Categories
Abandonment Demolition Historic Preservation LRA

Just Couldn’t Make It

by Michael R. Allen

Until last month, this modest storefront building stood at the southeast corner of Delmar and Leffingwell avenues. According to city building permits, the building dates to 1881 and was originally four stories tall. Looking carefully at the building, I detected evidence of infill of the third floor sills and window openings just below the parapet wall, which lacks a creasing course. The shortened height and partly-filled windows are obvious, marring the building’s appearance. Still, handsome details like the iron storefront and arched side windows remained evident.

Once part of a robust, dense urban neighborhood just north of Mill Creek Valley, the building and an alley house behind it fell into the hands of the city’s Land Reutilization Authority. All of its neighbors were gone. Across Leffingwell stands a large housing project, while adjacent to the east is a lot owned by N & G Ventures LC, a holding company controlled by Paul McKee. South of here is the hulking campus of Wachovia Securities, formerly A.G. Edwards & Sons. Any semblance of the historic walking neighborhood in which this building played a commercial role was long gone. The city itself lost the mometum needed to keep even diminished buildings in use.

Befitting, the building’s east wall partly collapsed in December. On February 6, the Building Division approved a demolition permit and wrecking commenced. The neighborhood could have used a corner anchor, even as one small representation of its old form. Yet the building just couldn’t make it. Besides, would the time have ever come again for this lopped-off old building?

Categories
Architecture Central West End Demolition Historic Preservation Mid-Century Modern

The Doctors Building: An Obituary

by Michael R. Allen

Streamlined and sleek, sophisticated and subtle – these are attributes of the Doctors Building at the northeast corner or Euclid and West Pine. The Modern Movement medical office building has offered a hint of space age glamor to the Central West End for nearly fifty years. Nestled among elegant Renaissance Revival apartment buildings, art deco storefronts and minimalist contemporary condominium buildings, the modernist tower provided just the right balance to the mix of jazz age architecture. Think of the Doctors Building as a minor bop number in a sea of buildings that span a range of jazz period from ragtime to tonal. The Doctors Building is that smooth, modern breakthrough that plays back to its predecessors without upstaging them and that teaches its successors a thing or two.

Too bad that’s all ending before our eyes. The Doctors Building is under demolition as I type. I wish I could report that the proposed replacement is worth the urbane environment of the Central West End, but that simply is not the case. We’re discarding modern jazz for contemporary pop drivel.

We are losing a building that is almost a time capsule from our recent past. Some would assert that the 1950s was an age of conservatism, forced conformity or destructive Cold War politics, but that view neglects to account for the cultural production of the era. How did the Beats, jazz music, streamlined industrial design and modernist architecture fit into the rubric of Joseph McCarthy and Leave It To Beaver? The answer is “not well.” More surely, the arts that persisted in the 1950s were cool and subversive of other tendencies. Artists were taking the tools of regimentation — the straight line, the machine — and turning them into expressive instruments. The best work of the 1950s plays on the tension between conformity and rebellion.


The Doctors Building straddles that fine line itself. After all, this is a medical office building — a tool of discipline and science. Yet the envelope is almost sensual — warm orange brick, window groups punctuated by aqua aluminum panels, a shiny granite base with quintessentially modern anodized aluminum details including an upward-curved canopy. Each elevation of the building is different, and on the east side wide projecting bands of brick that wrap the corners makes the wall plane sculptural. The pattern runs down the center of the Euclid Avenue elevation, marking the entrance. The tall form of the building gives way to two-story sections on the east and north, providing contrasting elements at different scales.


Of course, however attractive, the Doctors Building is no master work. It’s a minor modernist accomplishment that benefits greatly from its context. As the only tall mid-century building on Euclid, the building stands out in ways it might not had further development occurred in the 1950s and 1960s. The building avoids the swagger of Miles Davis or Thelonious Monk, falling into the background. It’s a really cool but not very showy B-side from an artist no one remembers no matter how many times they hear the name.

