Category: Abandonment

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Abandonment Fire Historic Preservation Hyde Park North St. Louis

Nord St. Louis Turnverein Burns

by Michael R. Allen

The following photographs show the state of the Nord St. Louis Turnverein on July 4, 2006 after a major fire brought about and end that long seemed inevitable. These photographs, taken by Claire Nowak-Boyd, depict a destabilized mass barely recognizable as the landmark that generations of north siders loved. Instead, we see charred wooden beams and joists amid the stub end of walls that once rose two and three stories.

Firefighters responded to the blaze at around 11:00 p.m. on Monday, July 3. The cause is undetermined, but fireworks are likely to be involved. Eyewitnesses have mentioned bottle rockets being shot into the building by neighbors, but the Fire Department has no comment.

The fire quickly destroyed the Turnverein’s oldest part, the 1879 building facing Salisbury Street. That part had suffered some roof damage in winter 2004 and its walls were partly toppled by high winds in April 2006. Left exposed, its wooden roof joists were dry; left without a roof, its masonry walls were barely held up at all.

The fire must have been hot enough to spread into the more stable 1890’s additions, and those sections were mostly destroyed except for the 1898 gymnasium facing Mallinckrodt, which lost its roof but retains stability of its masonry walls. Preservation of the shell of this section is still feasible, although the rest of the complex is basically impossible to save.

Lenders were close to foreclosing on DHP Investments, the company that had pledged to rehab the Turnverein before its founder disappeared in April. A rehabilitation project may have happened, but no one will know for sure now. The Building Division will likely begin an emergency demolition in the next two weeks, and will probably take down the entire complex.

Total demolition would be a shame. Although the disparate parts worked visually as a patchwork whole, the 1898 gymnasium could stand as a stern reminder of what once stood at the site. However, the current state of the Hyde Park neighborhood is too grim for such reminders, and is under so much duress that there is no time or money to make careful decisions. The “if’s” in this story are overwhelming. German-Americans who left for the suburbs, the Turner organization, the do-nothing alderman, complacent preservationists, a string of mayors who could care less and Doug Hartmann of DHP Investments all share some blame here. This end easily could have been avoided, but for inaction.

There is no rest for the north side today, or any other. At least one other historic building — this one on North Market Street in Old North St. Louis — burned on the same night as the Turnverein.

Here’s the view southeast from Salisbury at 20th:

The view along 20th Street shows how little of the building’s profile remains:

The view of the east wall of the original building shows that the extent of loss is severe:

The 1898 gymnasium addition lost its roof but retains stability:

UPDATES:

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran an article on July 5 that claims that the fire is a “total loss.” This is untrue, because the steel-structure 1898 gym remains stable and could be reserved.

A neighbor reported seeing the Henry Rollins Band, the Dead Milkmen, Naked Raygun and other bands at the Turnverein during the 1970s and 1980s when promoters booked many shows there.

Categories
Abandonment Documentation Theory

Ruins and Ideology

by Michael R. Allen

A new online journal of urban exploration, Liminal City, is in the works. The first issue is not yet published, but the site hosts an engrossing essay by Michael Cook entitled “On the Excavation of Space and Our Narratives of Urban Exploration.” His essay takes aim at the “endless cataloguing of the picturesque” by documentary photographers and writers who study ruins as well as the restoration of ruins. Cook wants more narrative and less science in the representation of urban exploration.

Not surprising, then, that Cook critiques my essay “Narrating Abandonment” (see page two of his essay) and finds my arguments too hostile to mystery and awe. However, his description of my essay’s larger point as a call for “a politics of urban exploration that would build a radical counter-hegemonic discourse” is the best summary I have read. Cook seems opposed to “civilized time,” which is all well and good except the stance side-steps every social problem ruins pose. I can’t apologize for looking at an abandoned building and thinking that it is resource that people need for shelter of lives or activities, and that the architecture of an abandoned building is socially beneficial and should be restored and conserved. The social imbalance caused by capital distribution hardly afford most people the romance of the picturesque. Exploring abandoned places is exciting, but mostly depressing; and abandoned factory reminds me of the structural un- and under-employment of our times, while and abandoned house reminds me that affordable, clean housing is scarce in this nation. Ruins can be aesthetically and experientially stimulating, but rarely to those people who live amid — or inside of — them. What some people call “scientism” others might see as steps toward resolution of great social problems. Rehabbing a vacant building often creates expensive housing, but also creates affordable housing and jobs. Romanticism is an ideology with resonance among the middle and upper classes.

