Category: Demolition

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Demolition Historic Preservation McRee Town

Folsom Avenue Blues

by Michael R. Allen

The houses at 4042 and 4046 Folsom Avenue.

The house at 4062 Folsom Avenue.

Three houses remain on the south side of the block of Folsom Avenue between Lawrence and Thurman avenues in McRee Town. Last month there were four, until the Garden District Commission had the other one wrecked.

As the backgrounds in these photographs indicate, these houses are survivors — more remnants than fabric. These houses are located in the six block section of McRee Town slated for total demolition by a 2004 redevelopment ordinance, and how they survived to the present day is pure chance. These should have wrecked in the architectural massacre that played out in 2004, and should have been gone in time for the residents of the new Botanical Heights to never get a sense of the working class vernacular that made McRee Town a special place.

Instead, the four identical two-flats remained for awhile. The flats at 4056 and 4062 Folsom had long been vacant before demolition started at 4056 Folsom last month. However, the flats at 4042 Folsom remain occupied and privately owned. The Garden District Commission intends to have all gone at some point. Of course, the architectural character of this block was once created through intense repetition. There were once 20 of these bay-fronted, castellated two story flats in a row. The effect must have been exquisite. Right across the street from the mighty Liggett and Myers Tobacco Company plant stood a row of modest rental flats whose iconography proclaimed in chorus: every person’s home is his castle!

Alas, the three remaining buildings are probably too broken-hearted to proclaim anything. Maybe there is a soft whimpering “save me,” but fate is sealed. These houses are not to stand the test of time, but be replaced with new houses whose relative extravagance may proclaim exactly the same message as before, only louder and more insistently.

Yet there is hope for other remaining sections of McRee Town: on the December 22 agenda of the St. Louis Preservation Board is consideration of the Liggett and Myers Historic District, a National Register historic district funded by the Garden District that would get the other six blocks of McRee City and related industrial property onto the National Register (again, in the case of the six residential blocks and the Liggett and Myers plant that were de-listed in 2004). The working class castles west of Thurman may get to sing for some years more.

Categories
Architecture Central West End Demolition Historic Preservation Midtown

SLU Purchases Mansion on Washington Boulevard, Plans Demolition

by Michael R. Allen

The house at 4056 Washington in 2007.

In October, St. Louis University paid $150,000 for the mansion at 4056 Washington Boulevard. The house was in foreclosure. Underneath layers of paint are the lines of idiosyncratic gilded age St. Louis architecture. Built in 1891, the house was clearly influenced by the popular Romanesque Revival style, evinced here through rusticated stone lintels and window surrounds. However, the wooden cornice has qualities of the Italianate style and the mansard roof and turreted bow evokes the French Renaissance Revival style seen in the design of St. Louis City Hall, the Frederick Judson House to the east and other buildings from the period. What a delight!

The mansion stands just west of the University’s Manresa Center, an interesting complex that originally was the site of the stately McPherson Mansion and later the Marydale convent before becoming the St. Bonaventure Franciscan friary. Since 2000, the University has owned the complex and maintained it as a retreat space. Since acquisition, the university marked the entrance with an inappropriate version of its signature gate. SLU has also purchased all lots between the Manresa Center and the mansion at 4056 Washington.

Demolition of the Saaman-owned houses underway in April 2007.

This block was once an elite street in the emerging Central West End, but the glory days have long since passed. Most of the block’s parcels are now devoid of buildings. In 2007, Saaman Corporation infamously wrecked three houses on the north face of the block to deal a huge blow to the historic character of the street. Hopefully SLU will not make a similar move with its newly-acquired building. Perhaps the university could incorporate the house into the Manresa Center, adding extra space and helping to retain some of the center’s dwindling historic context.

UPDATE: As Vanishing STL discovered, the university applied for a demolition permit on December 4. Alas.

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Demolition Hyde Park JNEM North St. Louis Riverfront

Long Lost: First Home of Bremen Bank

by Michael R. Allen

The following scanned clipping comes from the January 9, 1949 edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Some readers know of the 1927 Bremen Bank building diagonally across the intersection of Broadway and Mallinckrodt streets; that lovely historic building remains the home of the Bremen Bank.

