Author: Michael R. Allen

Categories
Gravois Park Infrastructure South St. Louis

Brick Alley Restoration Underway in Gravois Park

by Michael R. Allen

Recently I wrote about two lovely intact brick alleys in the St. Louis Place neighborhood on the north side (see “St. Louis Place: Sidewalk Plaques and Brick Alleys”, February 11). After publishing that post, I learned that there is a pilot program underway to restore 17 brick alleys in two of the city’s south side historic districts, the Gravois-Jefferson Historic Streetcar Suburb District and the Benton Park Historic District. Some work began in December in Gravois Park, and more will start when weather is consistently dry. Work will be completed by August 10, 2011.

A crew working in December 2010 on brick removal in the alley between the 3500 blocks of Louisana and Tennessee Avenues. Photograph by Eric Bothe.

When alderpeople put in requests for allocation of the city’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds, Alderman Craig Schmid (D-20th) successfully applied for $975,000 to restore and retain historic brick alleys in the historic districts of his ward. The city’s Department of Streets stopped repairing brick alleys in 1978. Subsequently, many miles of brick alleys — which are durable, made from long-lasting brick, easy to repair and moderately water-permeable — have been paved over with asphalt that comes from a nonrenewable source, is not water permeable and is expensive and difficult to repair. Paved brick alleys typically have problems with settling that new paving only compounds. The city fills depressions in brick alleys that eventually sink again, and finds itself having to pave and repave alleys that could have simply been restored. Asphalt paving destroys the integrity of paver bricks, so that even when asphalt surface material is removed the alleys cannot be restored. The practice is unsustainable and expensive.

Removing bricks in the alley between the 3500 blocks of Louisiana and Tennessee avenues. Photograph by Eric Bothe.

Meanwhile, the city no longer repairs existing brick alleys. If residents don’t want asphalt, they won’t get any repairs. Also some aldermen use allocations of paving to pave brick alleys with no problems in order to avoid having to return allocations. Schmid has wanted to retain brick alleys for awhile, but could not use existing money to do so. The Department of Streets needs to change its brick alley policy. Meanwhile, the 20th Ward is the first to experiment with restoring brick alleys using a one-time grant of federal stimulus money.

The good news is that federal stimulus money is funding a small but significant project that implements a sustainable approach to retaining brick alley paving. The project fits the goals of the Obama administration in encouraging green practices through federal spending, but it still leaves permanent policy changes up to the city of St. Louis.

Categories
Events

Wednesday: Recent St. Louis Historic Districts

This Wednesday, join our own Lynn Josse as she discusses some of St. Louis’ recent historic districts over lunch at the Cafe DeMenil at the historic Chatillon-DeMenil House. Lynn’s illustrated talk kicks off the cafe’s series of lunch time lectures.

Place: Cafe DeMenil 3352 DeMenil Place St. Louis, MO 63118
Time: 11:00 am
Lunch Special for $6.95, plus full menu available. Reservations recommended
More Information: 314-771-5829

Categories
Historic Boats Mid-Century Modern Riverfront

S.S. Admiral, RIP

by Michael R. Allen

Soon the S.S. Admiral’s streamline, art moderne superstructure may be converted into cold hard cash at the going rates as high as $300 a ton. As soon as next week the old boat may be towed away to be picked apart by the skilled hands at the appropriately-named Cash’s Metal Recycling. So goes the 71-year run of the city’s finest floating pleasure palace.

Yet preservation circles are mostly silent on the death of one of the city’s most beloved mid-century icons. Perhaps the end of the boat has seemed like a foregone conclusion ever since its engines were removed in 1979. That act tore away the best reason to set foot upon the Admiral: being able to glide up, down and around the Mississippi River while dining, dancing, courting and sparking. The Admiral’s short life as a moored entertainment center was a bust, and its subsequent use as a casino was extended not through any great affection but by Missouri’s now-defunct loss limit law that sent Lumiere Place patrons over to keep their fix flowing. The Admiral’s once-dazzling interior had long been denuded of any of the swanky swagger of yesteryear. What was left was an artifact — a riverboat left without engines, dining room, band stand or dance floor.

Of course, the S.S. Admiral was not a hopeless cause, and wild imaginations conjured future worlds in which the Admiral was pulled onshore and reclaimed with artistic license. Yet no one imagined bidding fairly on the Admiral at auction in November — not a single party. There were no last-ditch “Save the Admiral” campaigns, a fact counterbalanced by the persistent and now well-organized effort to save the earlier Goldenrod Showboat.