Or, to put it simply for those who have been following Ecology of Absence: I once enjoyed exploring derelict buildings; now I live in one. That is an oversimplification, but it’s not far from the truth. Cook raises good points, but from a framework at odds with mine, which is driven not by my own desires but by the needs I see around me as I live in a city recovering from de-industrialization and massive decay.

Categories
Abandonment Historic Preservation Hyde Park North St. Louis

New Photographs of the Nord St. Louis Turnverein

Photographs from February 5, 2006 (Michael R. Allen)

Exterior Photographs from March 11 and 14, 2006 (Michael R. Allen)

Interior Photographs from March 14, 2006 (Michael R. Allen)

Categories
Abandonment Adaptive Reuse Industrial Buildings North St. Louis

What To Do With The Army Ammunition Plant?

by Michael R. Allen

What to do with a huge, transite-clad steel-framed building? That’s the question to ask about the Army Ammunition Plant at Goodfellow and I-70 in north St. Louis.

The answer that the Mayor offers is demolition for retail construction.

Of course, removal of the transite covering and thorough abatement would leave a highly-adaptable steel frame in a highly-interesting shape. Re-cladding in any number of materials is feasible, and the resulting big retail outlet would be less of a big box and more of a big curiosity. The rumor is that Home Depot is interested in the site. Don’t they want to open the world’s coolest Home Depot?

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Abandonment Housing LRA North St. Louis Old North

2917-23 N. 13th Street

by Michael R. Allen


Photograph by Michael R. Allen; December 21, 2005.

A lovely row of late 19th-century houses at 2917-23 N. 13th Street creates a very urban setting in Old North. Too bad that the back walls have fallen off and the owner is the city government.  I wonder how much time this lovely group has left. There is nothing stopping anyone from coming in, removing damaged sections and rebuilding the row with modern materials. This could be the site for a demonstration of historic-modern stylistic blending, but fate likely is a strong counterweight to that dream.

Once upon a time, people cared for this row. (Source: National Register of Historic Places Inventory Form: Murphy-Blair Historic District, Prepared by Landmarks Association of St. Louis, 1984.)


Around back. Photograph by Michael R. Allen; December 21, 2005.

Categories
Abandonment Historic Preservation Hyde Park North St. Louis

Neglecting the Nord St. Louis Turnverein

by Michael R. Allen

The scars of historical neglect are visible on every corner of the north side, but few of them make one’s jaw drop faster than the crumbling red brick hulk running from the corner of Salisbury and 20th streets all the way south to the corner of Mallinckrodt and 20th. This is the Nord (or North) St. Louis Turnverein, and it may very well be one of those buildings that even its admirers never mention in the future tense. Its ownership has passed to a negligent owner and it has suffered major roof collapse since going vacant nearly one decade ago. Yet it remains a powerful symbol of the lost ethnic heritage of the Hyde Park neighborhood — which hopefully has a future despite its many setbacks.

Hyde Park began as the German-founded town of Bremen in 1844, and for the first 100 years of this area’s development, Germans were involved in every aspect of civic life here. Despite annexation by the city of St. Louis in 1855 and an influx of immigrants of other nationalities, Hyde Park retained a distinctly German character. The Germans created businesses, wholesale companies, factories and saloons, built great homes and introduced some institutions of a progressive bent, from kindergarten to the St. Louis Philosophical Society (a Hegelian group that published the Journal of Speculative Philosophy from the neighborhood). Perhaps the greatest accomplishment of German social ideals was the founding of the Nord St. Louis Turnverein in 1870. (“Turnverein” is German for gymnastic society.) The members, popularly called Turners, formed the association not only to promote physical health but to promote socializing and civic participation among the working and upper class Germans of Hyde Park.

In 1879, the Turnverein built its first building at 1926 Salisbury fronting Hyde Park itself. This two-story red brick building was built in an Italianate style with a half-mansard parapet wall on its symmetrical five-bay front elevation. Storefronts for rental income faced Salisbury in the two bays to the east and west of the center doorway. Behind the front elevation sat the large gymnasium with its arched roof. This stately building, designed by architect H.W. Kirchner, still stands and has suffered the most damage of the portions of the Turnverein complex.