This clipping is interesting because its caption tells the story of what has happened to large buildings built for specific large tenants when the original tenant moves out. First another large user might come along, with a less prominent use of the space (her, a real estate office). Then comes a second wave of office use, and further depreciation of value. Finally, the property is eyed for a larger development. The story here ends a few months after this blurb appeared in the newspaper. After Mallinckrodt purchased the lovely old bank building, it wrecked it. While the blurb mentions federally-subsidized atomic energy activity, Mallinckrodt actually wrecked the Bremen Bank for a worker parking lot. To this day, the site remains vacant save a small building built on the east end if the parcel in 1994.

In 1949, such industrial expansion along Broadway north and south of downtown was not uncommon. Such expansion came on the heels of the 1947 city Comprehensive Plan, which streamlined land uses to industrial in formerly mixed-use areas along the riverfront while calling for a zoning plan that would allow such anti-urban uses as surface parking on a major thoroughfare. Alas, that zoning plan remains in place, while the land use plan finally changed in 2005. Also remaining is the notion that industrial sites need to spread outward, surrounded by parking and open land, and not be more integrated into city neighborhoods. A clipping like this demonstrates that there are formidable constants in historic preservation and urban design. Nearly sixty years later, a lot remains the same.

North Broadway around Bremen Bank, however, does not remain the same. Mallinckrodt’s expansion — much of it for parking — erased most of the pedestrian quality of that street scape. Besides the bank, only a few other small businesses are open there. Interstate 70 forms a barrier between this area and the populated section of the Hyde Park Park neighborhood to the west. The city government officially draws the Old North and Hyde Park boundaries at I-70, further enforcing the separation. Had things progressed differently, the old Bremen Bank could have been retained along with other buildings on Broadway, with Hyde Park connected to its major employer and to the riverfront.

What is puzzling is that at the same time the 1947 Comprehensive Plan’s call for creating an industrial wall along the river was being drafted, civic leaders were also plotting the construction of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial downtown in order to improve the central riverfront. Did no one see the conflict between the policies? There was already an organic urban connection to the river, and it could have been enhanced as the city began its loss of industry. Industrial expansion policies — and, I should point out, the Memorial itself — decimated the street grids, neighborhoods and buildings that bound the city to the Mississippi. The long-term consequences of the old policies are haunting us today. And we don’t have as many resources like the Bremen Bank building around to help reconnect us to the riverfront as we started with.

Categories
Academy Neighborhood Demolition Lafayette Square North St. Louis Preservation Board Shaw South St. Louis St. Louis Place

Preservation Board to Consider Five Demolition Proposals on Monday

by Michael R. Allen

The preliminary agenda for the St. Louis Preservation Board’s regular monthly meeting on Monday, November 24 is now available. The agenda contains five demolition proposals.

Three proposals are preliminary reviews requested by the Department of Public Safety, seeking condemnation for demolition on private properties located at 1824 Warren Street in the Clemens House-Columbia Brewery Historic District (St. Louis Place), 5115 Cates Avenue in the Mount Cabanne-Raymond Place Historic District (Academy) and 3927-29 Shenandoah Avenue in the Shaw Historic District. The fourth preliminary review is requested by a homeowner for a historic garage at 1106 Dolman Street in the Lafayette Square Historic District.

Then there is a staff denial of a demolition permit for the frame 19th century house at 4722 Tennessee Avenue in Dutchtown South. A different owner went through the same motions last year, and in June 2007 the Preservation Board upheld staff denial of the demolition permit. The current owner, New Life Evangelistic Center, is a tenacious organization, so this may be the most contentious item on the agenda.

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Demolition Historic Preservation Housing LRA North St. Louis

Lost: 4405 & 4409 Evans Avenue

by Michael R. Allen

I have taken so many photographs of north St. Louis buildings that I often fall behind in tracking the subjects. The buildings shown above are a good example, since this photograph dates to August 2005, their demolition took place in 2006 and I noticed their loss in 2008.