The building permit for the building is dated January 1955, with cost of the 11-story building estimated at $900,000. The architect was a little-known designer named Paul Valenti, who taught in the School of Architecture at Washington University from the 1940s into the 1960s. This author knows of no other work by Valenti, and has searched mostly in vain to glean biographical details. The two-story section on Euclid dates to a permit issued in July 1955; Wells and Wells, Inc. is listed as engineer on this section as well as the tower. The two-story section to the east corresponds to a permit issued in August 1961; E. Donald Goret was the architect. Erstwhile Millstone Corporation was the developer and builder of the building and its additions.


The building originally had that one distinguishing mid-century flaw: adjacent parking as part of the building design. The original adjacent small surface lot on West Pine took on its own life and grew as the owners tore down a few houses to make an unsightly large lot that inadvertently created a wonderful view in which one can see both the Doctors Building and that 1929 art deco landmark, the Park Plaza Hotel.

With the huge parking lot, the Doctors Building site proved irresistible to developers during the recent hyperactive swing in the market. The Mills Group proposed demolishing the elegant building and replacing it with twin 30-story towers of ridiculous bulk and exaggerated detail. Jazz would have been replaced with buildings that reminded me of overwrought sappy love ballads. Then the market downturn set in and the project fell apart. Unfortunately, another plan emerged – demolish the building and replace it with a shorter new building. The new building is best left without description — its designers’ strained attempts at referencing historic details like quoins and a clock tower would only be remarkable if not already tried on thousands of suburban branch banks around the country. Alas, we lose the Doctors Building for something that doesn’t even forge a relationship with the Central West End. Sophistication falls to smugness. A minor pleasure gives way to a minor travesty. Hopefully the jazzy architecture around the new building will be enough to drown out the intrusion.

Categories
Architecture Demolition Fountain Park Historic Preservation North St. Louis

Demolition Imminent at Page and Kingshighway?

by Michael R. Allen


On January 10, the city’s Building Division issued emergency condemnation (for demolition) of the landmark building at the southeast corner of Page and Kingshighway boulevards. The Roberts Brothers Properties LLC owns the building and two adjacent two-story commercial buildings. A motorist struck and toppled the corner iron column on the building, which has been vacant for a year or two since Golden Furniture moved out. The Building Division has not yet followed up with any emergency demolition permit, although such action is almost certain. (Curious Feet St. Louis reported the news awhile ago.)

The loss of the corner column has already led to significant shifting of the building’s weight downward at the corner. The brick wall shows how the bottom of the second floor is pulling downward. At the moment, this is a problem that can be corrected with a jack or another iron column. (What happened to the building’s original column? Why not just re-install it?)

The situation has become one of those self-fulfilling prophecies that dampens one’s attempt to be hopeful for the commercial buildings of north St. Louis. Here we have beautiful commercial buildings that define a major intersection, and which were in use until recently. A big-time owner lets leases lapse, perhaps plotting demolition for replacement with some silly strip mall like the owner’s project across Page. Then, an accident happens. The Building Division steps in, goes through its procedures, while the owner does nothing. The owner does not jack up the corner with a support, which would avert further damage. The corner pulls down, triggering a major collapse. The Building Division rushes in to get demolition started. The owner sits back and lets events unfold, while hatching plans for new development. Preservation and minimal code enforcement never had chances.

This is frustrating because the building is elegant and obviously in decent shape. The Roberts brothers could view ownership of these buildings as great fortune — they get to possess unique historic buildings at a major intersection. They get to take a step to ensure that north city retains the level of historic character that makes real estate in south city so valuable. They could renew a cultural resources and pave the way for long-term rising of real estate values in north city, instead of falling into the temptation to build a short-lived retail center with short-term pay-off.

The Building Division is not a preservation agency. Yet the Building Division could step in and make the owners put a support at the corner. After all, that’s stipulated by the building code. The owners’ intentions should not influence the Building Division’s enforcement. Whether or not the owners want to tear down the buildings is a moot point until there is a demolition permit. Up to that point, the division should seek to force the owners to make repairs of structural necessity.

