Author: Michael R. Allen

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Events

Sunset Hills Historical Society Program on the Lemp Estate

Sunset Hills Historical Society Program on the Lemp Estate Hosts Guest Speaker Davidson Mullgardt
Monday, March 28 at 7 PM at the Sunset Hills Community Center

The Sunset Hills Historical Society will hold its monthly meeting on Monday, March 28 at 7 PM at the Sunset Hills Community Center. The featured speaker will be Davidson Mullgardt, who will be speaking about the Lemp Estate, located in Sunset Hills. The home was formerly owned by the Lemp family who brewed Falstaff beer.

“Because many of the records were destroyed, there are recent discoveries about the Lemp saga,” said Davidson Mullgardt, historian and former high school English teacher.

He will be demonstrating some of those discoveries, discussing the Lemp family, their beer-brewing business as well as the architecture of the home that is in Sunset Hills.

The Lemp Estate is currently a private residence and inaccessible to the public.

The City Hall of Sunset Hills is located at 3939 South Lindbergh Blvd. and the Community Center is just behind it in the same complex.

 

Categories
Events

This Week: Mid-Mod Bowling, Mythory and Vacant Property

by Michael R. Allen

A very busy week starts tonight…

Tropicanniversary
Tuesday, March 15 from 6 – 9 pm
Tropicana Lanes, 7960 Clayton Road

Tonight we celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of St. Louis’ best-known postwar bowling alley, Tropicana Lanes. All are welcome! The Tropicana owner, Tino DiFranco, is turning over 26 lanes to Modern STL fans and lowering the price. At 7 p.m., Tino and I will present a program on the history of the Tropicana and bowling culture in St. Louis. We’ve pulled together an illustrated slideshow on Tropicana and Googie architecture in St. Louis, too, which you can watch as you pick up that spare…

St Louis Mythory Tour
Friday, March 18 starting at 5:00 p.m.
Cherokee Street west of Jefferson Avenue

On Friday, March 18th Cherokee street will be alive like never before with art, music, food, drinks, and live demonstrations on almost every block as local artists and business owners collaborate to welcome over 1,500 visitors to St. Louis for the Southern Graphics Conference International.

Emily Hemeyer and I have joined together to create a series of semi-temporary kiosks highlighting bizarre sights and fantastic stories that make St Louis’ history nearly mythological. Kiosks will provide glimpses and directions to curiosities such as the sunken ship, hidden street car entrances, the Pruitt-Igoe wildlife area, buried caves, and mound formations of the ancients. Prior to city-wide distribution, seven kiosks will be “hidden” throughout Cherokee Street for conference-goers to enjoy now and explore later.

Open/Closed: Exploring Vacant Property in St. Louis
Friday, March 18 and Saturday, March 19
Old North and Hyde Park

Open/Closed: Exploring Vacant Property in St. Louis is an event that readers of this blog need to attend. The city’s first annual conference on vacant property presents an opportunity for community stakeholders, leaders, artists, and activists to strengthen their knowledge of the vacant property issue and to develop new solutions.

Panels will explore successful reuse strategies (economic and creative), community engagement, the role of city government and whether wide-scale reuse of vacant land in St. Louis is feasible. Vacant schools get a stand-alone panel at 11:00 a.m. Saturday, with Landmarks Association’s Assistant Director Andrew Weil included. On Saturday at 4:15 p.m. I have the honor of joining Stephen Acree, Hank Webber and Paul J. McKee, Jr. for a panel on “Regeneration.” With our different approaches and skill sets, the conversation will be provocative, wide-ranging and hopefully informative. Saturday night concludes with a special sneak preview of Bill Streeter’s forthcoming Brick by Chance and Fortune.

I may end this week exhausted, but between the joy of bowling, the amazing display of creativity Friday and the intense examination of our future on Saturday you should end it with a sense that anything is possible in this big city called St. Louis.

Categories
Historic Boats Mid-Century Modern

Admiral Reaping Scrap Windfall

by Michael R. Allen

St. Louis Marine, owner of the S.S. Admiral, got lucky: the company is scrapping out the mostly-metal boat at a time when scrap value is up. According to one observer, the scrap weight of the Admiral is 3300 tons, and the cost of dismantling is about $50 per ton. By the time the streamlined ex-steamer exists only in public memory, St. Louis Marine is likely to have made anywhere from $600,000 – $700,000 in scrap.