When I stumbled upon this pair on Evans Avenue in Lewis Place I was struck by the versatility of the pyramidal turret. At left, the house at 4409 Evans Avenue uses the turret to punctuate the top of a projecting bay window.

The otherwise plain house stood out with the addition of that striking but basic architectural form. Next door, the flats at 4405 Evans use the turret in a different way.

Brick quoins and terra cotta panels adorned the Classical Revival building, but that center-placed turret was the crown. Rising above the flared gable’s peak, the turret drew the eye toward the sky, balancing the view of the building with a strong sense of the natural world around it. The architect’s skyward aspirations were immodest but also inspiring. Here, as in so many other instances in St. Louis, a building for the common person was addressing the street with architectural finery and any power above with a tall turret.

The vacant lot now on this site draws the eye downward, at ragged grass and the droppings of careless pedestrians and motorists. There is nothing transformational about the vacant lot, and no hint of any aspiration — even toward reuse of the site.

Categories
Architecture Demolition Housing LRA North St. Louis O'Fallon

Lost: Tudor Revival Apartment Building on Warne Avenue

by Michael R. Allen

The other day, I passed the southwest corner of Warne and Greelea avenues in the O’Fallon neighborhood and noticed that the apartment building once on the site was gone. The photograph above shows that building, whose address was 4225 Warne, in August 2005. The Land Reutilization Authority wrecked the building in August 2007. Vacant since 1991, the building deteriorated badly under the ownership of Jourdan and Jo Ann Jordan who finally defaulted on taxes, although the couple took out small building permits for work in 2004. Once LRA obtained the property, the roof was missing over half of the building, with massive water damage inside.

So went one of the city’s most picturesque multi-family buildings. The Tudor Revival building had a sense of whimsy, as evidenced by the irresistible small turret and the crenellation. The differentiation of setbacks also showed a smart sensibility on the part of the architect. From among a cluster of modest frame buildings arose this masonry jewel on Warne Avenue. Just west, on the opposite side of the street, is Harrison School. Just north is the commercial strip on Florissant Avenue with its southern dip down Warne. This building clearly intended to line up alongside the fancy commercial buildings and hold its own architecturally. For many years, it did.

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Architects Architecture Demolition Downtown Forest Park Southeast Historic Preservation LRA Missouri St. Louis Board of Aldermen

Odds and Ends

by Michael R. Allen

MCPHEETERS WAREHOUSES NEARLY GONE: The McPheeters Warehouses on Leonor K. Sullivan Boulevard, subject of a Vital Voice column of mine published in June, are nearly gone. Demolition started two weeks ago, and now the one-story cold storage warehouse and most of the center building are gone.

SHANK SONS HONOR ISADORE: Peter and Stephen Shank have published Firbeams, a lovely website featuring the residential architecture of father Isadore Shank.

KIEL PROGRESS: In the St. Louis Beacon, Charlene Prost reports on progress in the plan by SCP Worldwide and McEagle Properties to re-open the Kiel Opera House.

VACANT BUILDING INITIATIVE: As featured in a story on KSDK TV this week, Alderman Kacie Starr Triplett (D-6th) has introduced Board Bill 174, which would require owners of vacant buildings to pay an annual registration fee, carry liability insurance and secure all openings, among other requirements. Church and nonprofit property is exempt, but Land Reutilization Authority property is not. More later.

STATEWIDE PRESERVATION CONFERENCE SEPTEMBER 10-13 IN ST. CHARLES: The 2008 Annual Statewide Preservation Conference begins on Wednesday, September 10 in St. Charles. I am co-presenting a workshop with Jan Cameron of the St. Louis Cultural Resources Office entitled “Vernacular Architecture from the Stone Age to the Space Age.” Details here.

