond Washington Avenue, most downtown streets could use anything from repaving to new sidewalks. All of downtown could stand new street, consistent lighting — the current distribution of new, fancier lights around new projects gives the appearance that the city doesn’t feel that the basics are important for all of downtown. Much of downtown infrastructure has deteriorated past the point of acceptability.

Of course, the city has not had the means to make big repairs. Much of downtown’s current infrastructure dates to 1950’s-era projects that were built when the city still had a residential population of around 856,000 people. The sort of public works consistency possible with that tax base is a distant memory nowadays, although completely necessary to attract new residents and business owners — and retain existing ones.

MoDESA is akin to the State Historic Tax Credit in that it levels things financially for older areas of great cultural importance that have special economic troubles that may otherwise be exceedingly difficult to address. Like tax credits, the MoDESA money is not a subsidy but an allowance to apply revenue generated in these areas to improvement projects — and since it applies to any area in the state that matches certain criteria, it doesn’t unfairly benefit cities or small towns. It just gives them some help.

There are political problems with using the money, and St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay has already made moves that are suspect. For instance, the first MoDESA project was originally going to be based entirely on projects by the Pyramid Companies, and was revised to include one other project by another developer. However, this proposal will target the desolate Tucker Boulevard streetscape for improvements — long overdue.

A disappointing move on the Mayor’s part is his appointment of the local authority to oversee the MoDESA money. There are nine voting members and two non-voting members, including the mayor. The roster of the mayor’s eight appointments consists entirely of longtime political players, five of whom are members of city development boards, one of whom works for St. Louis University, and one of whom is Downtown St. Louis Partnership head Jim Cloar. Most glaring is the absence of a single downtown resident. Isn’t this the mayor who mentions downtown residents in every speech about development in the city?

MoDESA, however, is a good thing for the city and state despite the expected flaws in its application.