Beyond code enforcement, preservation makes sense. Page Boulevard has many threats to corner commercial buildings at the moment, and has already lost several. Kingshighway north of Delmar is likewise losing its lines of commercial buildings. Presence of anchor landmarks sometimes makes the difference between people remembering having been to a neighborhood or not. These buildings are in Fountain Park, which possesses a memorable interior. Yet its perimeter would lose a little less character with the loss of these buildings. The oval park, the famous curved storefront, the historic homes, schools and churches present a distinct and impressive identity. A corner strip mall, festooned with a developer’s name, with litter blowing across black asphalt in front of squat little retail boxes demonstrates no distinct character and in fact could have a blighting effect on neighboring block that retain their character. Fountain Park is a little less remarkable with every lost landmark.

These buildings are inherently remarkable, too. Built between 1904 and 1908 from designs by architect Otto J. Wilhelmi, the group shows a mix of modern sensibility and Victorian-era stylishness. The two-story buildings are rather plain expressions of the commercial storefront form while three three-story building is a blend of stark iron storefronts, paired Romanesque windows with pronounced archivolts on the second floor and windows with terra cotta keystones and voussoirs that suggest the Georgia Revival style. Then there is the white glazed terra cotta ornament of the parapet, which draws upon Classical Revival styles and features a projecting acanthus and the corner and near the south end. The building permit for the building mentions a galvanized cornice, long-gone. All three buildings are clad in buff speckled brick prevalent in north city commercial architecture of the period. In all, the buildings are unusually eclectic for this part of north city — and that statement means a lot. If only the owners recognized the treasures that they already have.

Categories
Demolition Flounder House Historic Preservation North St. Louis Preservation Board South St. Louis

Preservation Board Agenda Includes Demolitions of Flounder House, Building on Page

by Michael R. Allen

The St. Louis Preservation Board meets on Monday to consider a rather short agenda.

Notable items on the agenda include:

  • Preliminary review of an application by Alderwoman Kacie Starr Triplett (D-6th) to demolish a one-and-a-half-story flounder house at 2915 Minnesota Avenue. The house, built before 1884, is an example of a true flounder house. Flounder houses have half-gabled roofs with a slope from one side of the front wall to the other. Flounder houses were popular in nineteenth century St. Louis due to the speed of construction, but few survive. Many have been successfully rehabbed in recent years, and the smaller ones seem well-suited as economical alternatives to the glut of expensive, energy-inefficient multi-family conversions. Staff recommends denial of the permit.
  • Preliminary review for a new building at 1412 Mississippi Avenue in Lafayette Square. This building would occupy one of the last gaps in the street faces surrounding Lafayette Park — the vacant lot at the southeast corner of Park and Mississippi. The Lawrence Group proposes a three-story building with heavy Romanesque massing topped by a Mansard roof with numerous dormers. The building is reminiscent of the ungainly building that houses the Soda Fountain Square restaurant. Hopefully the board and staff will provide guidance to improve the design.
  • Appeal of staff denial of a demolition permit for the building at 5100-2 Page Boulevard, subject of an earlier post in this blog. Staff recommends upholding the denial. Alderman Frank Williamson (D-26th) supports demolition.
  • Categories
    Academy Neighborhood Demolition Historic Preservation North St. Louis

    Another Fine Building on Page Boulevard

    by Michael R. Allen


    The original version of the agenda for the January 28, 2008 meeting of the St. Louis Preservation Board included an appeal of staff denial of demolition of the commercial building at 5100 Page Boulevard. This building stands just east of another building whose fate on the same agenda, 5286-98 Page. The final agenda did not include the appeal. Whether or not it returns is up to the owner of the building, Rosie Love.

    Curiosity sent me to look at the building. I was pleasantly surprised to find a sturdy three-story building with a mansard-style roof and lovely masonry details. The stepped-down parapet alongside the mansard gives the corner some pizazz, while a terra cotta cornice below the mansard has an eye-catching swag garland motif. The brick cornice on the secondary east elevation adds a less formal vertical line.