DRURY WANTS TO DO WHAT?: At Vanishing STL, Paul Hohmann reports on a bizarre plan by Drury Hotels to demolish the northwest corner of the Forest Park Southeast neighborhood for a new hotel. The plan threatens the Lambskin Temple and many historic homes. Drury will present the plans tonight at the Gibson Heights Neighborhood Association meeting, 7:00 p.m. at 1034 S. Kingshighway.

Categories
Demolition Historic Preservation Northside Regeneration St. Louis Building Division St. Louis Place

Emergency Demolition? No, That Might Make Sense.

by Michael R. Allen

The house at 1512 Montgomery Street in St. Louis Place is a perfect example of the city’s senseless approach to dealing with vacant buildings. This handsome old tenement happens to be owned by developer Paul J. McKee, Jr.’s Blairmont Associates LC, but that’s not what is notable here. What is notable is that the old building has had a severe lean to the east for many years. The building appears twisted, as if it were made of pliant red rubber. The building has also been vacant for at least a decade — not surprising, considering the slope of each floor. In December 2006, the Building Division condemned the building for demolition, putting it on a long list with a wait period for demolition funding.

During an early July storm, the gable end collapsed onto the parking lot of the adjacent Church’s Chicken. Thankfully, no one was hurt.

We all know what’s next, right? The Building Division swoops in with an emergency condemnation and demolition order, and the lot is quickly just another expanse of straw-covered dirt.

Guess again. The building still stands as of the date of writing! The Building Division has not issued any emergency order, and the owner has applied wooden and tube-steel bracing of questionable utility. (Honestly, the part of the building most likely to fall has already fallen.) Here is a house that could not be rehabilitated without complete demolition and reconstruction. Even moderate correction of the lean would cost more money than the house would ever be worth. Contrast this condition with other vacant houses in St. Louis Place and other neighborhoods that have been put under the “emergency” axe for happening to have a non-structural rear wall collapse or by literally being adjacent to a building that has collapsed after a bout of brick thievery. I’ve watched the Building Division take down structures easier to repair (and located in more desirable spots than next to a fast food restaurant) than the sad house at 1512 Montgomery Street.

There is no consistency in the use of emergency condemnation procedures. Often the decisions make no sense in regard to preservation planning or structural necessity. Discussions about how to shape a new vacant building policy in the city should examine ways in which the Building Division’s power to use emergency condemnation powers could fall under some sort of review. We have relatively weak cultural resources and urban planning laws, but what good comes from those laws often gets undermined by a quick decision over on the fourth floor of City Hall.

There needs to be coordination — not a new board, office or commissioner position, but simply a smart policy of cooperation between the Building Division, the Cultural Resources Office, the Planning and Urban Design Agency and the aldermen. As this house shows, even the most tenuous-looking building isn’t going to fall over tomorrow. There is time to make smart choices.

Update: The house was demolished in September 2008.

Categories
Brick Theft Demolition North St. Louis Northside Regeneration St. Louis Place

Cut Off, Cut Down

by Michael R. Allen


Three weeks ago I wrote about the loss of a house at 2569 Montgomery Street in St. Louis Place (see “Cut Off”, July 25, 2008). The house and the house next door were owned by companies tied to developer Paul J. McKee, Jr. and had suffered severe damage at the hands of criminals who steal brick. Now the house next door, at 2571 Montgomery Street, is gone. This photo dates to the demolition last week. Now this block is down to two remaining houses across the street from each other to the west. One of those houses is owned by a McKee holding company.

Preservation planning, anyone? It’s much cleaner and safer than demolition through the urban warfare of brick theft.

Categories
Architecture Demolition Downtown

Your Building Here?

by Michael R. Allen

When the two old stucco-covered buildings at the southwest corner of Washington Avenue and 14th Street fell late last fall, few would have guessed that the site created would be an empty, open pit this summer. The buildings fell for the proposed SkyHouse project (see “SkyHouse Raising Issues,” April 29, 2007). That project seemed like a sure thing. Now, the project is dead in the water, and the site is the subject of rumors of foreclosure. We may not see a new proposal for a 22-story building on the site, but hopefully this site doesn’t become the Bottle District of Washington Avenue — just the Ballpark Village.