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Churches North St. Louis O'Fallon

Help Turn a Vacant Church Into a Community Center

From the Acts Partnership

The former Full Gospel Apostolic Church, built in 1913 as the Bethany Evangelical Church.

The Acts Partnership is partnering with Alderman Antonio French to purchase a beautiful, vacant, historic church building to house services for youth and seniors. The response has been great since we first put out the call for help last week. We’re almost there! But time is running out. THE SALE CLOSES ON MONDAY! So if you haven’t yet, please make a donation today to help a great 21st Ward non-profit purchase this historic vacant church building to make it a home for services for youth and seniors.

Channel 2 covered the effort this week:


The building, located in the O’Fallon neighborhood just a block away from O’Fallon Park, stands on the corner Red Bud and Rosalie Streets. The Incarnate Word Foundation, a great partner and supporter of north St. Louis, has agreed to matching generous donation so if you can donate $50 today, The Incarnate Word Foundation will match your donation with another $50! So give today and help us stabilize the community and provide services to seniors and youth this summer.

Detail of bay on the church.

Donate here.

Categories
DALATC Historic Preservation Missouri Public Policy

Changes to Missouri Historic Tax Credit Pass Senate Committee

by Michael R. Allen

Yesterday the Missouri Senate’s Ways and Means Committee passed by a 5-0 vote a committee substitute to Senate Bill 280 (now SCS SB 280), which would implement many of the Tax Credit Reform Commission’s recommendations. The new version of the bill takes the bill from 109 to 254 pages, and tacks the Compete Missouri legislation (SB 279) onto the bill.

Included among SCS SB 280’s numerous policy changes are several that would change the state historic tax credit for the worse. Here is a summary of the changes:

  • Caps all annual issuance of historic tax credits at $75 million;
  • Sunsets Missouri’s historic tax credit after August 28, 2015 unless the legislature re-authorizes the program;
  • Prohibits “stacking” of historic tax credits with Low Income Housing Tax Credits and Neighborhood Preservation Act tax credits;
  • Authorizes the Department of Economic Development to define an “applicant” for the credits;
  • Permits only qualified rehabilitation expenditures (QREs) incurred prior to issuance of the tax credits;
  • Establishes a limit of $50,000 in tax credit issuance for an owner-occupied property, and prohibits applications from owner-occupied properties purchased for $150,000 or more.

    • The most pernicious change is the new cap formula, which does not separate small and large projects as the 2009 cap did. The result will be a system that throws homeowners, small business people and neighborhood groups in the same mix as developers with stronger political connections. This new version of the Missouri historic rehabilitation tax credit would be highly politicized, and would allow the Department of Economic Development to pick winners and losers.

    Among other sections of SCS SB 280 is the bizarre recommendation that no applications be taken for the Distressed Areas Land Assemblage Tax Credit (DALATC) after August 28, 2011. Looks like the “tax credit for one man” — a charge that Department of Economic Development officials refuted at a public forum in St. Louis in September 2007 — will become exactly that. Why not simply end the program altogether? The DAATC has a sunset in August 2013. Under SCS SB 280, applications would end this year but the program would continue to exist for another two years. I cannot pretend to understand that logic.

    Readers, what do you think? Don’t tell me — tell your state senator and Governor Jay Nixon!

    Categories
    Events North St. Louis Riverfront

    Two North Riverfront Public Meetings in March

    Branch Street Connector Public Meeting
    Thursday, March 10

    5:30pm – Branch Street Walk-Through
    6:00pm – Meeting and Visioning Session

    LOCATION: For both the walk-through and the meeting, meet at Old North Restoration Group Office, 2700 N. 14th Street

    The Mississippi River, the Riverfront Trail, and the McKinley Bikeway are incredible resources that are just a 10-minute walk or 5-minute bike ride from our community, but most of us rarely visit them because we don’t have safe access. Branch Street is our community’s only remaining direct connection to these assets. We need your help to create a new vision for Branch Street. Please join us for a walk-through and visioning session to identify the major issues and generate ideas for improving Branch. The meeting will include an update on the Trestle project from Great Rivers Greenway staff.

    Port/North Riverfront Land Use Study Public Informational Meeting
    Thursday, March 24, 2011 – 4:00pm until 6:00pm

    Metropolitan Sewer District (MSD) Bissell Point Waste Water Treatment
    Plant
    Environmental Compliance Building Auditorium
    10 East Grand Avenue, St. Louis, MO 63147

    The North Riverfront of the City of St. Louis (stretching from Mallinckrodt at the south end to Cementland at the north) is currently undergoing a RFP process for long-term land use planning. This area accounts for over a third of the entire Mississippi River frontage of the city of St. Louis, is home to the Riverfront Trail, proposed Iron Horse Trestle, and a good percentage of historical industrial architecture.

