Category: Downtown

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Architects Downtown

The Presence of Taylor and Enders

by Michael R. Allen

Stand at the corner of Eleventh and Washington streets in downtown St. Louis, and face north. On your right, across a parking lot, is the Catlin-Morton Building, built in 1901. Ahead, across another parking lot, is the Hadley-Dean Building, built in 1903. To your right, at the northeast corner, is the Bee Hat Company Building, built in 1899. On your immediate right is the robust Merchandise Mart Building (originally the Liggett and Myers Building), built in 1888-9.

As you scan these buildings, you will notice similarities: heights around seven stories tall, deft articulation of the masonry walls of the buildings, repeated arches, Classical Revival ornament balanced with modern forms. The bearing-wall Merchandise Mart has to be the finest Romanesque Revival building downtown, and the Hadley-Dean’s austerity anticipates the arrival of modernism in St. Louis.

However, these buildings share something more fundamental: the same architect, or perhaps architects. These buildings were designed by the prolific Isaac Taylor and his chief draftsman, Oscar Enders.

In a downtown marked by demolition, it seems rather fortuitous to the legacy of Taylor and Enders that their buildings remain such a strong presence. On the 1000 block of Washington, the Merchandise Mart occupied the entire southern side of the block while the north side, including the later Dorsa Building, is book-ended by Taylor and Enders’ designs of the Bee Hat Company Building and the Sullivan (alter Curlee) Building at Tenth and Washington, built in 1899.

Of course, other Taylor and Enders works have not been so blessed; the Columbia Buidling at Eighth and Locust was cut down to two stories in 1977, and the Silk Exchange Building at the southwest corner of Tucker and Washington burned and was demolished in 1995.

Categories
Downtown Infrastructure South St. Louis Streets

Median Planters

by Michael R. Allen

Before the new Downtown Economic Stimulus Authority rushes to order new median planters for Tucker Boulevard downtown, its members should make an inspection of the results south on Tucker between Chouteau and Lafayette. There, the new median planters do more than serve the needed purpose of slowing traffic. The planters are too tall, blocking the view across the street and reinforcing the divide between the King Louis Square development and LaSalle Park. Being made of concrete, they are starting to get scuffed by cars — and even without scuffing are bland.

And, while I am sure that downtown plantings would get more care, the median plantings on 14th Street nearby — more sensibly planted on lower, curb-style medians — are decidedly shabby and overgrown. It’s amazing that in three short years the “beautification” plantings on 14th Street would already be so carelessly untended and the pattern of neglect that plagued the Darst-Webbe project would begin to return. Alas, one cause may be that 14th Street has been narrowed and traffic has been shunted west to the barren Truman Parkway. While broad thoroughfares like Tucker are generally disruptive, narrowed streets with obstacles like 14th Street often become dead spaces due to a lack of traffic. That seems to be what has happened to 14th Street, although it does not excuse the lack of maintenance.

A better idea for both the medians on Tucker and the plantings on 14th Street might be fewer exotic plantings and more native plants, and less elaborate plantings in general. Streets need beautification, but their primary purpose is the movement of people and vehicles. Contrary to city-in-a-garden musings, the street is no landscape. Why not focus instead on the quality of pedestrian experience?

Hopefully improvements on Tucker will be sensitive to the needs of street and sidewalk users, and not showy disruptions.

Categories
Downtown Midtown South St. Louis St. Aloysius Gonzaga

Random Notes

by Michael R. Allen

A few random notes:

  • Thomas Crone has found much of the material salvaged from St. Aloysius Gonzaga Church — in a new bar on Manchester Avenue fittingly called “The Church Key.” Read his review of that new establishment here.
  • Some readers may have noticed that the Syndicate Trust Building is undergoing both removal of its older coats of paint and repainting. Apparently, the cost of total restoration is prohibitive because the old paint damaged the original buff brick quite badly. The new paint is similar in color to the old paint, and returns the monochrome look to the building.
  • Long-needed rehabs of the Metropolitan and Woolworth’s buildings in Midtown are on hold. Meanwhile, with the completion of the new building on Live just west of the Continental Building’s parking garage at a similar height to that garage and the Scottish Rite garage across the street has an ill effect. While before vacant land took away from the visual quality of the block, now bland architecture and a lack of variety in form and height give the block the feel of a wind tunnel. The new building is a modest contemporary structure that is the least offender compared to the two dreadful parking garages, neither of which has any street-level retail. Add to the mix that the Continental Building’s storefront remains empty four years after the building re-opened — wasn’t that supposed to be space for an “upscale restaurant”? — and Olive Street just west of Grand is a very poor place to be a pedestrian these days. Once upon a time, this was the busiest intersection in the city and observers thought Midtown would be the “second downtown.”
    • Categories
    Art Downtown

    Toynbee Tiles in St. Louis

    by Michael R. Allen

    Have you ever seen one of the “Toynbee tiles” in St. Louis while walking around downtown St. Louis? I have spotted one on Chestnut Street near Kiener Plaza, and one around the Railway Exchange Building at Sixth and Olive streets.