    What is perhaps most intriguing is the bricked-in storefront configuration on the east wall. Under a continuous cornice with an egg-and-dart pattern are some strange capitals; these top brick false pilasters that run vertically between the storefront opening. Looking at the painted wall closely, one can see the distinct vertical lines between the pilasters and the infill. How wonderful it must have been to have the storefront opened up to both the main and side streets!

    The building is, of course, vacant and deteriorating. It’s been empty for some time. Geo St. Louis shows records of an occupancy permit for a convenience store in 1995 and a permit for a “grandfathered pay phone” in 1998.

    The front wall has some damage at the cornice line, while missing downspouts on the rear elevation has caused severe mortar erosion. Still, there are no collapsed wall sections yet. Numerous buildings in worse condition have been spared demolition by the Cultural Resources Office and the Preservation Board.

    The Academy neighborhood (and the Mount Cabanne-Raymond Place National Historic District that encompasses much of the neighborhood) needs its commercial edges to remain strong. Delmar on the south has become a lost cause, but Page retains many corner commercial buildings like this one and the one at 5286-98 Page, which bookend rows of historic residences. With its proximity to the Central West End and its largely intact building stock, this area is bound to be an emergent rehabbing neighborhood. We need to keep the neighborhood’s buildings around for the new day ahead.

    Categories
    Demolition North St. Louis Preservation Board

    Preservation Board Spares Building at 5286-98 Page

    by Michael R. Allen

    At the meeting of the Preservation Board on Monday, January 28, the Board upheld staff denial of a demolition permit for the historic commercial building at 5286-98 Page Boulevard. Consideration of the item was somber and quick. Attorney Richard Kenney entered a compilation of all of the Berean Seventh Day Adventist Church’s exhibits, while Cultural Resources Office Director Kathleen Shea entered hers. After Kenney declined to testify, Board Chairman Richard Callow asked for a motion.

    Board member David Richardson moved to uphold staff denial. Board members John Burse, Melanie Fathman, Mike Killeen and Anthony Robinson joined Richardson in voting for his motion. Board members Mary Johnson and Alderman Terry Kennedy (D-18th) voted against.

    The next step may be Circuit Court, where any appeal of the Board decision would land.

    Previous coverage:

    Fate of Building at Page and Union Deferred Again (January 9, 2008)

    Confusion at Page and Union (November 27, 2007)

    Categories
    Central West End Demolition Granite City, Illinois Historic Preservation North St. Louis

    Demolition Threats All Over Town

    by Michael R. Allen

    Vanishing STL alerts us to the possibility that the Washington University Medical Center may demolish the Shriners’ Hospital and Central Institute for the Deaf buildings.

    Meanwhile, Curious Feet notes two impending demolitions: a large storefront building at Page and Kingshighway in St. Louis and an old bank building in downtown Granite City.

    Categories
    Central West End Demolition Historic Preservation

    Washington University Medical Center Plans to Demolish Ettrick Apartments

    by Michael R. Allen

    According to an article by Tim Woodcock in today’s West End Word, the Washington University Medical Center plans to demolish the historic Ettrick Apartments at the northwest corner of Euclid and Forest Park in the Central West End. The historic apartment building was built in 1905 and designed by A. Blair Ridington.

    The demolition is part of a campus expansion plan that hinges on zoning overlay legislation sponsored by Ald. Joseph Roddy (D-17th).

    Categories
    Demolition Martin Luther King Drive North St. Louis Wells-Goodfellow

    MLK in St. Louis

    by Michael R. Allen

    Perhaps my experience of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in St. Louis was epitomized by watching a lone wrecker. The man was palletizing bricks and stoking a bright orange barrel fire fed by millwork and door casements of the building he was wrecking. The cold did not deter his determination to get in a day’s work. The building he was wrecking? A commercial building on Martin Luther King Drive.