The new building opened one year after the Turnerbund, the national coordinating organization for Turner societies, moved its office to the temporary Hyde Park home of the Nord St. Louis Turnverein. St. Louis Turners played an important role in the national organization, and were notably progressive in their outlook. They urged passage of successful resolutions calling for the direct election of United States senators (years before that actually occurred in 1913), child labor restrictions, workplace and health inspections and the right to recall and referendum. The Nord St. Louis Turners pushed for adoption of physical education in the St. Louis Public Schools, which was established in 1883. They also advocated installation of public playgrounds around the city.

The Nord St. Louis Turnverein served as a popular civic center for German Americans living on the north side. Widespread use necessitated additions to the first building. A three-story Romanesque Revival addition built in 1893 behind the first building included a bar, meeting rooms and lounges. The addition featured a center arch proclaiming the name of the Turnverein. An 1898 gymnasium addition in the same style facing Mallinckrodt Street, connected over the alleyway with a bridge, expanded the Turnverein building to a full block in length. Turner Oscar Raeder designed the additions while Turner A.H. Haessler served as contractor.

The Turnverein prospered for decades into the Twentieth Century as the acknowledged center of German social life in the neighborhood. The Mallinckrodt Chemical Company, owned by the German Mallinckrodt family, held its board meetings at the Turnverein into the 1980s despite the availability of fancier locations with air conditioning. However, German culture in the city declined following World War I, through political suppression as well as inevitable assimilation. German Americans also joined the flight to the suburbs after World War II. By the 1960s, the Turnverein was renting its space to other organizations, including Veterans clubs. Regulars held on, and the bar remained a good, safe place in the neighborhood for a drink. The bar had no tolerance for fighting, but would serve minors who were employed at the factories on the north riverfront. As former underage patron told us, the Turners figured that anyone “doing a man’s work could have a man’s drink.”

In the early 1980s, the Turnverein enjoyed some renown as a venue for punk rock shows that drew young people to Hyde Park, some for the first time. A nascent rehab effort in the neighborhood and the shows seemed to indicate a better future for the Turnverein, but neither lasted. In 2000, the Nord St. Louis Turnverein closed its doors for good. The buildings already had many problems from deferred maintenance, and quickly deteriorated. The Turners sold the buildings to a non-profit that wanted to revive the buildings for a cultural center, but that group dissolved and somehow DHP Investments LLC ended up with ownership. They have done nothing to repair the buildings; in fact, they allowed the roof on the first gymnasium to collapse and have left the doorways wide open. Inside, the wooden floors have buckled, joists sag and even exterior brick walls have spalled to the point of failure. The condition is so poor that rehabilitation will surely cost several million dollars. Still, much of the interior retains original features and could be made to be very attractive again.

Alderman Freeman Bosley, Sr., whose ward includes the Turnverein, has expressed interest in using eminent domain to remove the buildings from the ownership of DHP. Bosley has no specific details on who would then own the buildings and how they would be restored, but he has told constituents that he would like to see a comedy club open in the Turnverein. Whatever happens needs to happen now. The Germans are not returning in large numbers to the now mostly African-American neighborhood, but their grand hall is part of our polyglot heritage that honors everyone through preservation.

Photographs from May 20, 2005 (Michael R. Allen)

Some Turnverein Documents
Categories
Abandonment Historic Preservation North St. Louis Old North

Good News in Old North

by Michael R. Allen

Some great news: The Old North St. Louis Restoration Group has now closed on both of its loans for its North Market Place development, which includes construction of 41 new homes and rehabilitation of several old buildings. Credit goes to the Restoration Group for rehabbing several buildings that had been approved for demolition and were in advanced states of deterioration.

Look for lots of activity on Benton, North Market and Monroe Streets between Hadley and North Florissant this fall and spring. Rebuilding neighborhood density is always interesting to watch, but rarely heartening. This project is encouraging. While the new homes use some materials that I do not find appropriate, their design, scale and — most notable — lot placement (close to the sidewalk, close to neighboring buildings) are compatible with the neighborhood.

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Abandonment Demolition Fire Martin Luther King Drive Wells-Goodfellow

5900 Block of Martin Luther King Boulevard

by Michael R. Allen

South face of the 5900 block of Dr. Martin Lutherk King Drive, 1998. Photograph by Don De Vivo.