The swell of nostalgia that saves Historic Things did not flood over the Admiral, which may have been too young and too much a part of the unpleasant present-day reality of gambling to be a fitting subject. The S.S. Admiral’s demise points to the need for continued advocacy for parts of our built past that are within our grasp. A building (or boat) young enough to be part of the lives of many people still living should be revered because it touches so many lives still being led.

(For a personal look back at the S.S. Admiral, I recommend Marilyn Kinsella’s “S.S. Admiral, I Salute You!”.)

Categories
Census

St. Louis and the 1880 Census

by Michael R. Allen

Today’s release of the 2010 United States Census figures brings the bad news that St. Louis now officially has 319,294 residents. St. Louis has lost nearly eight percent of its official 2000 population of 348,189 people. The bad news factor has been amplified, of course, by the last few years’ worth of estimated Census counts that suggested today would bring confirmation of city population growth. Pundits and politicians now are revving up the engine of forecast, with perfect hindsight vision.

This writer has not reviewed enough of the data to make any pronouncements about what this means, but still has an observation to offer. St. Louis now has its lowest population since 1870, when the Census showed 310,864 residents. This was a 93% increase since 1860, when the city had 190,524 residents and was the nation’s eighth largest city. (Only New York and Philadelphia then had populations of more than 500,000 people.) Despite the ravages of the Civil War, the next decade showed continued explosive growth albeit at a slower pace than the previous ten years. In 1850, St. Louis had 77,860 residents, so the 1860 Census count represented an increase of over 106.5% increase. The prior two decades registered increases of 230% and 372% respectively. But those increases were made before St. Louis could rightly be called a city.

What happened in the next decade showed a continuation of impressive and explosive development in St. Louis. The city dedicated one of the nation’s largest parks, Forest Park, as well as O’Fallon and Carondelet Parks. Established parks including Lafayette Square and St. Louis Place received their first extensive improvements, making them as beautiful as any in the United States. Great breweries, factories and grain elevators rose all over the riverfront and industrial districts. The city’s first bridge over the Mississippi was opened in 1874, connected within a year by a massive double-arched tunnel to the railyards south of downtown and the new Union Depot. In 1875 the Merchants’ Exchange completed a massive, elegant new building at Third and Chestnut streets designed by Lee & Annan and containing a magnificent trading hall. Construction began in 1872 on a massive new post office and federal building designed by Alfred B. Mullet at Eighth and Olive streets. Tall office buildings, including George I. Barnett’s St. Louis Life Insurance Building of 1874 at Sixth and Locust streets, rose around downtown. Major churches in the Gothic Revival style rose around the city. Vandeventer Place was developed. New houses large and small went up everywhere, and additions were made to the city with great rapidity. In 1876, the city of st. Louis extended its physical boundary to the present limits, and many subdivisions made outside of the 1855 boundary started developing.

St. Louis in the 1870s was alive with the magnetic aura of purpose and grandeur. When the Census of 1880 was released, the population was recorded at 350,518, an increase of only 12.8% over 1870. The city fell from fourth to sixth largest in the United States. Did that number rouse boosters to issue warnings of impending decline or loss of position? Not at all. City leaders and even national observers continued to praise the mercantile prowess and architectural beauty of St. Louis. In 1884, William Bishop wrote Harper’s New Monthly Magazine that St. Louis could envision a glorious future as the center of the Mississippi Valley. Of course the city’s highest achievements were still ahead, and by 1900 it was again the fourth largest city in the nation. Still the 1880 Census indicated that national migration was trending away from St. Louis and other cities of the northeast and Midwest. Yet the city leaders of St. Louis pushed forward, regaining position, building population, changing the city charter, and — most importantly — making the city a better place through physical improvement and economic development. Surely in 2011 these remain options for St. Louis.

Categories
Historic Preservation Mid-Century Modern

Mid-Century Modern Preservation and the Generation Gap

Last night Toby Weiss and I presented a talk on mid-century modern preservation and the new group Modern STL at the Alton Area Landmarks Association‘s monthly membership meeting. Here’s a clip of Toby discussing how the generation gap plays out in the rise of the movement to preserve modern architecture. – Michael R. Allen

Categories
Events Lewis Place North St. Louis

Rehabbers Club Tour of Lewis Place Tomorrow

Detail of the Lewis Place gate at Taylor Avenue, designed by Barnett, Haynes & Barnett and completed in 1894.