    The scene was a reminder of some harsh realities of this city. North side laborers, even with skills, are far more likely to find work tearing down their own neighborhoods than rebuilding them. Our city is one of many American cities who renamed a downtrodden thoroughfare for one of the greatest Americans to live, and then did nothing to staunch the decay that dishonors the name on the street. Our city’s leaders, black and white, found time on the holiday to pander and squabble while many citizens were busy earning money for food and shelter.

    Further west on the street, past Kingshighway, I encountered the relatively vibrant street culture of the Wellston Loop. People were out walking, traveling from store to store. A barbeque restaurant was crowded, with patron’s cars spread out over an adjacent vacant lot. New sidewalks were in the middle of construction, and several buildings were amid major renovation projects. That’s reality on MLK, too.

    Categories
    Demolition JeffVanderLou North St. Louis Northside Regeneration

    We’re Losing the Intersection of Glasgow and St. Louis

    by Michael R. Allen

    The lovely urban setting shown here (in a photograph contributed by Anthony Coffin) will soon not exist. Shown here, looking south, are the northeast and southeast corners of the intersection of Glasgow and St. Louis Avenues in the city’s JeffVanderLou and Lindell Park neighborhoods. The west corners are occupied by historic houses, creating a contrast that is visually arresting without being jarring. The east corners are marked by these commercial buildings — the iconic, turreted flatiron and the imposing three-story stone-faced mass across the street (subject of a July 2007 blog entry of mine).

    Adjacent to the three-story storefront building is an elegant stone-faced tenement building with mansard roof. Behind the storefront building is a flat-roofed two-story alley house — a vestige of the neighborhoods’ historic density. The group is a complementary group of particularly refined examples of old-school St. Louis vernacular forms. Across the street, the flatiron building is almost unparalleled among surviving commercial buildings in north St. Louis. Both the shape and the metal-clad turret (with surviving detail!) are singular. While beautiful in itself, the corner building is dramatized by the fact that it bookends a largely intact row of residences. Whoever designed the corner building understood how to finesse the dynamics of its lot shape and location.

    Obviously, the corner and the neighborhood have seen better days. Three out of the four corners here are vacant and owned by holding companies controlled by Paul J. McKee, Jr. After McKee bought these buildings, trouble set in. Last year, knowing that the consequences in north city are low, brick rustlers ravaged the alley house and tenement on the southwest corner. Perhaps the bricks went to a larger brick yard just a few blocks away; perhaps they went to the county. We can be sure that the bricks have long left the city and the state, and that the buildings have since suffered partial collapses.

    On December 21, the city’s Building Division ordered emergency demolition of the tenement, alley house and storefront at the southeast corner. On December 26, the Building Division ordered demolition of the flatiron and the attached city-owned house to its east. One can see that the tenement was severely damaged and that the alley house was indeed in danger of collapse. But the emergency situation of the two storefront buildings seems to be that they are near the other buildings and the Building Division needs more buildings to demolish.

    Sure, the flatiron building has some brick spalling evident, mostly on its St. Louis Avenue elevation where thieves stole decorative brick awhile ago. But where are the public safety issues with it and the other commercial building? Did inspectors go inside of these buildings and find hidden conditions necessitating demolition? Or are we seeing the careless attitude that continues to render north side residents second-class citizens when it comes to historic preservation?

    Looking at the details of these fine buildings is heartbreaking. The flatiron’s storefront, with corner entrance to store and punctuating brick arched entrance to the stairs, is odd. The metalwork on the turret shows sharp detail over 100 years after fabrication and painting. The slight height difference between the other commercial building and tenement along with the tenement’s setback accentuates the corner building perfectly. Intact wooden cornice details on this pair draw the eye upward. One could spend hours looking at these buildings — and must do so soon. These photographs date to last week; the alley house is completely gone as of this writing. Your tax dollars are, as they say, at work.

    Here are links to the demolition permits:
    2845 St. Louis Avenue (flatiron)
    2854 St. Louis Avenue (tenement)
    2858 St. Louis Avenue (commercial building and alley house)

    (All photographs by Anthony Coffin; more here.)