    In case you are wondering what I am talking about, let me explain. In several American cities for the last 25 years, strange linoleum tiles have appeared embedded in downtown streets, usually at a crosswalk.

    The tiles carry the strange message: “Toynbee Idea: In Movie 2001, Resurrect Dead on Planet Jupiter.”

    An artist is making a documentary about these strange urban artworks, whose creator remains unidentified. Read the story transcript from NPR for more information.

    Categories
    Downtown

    KielCenter Acquires YetAnother FunnyName

    by Michael R. Allen

    Did ScotTrade champion the 1923 bond issue? Did Savvis use his stature to endorse much-needed reform to the government structure of St. Louis?

    Of course not. These are accomplishments of Henry Kiel, Republican mayor of St. Louis from 1913 until 1925. The eponymous Kiel Opera House and Auditorium, built in 1934, has stood diminished in both building and name for years now. The city wrecked the auditorium section of the building in 1991 to build the new Kiel Center hockey arena, and the leaseholders of the arena soon sought to lease naming rights. The creepy-sounding Savvis purchased the name in 2000, and the compound-named ScottTrade just purchased the name and is calling the arena “ScottTrade Center.” When Savvis purchased the name, Bi-State Development Agency had to rename the Kiel Center MetroLink station “Civic Center Station.”

    Perhaps if the company names that have appeared on the arena were less ridiculous than “Savvis” and “ScottTrade,” I would believe that the arena bore a respectable name. As it is, I am embarrassed to think that my city would have the name “ScottTrade” on a building that is technically a public building and that once was named for one of the best St. Louis mayors ever.

    Of course, the name sale generates revenue for the owners of the arena lease, who in turn can generate sales tax revenue for the city government and economic activity. But should the name of a public place ever be available for purchase? While some fees are generated, the purchaser of naming rights is using a building belonging to the public to support a perpetual and prominent advertisement. The gains to ScottTrade upon the new name are far greater than any to the general public — and that’s an arrangement that runs counter to the legacy of Henry Kiel, who oversaw the largest public works effort in the city’s history. How ironic that his name would be stamped out for the clumsy, generic corporate moniker ScottTrade.

    Categories
    Architecture Downtown Historic Preservation

    The Marquette Building Has a Cornice Again

    by Michael R. Allen

    The cornice is returning to the Marquette Building at 314 North Broadway in St. Louis. At least, a fiberglass-based replication of some of the original cornice details is being installed by the Lawrence Group. The new cornice’s bracket detailing matches the original, but the projecting frieze had detailing not present on the replica, on which that area is flat. Even an incomplete cornice replication is a novelty among historic rehabilitation projects these days, since few other developers replicate removed cornices. (Pyramid’s recent renovations of the Curlee and Mallinckrodt buildings on Washington Avenue come to mind.)

    The Monward Realty Company built what would become the Marquette Building from plans by renowned local firm Eames & Young. Completed in 1913, the building was briefly known as the Monward Building until Boatmen’s Bank leased much of the new building following the 1913 fire that destroyed their headquarters at Fourth and Washington (the site is now where the Missouri Athletic Company Building stands). The building became known as the Marquette Building after completion. An annex building was added in 1918 and expanded in 1920, but demolished in 1998 for a parking garage that was part of a terrible and failed plan to redevelop the Marquette Building. The Marquette is now under renovation for reuse as condominiums and the garage is part of the Federal Reserve Bank’s “campus.”

    Categories
    Downtown Green Space

    Idle Men in Lucas Park

    by Michael R. Allen

    In 1940, the Salvation Army opened an Industrial Center for job training adjacent to the YWCA Building at 1411 Locust Street, now the New Life Evangelistic Center. A January 1940 report from the Advisory Committee of the local Salvation Army on establishing the center notes with concern that a “floating population of idle men fills the benches in the park back of the library [sic].” This park, of course, is Lucas Park and this situation, of course, continues to this day.

    The building housing the Salvation Army’s Industrial Center, by the way, has been demolished for a surface parking lot.

    Categories
    Downtown

    "A"

    One letter in the Famous-Barr sign on the Railway Exchange Building comes down last week. Photograph by Lynn Josse.

    Categories
    Chicago Downtown

    Macy’s Letters Go Up, A Legacy Comes Down

    by Michael R. Allen

    Yesterday, crews arrived to downtown’s Railway Exchange Building to begin installation of the giant Macy’s sign that will replace the already-removed Famous-Barr sign atop the building. (Famous-Barr’s midtown warehouse already sports new lighted Macy’s signs, although at night the old signs show behind them and read “M–Y’s and “MA—S” instead of a confident “MACY’S.”) This passage of signage is the fulfillment of a year-long transition that ends the lifespan of St. Louis’ last local department store chain. Famous-Barr was an original tenant of the Railway Exchange, built in 1913.