St. Louis Rehabbers Club Tour of Lewis Place
Saturday, February 19, 2011
9:30 – 11:30 a.m.
Location: 4535 Lewis Place, St. Louis, MO 63113

The St. Louis Rehabbers Club will feature Lewis Place. The neighborhood is immediately north of the Central West End and was recently in the news for extensive tornado damage. Our tour will not only look at rehabs, but will also view the tornado damage to these historic properties.

Our first stop of the day is 4535 Lewis Place. The new home owner and rehabber has lots to show on the work completed. With a setback from the tornado, the property owner is eager to move forward on other projects around the house.

Next, we will move to #50 Lewis Place. This young family purchased her grandparents’ home several years ago and have done an excellent job fixing it up.

We’ll look at the damage on Enright and Newberry Terrace before visiting 4604 Newberry. This gentleman inherited this home almost two years after his 90 year old dad passed away. He has been working on this house since then and is happy to show his rehab progress.

Lastly, we’ll ride and view the damage on Page, Martin Luther King Dr, Aldine, Cote Brillian, and Evans. If time permits we will visit 4530 Evans. Work has been done on the living room, dining room and kitchen though it too sustained some tornado damage.

For more information on Lewis Place, please visit Lewis Place Historical Preservation.

We look forward to seeing you on Saturday morning. Call Scott McIntosh, St. Louis Rehabbers Club Vice-President at 314-719-6507 with questions.

St. Louis Rehabbers Club tours are FREE and are open to anyone interested in the City of St. Louis. St. Louis Rehabbers Club is program of ReVitalize St. Louis, a registered 501c3 nonprofit organization. For more information, please visit www.rvstl.org.

Categories
Demolition Midtown

SLU Removes Another Locust Street Building

by Michael R. Allen

Perhaps it comes as little surprise that St. Louis University has now demolished the vacant building at 3227 Locust Street that it owned at the northeast corner of Locust and Leonard streets on Automobile Row in Midtown. After all, the hole in the roof of the one-story corner building had grown so large that Google’s satellite images made the damage clear. Residents of the loft units across the street had an ever closer, and more graphic, view.

Looking inside of 3227 Locust Street through the front door's window, July 2010.

The hole in the roof is now a hole in the street wall at a corner intersection. Contrast the appearance of the corner in July 2010 with the appearance today:

While undistinguished architecturally, the building defined a cross-street intersection and provided continuity between the more developed blocks of Locust east of Compton and the emerging development around the Moto Museum to the west. The visual gap between these two areas has grown, at a time when even the university had embraced rehabilitation of other buildings it owns on the block to the west. This lost building had a solid masonry body and needed only a new roof. It was a sturdy shell that could have been a turnkey retail or restaurant project. Now the corner development entails new construction, ratcheting the cost of making something happen there higher than the reach of post-bubble developers.


View Larger Map

A look at the map makes the impact of what otherwise might seem to be an insignificant building clear.

To the west, a parking lot and another corner building.

To the west of the building already was a parking lot, which could have provided interim parking for any user of the corner building. How likely is infill of this block within the next five years? How much more likely was reuse of the building at 3227 Locust Street?

Across the street at 3224 Locust Street is the recently-rehabilitated Cadillac Building (1919; William A. Balch, architect)

    Amid the ebbs and flows of Locust Street’s emerging new life, there have been some amazing successes — the Automobile Row historic district designation, the new SLU-backed hotel project — as well as avoidable mistakes — the livery stable fiasco, the closure of Josephine Baker Avenue. This small demolition suggests that the area would benefit from demolition review, which it currently lacks. Most of the Locust Street business district is in the 19th ward, which is one of a handful of city wards whose aldermen opted not to have demolition review when the city passed its latest preservation ordinance in 1999. With so much vacant land whose fate is key to maintaining the urban character, a zoning overlay and local historic district ordinances could also be appropriate.

Categories
Art Events

Exhibition on Max Lazarus at the Sheldon

Max Lazarus: Trier / St. Louis / Denver — A Jewish Artist’s Fate
February 18 – May 7, 2011
Opening Friday, February 18 from 5:00 – 8:00 p.m.
The Sheldon Art Galleries

Organized by the Stadtmuseum Simeonstift, Trier, Germany, this exhibition traces the life and artistic development of the German-Jewish artist Max Lazarus (1892-1961) through over 50 paintings, lithographs and synagogue designs. An extraordinary colorist, Lazarus produced expressive works that included landscapes, portraits, and some politically charged subjects. Lazarus fled Germany in 1938, after being forced to work secretly in Germany during the rise of the Nazi party. He lived first in St. Louis, where he had a family, then moved to Denver, Colorado, where he contracted tuberculosis.