    Directions:
    1. Take I-70 to Grand Avenue
    2. Go east until Grand Avenue dead-ends at the front gates of the MSD Bissell Point Wastewater Treatment Plant
    3. Enter the front gates and follow the signs to the Environmental Compliance building
    4. The auditorium is located inside this building, just to the left as you enter the front doors.

    Categories
    Historic Preservation North St. Louis O'Fallon

    Scenes from the O’Fallon Neighborhood

    The 4400 Block of Holly Avenue.

    Yesterday, we conducted the first of several intensive photographic excursions needed for our survey of the O’Fallon neighborhood. By the time we are done with photography this month, we will have photographed an estimated 1,796 buildings in the area roughly bounded by Newstead/Pope avenue, O’Fallon Park, Warne Avenue, Fairground Park and Natural Bridge Avenue. Our work yesterday took us around the Plymouth Park subdivision just south of O’Fallon Park, where we walked Carter, Clarence, Holly, Red Bud, Harris, Fair and Rosalie avenues.

    Next we will write a narrative description of each building. Simultaneous to all of this work, we are examining the city’s building permit records on microfilm to learn the date of construction, cost, designer, builder and original owner of each building. This is a tall order, but needed to create a National Register of Historic Places historic district for the entire O’Fallon neighborhood.

    As we work, enjoy some of yesterday’s photographs.

    Corner two-part commercial building at Rosalie and Clarence avenues.
    The 4400 block of Harris Avenue.
    Continue reading “Scenes from the O’Fallon Neighborhood”
    Categories
    National Register North St. Louis O'Fallon

    O’Fallon Neighborhood to Become a Historic District

    Houses on the 4500 block of Fair Avenue, just south of West Florissant Avenue.

    by Starr Meek and Lynn Josse

    This article first appeared in The Northsider.

    The buildings found in the entire O’Fallon neighborhood and in O’Fallon Park should be an official historic district in early 2012. Over the next year, historians from the Preservation Research Office will be found in every part of the O’Fallon neighborhood and in archives all over town. They will be putting together the story of the neighborhood in order to nominate it to the National Register of Historic Places. Alderman Antonio French funded the project for The Acts Partnership in order to increase investment within the neighborhood by enabling property owners to benefit from historic preservation tax credits.

    This work takes place at the same time that a similar project is taking place in Penrose, meaning that almost all of the 21st Ward could be included in historic districts in the next year. Currently, Holly Place — the 4500 block of Holly Avenue — is the only historic district in the ward.

    A house on Algernon Street facing O'Fallon Park.

    “National Register historic districts lead to tremendous benefits for urban neighborhoods,” said team leader and Preservation Research Office Director Michael Allen. “They contribute to a sense of community pride, build identity, and can bring resources and investment.” Unlike local historic districts, the proposed National Register district will not involve any additional restrictions on properties — just benefits such as Missouri’s 25% historic rehabilitation tax credit.

    This three-story commercial building on Warne Avenue once housed an upstaird bowling alley.

    The O’Fallon neighborhood has a long and interesting history. Subdivision development began as early as 1859 with the subdivision of the White family’s farm. Other major landholders in the area are now familiar names, including Shreve, Vandeventer, Carter, and of course O’Fallon. In 1875, the city purchased portions of John O’Fallon’s estate, dedicating 158 acres as O’Fallon Park in 1875. Amenities were added with the lake in the 1890s and the boat house in 1908.

    Houses on Carter Avenue.

    The development of O’Fallon Park led to development of the area just south through the O’Fallon Heights, Plymouth Park and Wanstrath Place subdivisions. Early transit lines to the area were limited to parts of Natural Bridge in the 19th century. Streetcar service was later added on Florissant, Lee, Newstead and Fair/Harris avenues. These subdivisions generally were developed between 1890 and 1930 with buildings using prevalent locally-sourced materials like decorative and standard brick, limestone, and clay roof tile. Major buildings include the Boathouse in O’Fallon Park, Holy Rosary Church and Full Gospel Apostolic Church.