Don De Vivo took these photographs of this St. Louis block in 1998, capturing conditions that have only worsened in the course of seven years. This block is part of a long commercial corridor on Martin Luther King Boulevard that straddles the cities of St. Louis and Wellston, an industrial suburb experiencing severe economic depression. De Vivo, a developer and real estate broker who owns six properties on this block, has been working to stabilize the physical conditions here and renovate his buildings since 1986, when he made his first purchase in the Wellston Loop area. Recently, De Vivo and others formed a nonprofit development corporation, the Wellston Loop Community Development Corporation, to jump-start redevelopment of the commercial district on Martin Luther King Boulevard in the Wellston Loop.

Note that the large commercial building seen recently burned in February remains partly standing in October. This building is adjacent to a former branch of the J.C. Penney store, built in 1948 as a rare example of a well-defined International Style building in a neighborhood commercial district. The J.C. Penney store building still stands, although it has been ravaged by years of abandonment.

Photographs from February 2, 1998

Photographs from October 8, 1998
Categories
Abandonment Hyde Park North St. Louis Schools

Irving School in Hyde Park

by Michael R. Allen

The Irving School at 3829 North 25th Street, named for popular 19th century writer Washington Irving, has stood at the western end of the Hyde Park neighborhood for 134 years. Opening in 1871, the school was the St. Louis Public School District’s second school (Clay School, also located in Hyde Park, being the first). Originally, this elementary school had a staff of six teachers including one who spoke German for teaching the many neighborhood children who did not yet speak English. The presence of the German-speaking teacher was a conscious effort to get the many German families in this neighborhood integrated into “mainstream” civic life. This was no easy feat — after all, Hyde Park was originally laid out only a few years earlier, in 1844, as the town of Bremen and remained heavily populated by Germans.

Not surprising is the fact that the architect for the main building of Irving School was German-born Frederick W. Raeder, then serving as the District’s first official architect. Raeder was a recent transplant, too, having arrived in town in 1867 from Germany. His design, a plain yet stately red-brick original Italianate building, has a striking unique feature: each of the twelve classrooms was located at a corner. This move to ensure that ample light reached the classrooms led to the three-story height and the many large windows.

As part of his work with the District, Raeder later designed Gratiot School as well as Des Peres School, site of the nation’s first kindergarten. The two-story Des Peres school building, completed in 1873, is still extant in Carondelet, and bears some resemblance to Irving. Gratiot School, located near the intersection of Hampton and Manchester avenues, housed the district’s archives for many years until it was closed and sold during the 2003 round of school cutbacks. It still stands.

Irving School was expanded in 1891 and 1894. A three-story addition built on the west side of the original Irving building is almost indistinguishable in material and style from its parent structure. The kindergarten building, which added eight rooms to the building, adds a gentle stylistic difference to the complex. With a rusticated stone water table, catalog-ordered ornamental brick and arched windows, this addition is a modest Romanesque Revival endeavor that harmonizes with the older building.

Irving School still in use, 1978. (Source: Landmarks Association of St. Louis Collection.)

In 1994, the District closed Irving School. The District placed the complex up for sale in 2003, but has yet to accept any offer.

Categories
Abandonment East St. Louis, Illinois

Elks Club / East St. Louis Public Library

by Michael R. Allen

In 2000, the East St. Louis Public Library left behind its cramped old building at 409 North Ninth Street for a spacious new building on the western end of State Street. Fifty years earlier, such a move could have been seen as a flight from the aging inner city and into the newer parts of town. Instead, the move was purely pragmatic — yet not without pathos of an unexpected sort.

The Public Library left at least 10,000 books behind, as well as magazines and record albums. Making matters worse, no one realized these items were left behind for almost four years.

During this time, the left-behind items endured the ongoing damage the old library building has sustained: broken windows, water infiltration and the carelessness of numerous squatters. A few thousand volumes are too moldy to save. Much of the neglected collection was already unusable when library director Cynthia Jones discovered their location. A patron’s request for a missing item led staff to the discovery that so many items were missing that they had to have been left behind when the library moved.

A citizen’s group organized by Reginald Petty recovered 3,000 volumes in summer 2004 before East St. Louis Mayor Carl Officer pledged to put city government resources to work to save the remainder of the abandoned collection. Unfortunately, his pledge has not been fulfilled; the continuous upheaval in city government has stymied any efforts on his part to save the volumes. Thus the abandoned books in the abandoned library were found and then lost again.

Photo taken on May 8, 2005.

The old library building was the second home for the East Saint Louis Public Library, purchased by the city government from the East St. Louis Elks Club in 1927 for $150,000. The Elks Club built the building around the turn of the century for their meeting house.