His early career is represented in the exhibition with a self-portrait, several Trier landscapes, and a number of prints. Scenes from his time in St. Louis, like views of the Old Courthouse, Grand Avenue and the United Hebrew Synagogue (now the Missouri History Museum Library and Research Center), as well as paintings that reflect the changing Denver cityscape in the 1940s and 50s, are also included. Lazarus’s story stands as an example of innumerable “disrupted biographies” that occurred during the rise of the Nazis to power. Lazarus’s life and career were disrupted twice: first by the Nazis and then by his health. He died in Denver, Colorado in 1961. A selection of Lazarus’s synagogue mural designs will be on view during this time in a separate exhibition in the Bernoudy Gallery of Architecture.

The exhibition is underwritten by the David S. Millstone Arts Foundation with additional support from Nancy and Kenneth Kranzberg, The Millstone Foundation, Gary and Sherry Wolff, Esley Hamilton and Angela M. Gonzales.

Categories
Academy Neighborhood Kingsway East Urban Assets LLC

Three More “Urban Assets”

by Michael R. Allen

In the fall, the “other” North St. Louis assemblage team picked up three more beautiful historic buildings at the Sheriff’s land tax auction. These companies are those represented by Eagle Realty Company and its agent Harvey Noble that include Urban Assets LLC, Prudent Investor LLC, Feasible Projects LLC, Diligent Properties LLC, Incentive Properties LLC and others (see “Private LRA in the Works Across North St. Louis?”, May 21, 2009). No ownership link is definite, but the companies are buying in the same wide swath of north city using the same real estate firm that handled acquisition for the Northside Regeneration LLC shell companies.

The building at 5172 Page Boulevard.

The multi-family building at 5172 Page Boulevard is located inside of the Mount Cabanne-Raymond Place Historic District in the Academy Neighborhood. The building is in the 26th Ward. Feasible Properties LLC purchased it for $3,000 at the auction held on September 21, 2010. Because the 26th ward has demolition review, and because the building is a contributing resource to a National Register of Historic Places historic district, the building has some demolition protection.

The house at 5134 Wells Avenue is at right in this photograph.

The two-flat at 5134 Wells Avenue is located on the very dense but increasingly vacant 5100 block of Wells Avenue. Feasible Projects LLC purchased the building for $2,878 at the Sheriff’s auction on September 21, 2010. The building is located in the 26th Ward. Because the 26th ward has demolition review, thanks to Alderman Frank Williamson (D-26th), the building has some demolition protection.

The house at 4946 Wabada Avenue.

The house at 4946 Wabada Avenue may be the saddest story of the three new purchases. This house was under rehabilitation, and the owner applied for a building permit after the sale to shell company Inventive Properties LLC. I suppose that party did not realize that its property taxes were unpaid for the three years prior to the auction. Incentive paid $4,500 at the Sheriff’s auction on September 21, 2010. This lovely single-family American Foursquare is the only vacant house on its block in the Kingsway East neighborhood of the 18th Ward. The 4900 block of Wabada is an immaculately maintained block — the sort of block where owners will utilize nuisance laws against a negligent owner. Unfortunately the house is not in a historic district and the 18th Ward lacks demolition review, so there is no protection against demolition of the house at 4946 Wabada Avenue.

The Eagle Realty-managed shell companies have not recorded any purchases since these three on September 21, 2010. Still, their holdings number nearly 300 parcels inclusive of over 90 historic buildings across the city’s 4th, 5th, 18th, 19th, 21st, 22nd and 26th wards. The parcels remain too spread out to add up to a real development plan, but too numerous to ignore.

Categories
Brick Theft JeffVanderLou North St. Louis Northside Regeneration

Brick Theft Before/After

We recently gave Bill Streeter, director and producer of Brick By Chance and Fortune, some 60 before and after images of north St. Louis buildings struck by brick thieves since 2005. Our photographs illustrate perhaps as little as one third of the buildings in the city destroyed through theft in that period.

Here’s a sample. For the rest, you won’t wait long: Brick by Chance and Fortune will be released this spring.

The building at 3114 Glasgow Avenue in JeffVanderLou, May 2009. Owner: Northside Regeneration LLC.

The building at 3114 Glasgow Avenue, December 2010. The building has collapsed further but the wreckage remains.