    To be listed in the National Register of Historic Places, a neighborhood must have significant architecture or history. O’Fallon retains a consistent density and use of common building materials that unites the neighborhood. The entire process will take a little more than a year from project beginning in February to its end next spring.

    The Full Gospel Apostolic Church, built in 1913, at Rosalie and Red Bud avenues. Currently The Acts Partnership is raising funding to acquire the church for reuse as a community center.

    Oral History Project

    As part of the survey and historic district project, the Preservation Research Office is conducting interviews with O’Fallon residents. Our intern Christian Frommelt, a senior anthropology major at Washington University in St. Louis, has a special interest in oral history that we are utilizing this spring. The historians especially want to get stories from long-time residents. Since much of the neighborhood was built a long time ago, the team wants to make sure that current residents are also part of the recorded history of O’Fallon. Team members will collect residents’ stories about the neighborhood at the Acts Partnership office at 4202 Natural Bridge throughout the spring.

    Categories
    Historic Preservation Public Policy

    Congress Looking at Cuts to Preservation Funding

    From Preservation Action

    Avoiding a government shutdown, earlier this week Congress passed a two-week Continuing Resolution extending federal funding until March 18th. Addressing many lawmakers’ calls for spending cuts, the CR eliminates $4 billion in funding. Historic preservation programs were spared the “axe.”

    Unfortunately lawmakers must still decide what to do about spending for the balance of FY 2011 and there is still widespread disagreement between legislators who want to see substantial cuts (such as the $61 billion proposed in House-passed H.R. 1), and those who want few or no additional cuts for the balance of the year — instead focusing on FY 2012.

    As we have been reporting, the House CR (which the Senate immediately rejected), would have eliminated funding for the Save America’s Treasures (SAT) and Preserve America programs but spared funding for National Heritage Areas. It would also have made sweeping cuts to the Community Development Block Grant program, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. It would also have made cuts to the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

    At the same time lawmakers are trying to find a compromise to wrap-up FY 2011, hearings began this week on the President’s proposed FY 2012 budget — which recommends increasing funding for State and Tribal Historic Preservation Offices and eliminating funding for SAT and Preserve America and cutting funding for Heritage Areas in half. Yesterday, the House Committee on Natural Resources conducted a hearing on the President’s proposed budget with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. In his testimony, Salazar mentioned the proposed cuts:

    Examples of the tough decisions made in 2012 include terminating the $7.0 million Rural Fire Assistance program which is duplicative of other fire assistance grant programs managed by the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Agriculture. The National Park Service’s Save America’s Treasures and Preserve America programs are eliminated in 2012 to focus NPS resources on the highest priority park requirements. The NPS Heritage Partnership Programs are reduced by half to encourage self-sufficiency among well-established National Heritage Areas while continuing support for newer areas.

    A central theme to his testimony was the America’s Great Outdoors initiative which he said “…can support a renewed and refreshed conservation vision by working in collaboration with [those] … who are working to protect the places that matter to them and by engaging people across the country in conservation and recreation.” The centerpiece of the AGO initiative is a call for full-funding ($900 million) for the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Several other hearings will be taking place next week.

    Preservation Action opposes the proposed cuts in the President’s Budget as submitted, but supports the modest increases to State and Tribal Historic Preservation Officers. Next week, at Lobby Day, Preservation Action and its partners will be advocating for: $50 million for State Historic Preservation Officers; $11 million for Tribal Historic Preservation Officers; and $9 million for Save America’s Treasures and Preserve America. Recognizing the current budget climate, collectively this $70 million budget request is actually ten percent less than total program funding for FY 2008.

    Categories
    Events

    Next Sunday: “Bound For the Promised Land”

    This year, the Old Courthouse Players follow the paths of three St. Louisans who journeyed to the West…

    As always, NiNi and Sheila Harris have prepared a script taken straight from the words of the historical figures themselves. Figures with surprising St. Louis connection in the play include Buffalo Bill Cody, who met his future wife and city native Louisa Frederici in St. Louis’ Frenchtown district, to German-American Otto Barby, whose path to becoming an Oklahoma land baron began in south St. Louis.

    Those with any doubts about the entertainment offered by a historical radio-style play should note that this will be the Old Courthouse Players’ first play to make use of sound effects.  Perhaps  also the players themselves will draw at least one person; the cast includes Michael Allen, Jennifer Clark, Doug Dunphy, Jennifer Halla, Joan Hempen, Annette Hudson, John Knoll, Bob Officer, Craig Schmid and Debbie Wheeler.