    While the May Company had long allowed the downtown flagship to diminish in quality and allure, the store was a reminder that St. Louis was once a vibrant metropolitan city that had developed fine examples of the modern downtown department store. After the other downtown department stores — notable Scruggs-Vandervoort-Barney in 1967 and Stix, Baer and Fuller in 1984 — closed, the downtown Famous-Barr remained open and seemed like it would be open forever. Its hours cut back over the years, and its patrons were a small group toward the end. Yet the cultural value of its presence showed that downtown St. Louis still kept one tradition alive, and not in a second-rate fashion but in a particularly local way.

    Now the downtown space will be occupied by one of the hundreds of Macy’s stores, a fact that insults both St. Louis and New York. Both cities have lost the uniqueness of the brand identity, albeit slowly: the stores had long become chains, changed ownership and standardized merchandise long before Federated bought both Macy’s and Famous-Barr. Now, the slump hastens and only the most culturally deprived shoppers will be enthusiastic to shop at Macy’s, a name that now denotes only a department store rather than a certain sort of store.

    Of course, the downtown department store itself is an endangered species, and has been close to extinction since the late 1960’s. Now that downtown St. Louis real estate is highly valued again, perhaps the downtown store here is about to go extinct. The value of the Railway Exchange Building to Federated Department Stores exceeds the value of the store inside. With their move to cut jobs downtown, there will be empty office floors to remodel. The company is also planning to consolidate the store on the five lower levels of the building, vacating two floors used by Famous-Barr. Could it be only a matter of time before the store is liquidated and the building converted to condominiums? The crews working on converting the store have not been remodeling the space as much as putting a new coat of paint on surfaces. The work looks tentative, as does Federated’s commitment to downtown.

    Whatever happens to the downtown Macy’s store, the period of the urban department store is effectively over in St. Louis. We have lost our last downtown department store, a passing that even forty years ago would have attracted more attention than it does today. With the combined factors of population dispersal, market dominance by discount and specialty retailers, the retail downtown centered on the Galleria shopping mall and the May Company’s own treatment of the store, the downtown Famous-Barr is mourned by few. Contrast that with Chicago, where Federated is stamping the meaningless Macy’s brand on the meaningful and loved downtown Marshall Field’s store. This move provoked anger and a petition campaign, neither of which prevented the destruction there because neither caused any economic consequence to Federated’s decision.

    The cultural consequences of the loss of downtown department stores and of downtown commercial culture are pretty big, though. Still, as long as few people recognize those consequences (and people have had fifty years to recognize them), what difference does closing the the last local downtown department store make to all but a handful of people?

    Categories
    Downtown Infrastructure Missouri Legislature Streets

    Despite Some Flaws, MoDESA is Good for St. Louis

    by Michael R. Allen

    I’m definitely a supporter of the Missouri Downtown [and Rural] Economic Stimulus Act (MoDESA), which permits cities to take up to 50 percent of both state sales taxes and state withholding taxes generated by new development projects. The law gives cities up to 25 years to continue using this share of state taxes, and restricts use to infrastructure needs.

    As someone who works downtown and who has been walking the streets of downtown since I was a child, I am excited at the prospect for infrastructure improvements downtown. Beyond Washington Avenue, most downtown streets could use anything from repaving to new sidewalks. All of downtown could stand new street, consistent lighting — the current distribution of new, fancier lights around new projects gives the appearance that the city doesn’t feel that the basics are important for all of downtown. Much of downtown infrastructure has deteriorated past the point of acceptability.

    Of course, the city has not had the means to make big repairs. Much of downtown’s current infrastructure dates to 1950’s-era projects that were built when the city still had a residential population of around 856,000 people. The sort of public works consistency possible with that tax base is a distant memory nowadays, although completely necessary to attract new residents and business owners — and retain existing ones.

    MoDESA is akin to the State Historic Tax Credit in that it levels things financially for older areas of great cultural importance that have special economic troubles that may otherwise be exceedingly difficult to address. Like tax credits, the MoDESA money is not a subsidy but an allowance to apply revenue generated in these areas to improvement projects — and since it applies to any area in the state that matches certain criteria, it doesn’t unfairly benefit cities or small towns. It just gives them some help.

    There are political problems with using the money, and St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay has already made moves that are suspect. For instance, the first MoDESA project was originally going to be based entirely on projects by the Pyramid Companies, and was revised to include one other project by another developer. However, this proposal will target the desolate Tucker Boulevard streetscape for improvements — long overdue.

    A disappointing move on the Mayor’s part is his appointment of the local authority to oversee the MoDESA money. There are nine voting members and two non-voting members, including the mayor. The roster of the mayor’s eight appointments consists entirely of longtime political players, five of whom are members of city development boards, one of whom works for St. Louis University, and one of whom is Downtown St. Louis Partnership head Jim Cloar. Most glaring is the absence of a single downtown resident. Isn’t this the mayor who mentions downtown residents in every speech about development in the city?

    MoDESA, however, is a good thing for the city and state despite the expected flaws in its application.