Project Summary: Volunteers will complete a variety of landscaping tasks to beautify the cemetery in which veterans of the Civil War, the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, and the Korean War are buried.
Project characteristics: Renovation, Revitalization and Repair, Environment (including landscaping and yard work), Community Enrichment (including Arts and Culture)
After over a year of research, filming, interviews and editing, Bill Streeter is set to show the world his first feature film, Brick By Chance And Fortune. Bill’s film is a humane endeavor, starting with a very moving story of personal love for brick architecture from artist Sheila Harris and moving through topics as diverse as the history of St. Louis clay mining, the impact of hydraulic press brick production on vernacular architecture, historic preservation and — as sung out powerfully in the soundtrack by Pokey LaFarge — brick thieves.
Above all else, this film is a look at the human dimension — why we built such great architecture in fired clay, and why we so fiercely defend brick buildings today. Bill uses interviews to form a narrative arc that joins different voices that bring together the variable parts of our city’s indelible link to a seeming common building material.
Read more about the film at its website. The “brick film” debuts on Sunday, August 14 at 4:30 p.m. as part of the St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase at the Tivoli Theatre. Order tickets online here.
This weekend, East St. Louis is celebrating its 150th anniversary with a two-day program of events. All events take place at the East St. Louis Higher Education Center, 601 James R. Thompson Boulevard in downtown East St. Louis.
The Ainad Temple (1923) at 615 St. Louis Avenue in East St. Louis was designed by William B. Ittner and Albert B. Frankel.
Friday, July 8, 2011: 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
11:00 Building D Multi-Purpose Room
• Ceremony to mark the transition of the East St. Louis Action Research Project from the University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign to Southern Illinois University Edwardsville; representatives from the two universities will review the history of the ESLARP program and the exciting plans for the future
12:00 Building D Multi-Purpose Room
• Brown Bag Lunch Program: Dr. Malcolm McLaughlin will be the featured speaker at this event, sponsored by the St. Louis Metropolitan Research Exchange. Dr. McLaughlin is a lecturer in American Studies at the University of East Anglia in England and is the author of Power, Community, and Racial Killing in East St. Louis, a study of the 1917 riot. Free parking in Lot E. The cafeteria in Building B will be open for lunch purchases.
Saturday, July 9, 2011: 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
9:00 a.m.
• Family History Center (Building B Cafeteria, until 2:00): bring your elders and family photos to the Family History Center. SIUE students will record participants and their memorabilia on videotape for the University Archive and website. (Participants will be asked to sign a copyright release for the videotaping.)
• History Display Area (Building D Multi-Purpose Room, until 2:00): come visit the history display area for exhibits of East St. Louis’s industrial and cultural past. These include special displays by Eugene Redmond (poet laureate of the city), Howard Rambsy (director of the SIUE Black Studies Program), Reginald Petty (renowned local historian and author), and Edna Patterson-Petty (award winning artist, whose work is on display on the Higher Education Campus).
Please come on this Saturday’s Rehabbers Club tour as we visit two Works in Progress buildings in the Tower Grove East neighborhood.
9:30 a.m.: Tour site #1: 3434 Humphrey St. 63118
Patty Maher is the owner/developer of this all brick home that is for sale for $240,000. She is almost done rehabbing the building and has used green rehabbing techniques and state historic tax credits. The building recently won DeSales Community Housing Corporation’s “Gold Brick Award” in recognition of high quality work happening here.
This spacious home will have four bedrooms, three full bathrooms and an office. Universal design techniques have been applied on the first floor which includes a bathroom and bedroom. Come learn about the work the Patty has done to modernize this beautiful building.
10:30 a.m.: Tour site #2: 2945 Michigan Ave. 63118
David searched the city for almost two years to find a property that was roomy, in an emerging neighborhood and what he calls a “livable rehab”. Now, after fourteen months of living in the attic, three general contractors and lots of paint chips, David and Tiffany are still at it, behind pace, but on budget.
The home was built in 1892 as a multi-family residence. David and Tiffany moved stairways and doorways to combine the apartments into a single family home.
David and Tiffany have done their best to re-use and repurpose as much of the home as possible. They’ve drastically improved its energy efficiency by replacing all 22 windows, adding a tankless hot water heater, converting to natural gas, updating the electrical and water lines and will soon add a white painted roof.
Cochran Gardens, designed by Hellmuth, Yamasaki & Leinweber and completed in 1953.
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Architectural historians Michael Allen and Lynn Josse, both of Preservation Research Office, will provide an overview of the history and design of public housing in St. Louis city, from low-rise Carr Square Village in 1941 through the high-rise Arthur Blumeyer Homes in 1968. The talk will cover the contributions to local public housing architecture by major designers like Minoru Yamasaki, Gyo Obata, Joseph Murphy and others. With St. Louis’ two public towers both slated for demolition in the next two years, the talk will devote special attention to the development of high-rise housing forms and features at the Cochran Gardens and Pruitt-Igoe projects. Remaining public housing buildings at Carr Square and Clinton-Peabody have been heavily altered, meaning that the last intact buildings soon will fade to memory.
Starting tomorrow, St. Louisans have the chance to view large-format versions of the dazzling and poignant images of American City: St. Louis Architecture: Three Centuries of Classic Design. Written by Robert Sharoff and photographed by Bill Zbaren, the volume is the first lushly illustrated monograph on St. Louis architecture since….well, ever. One has to reach back to John Albury Bryan’s masterful Missouri’s Contribution to American Architecture (1928) to find a volume connected to St. Louis’ built past close to the scope, reverence and beauty of this one.
We will review the volume and the exhibition shortly, but meantime wish to extend the invitation to the exhibition at the Missouri Botanical Garden opening tomorrow evening. Details follow. While the book’s format offers many page-size images, the photographs in the exhibition will be lavishly scaled. Don’t miss the opportunity!
From Louis Sullivan to Philip Johnson: A Look at St. Louis Commercial Architecture
Saturday, May 21 from 9:00 a.m. until 12:00 p.m.
The Friends of American Art and Design of the St. Louis Art Museum invite you to join us for our next program on Saturday, May 21 as we head downtown to explore some of St. Louis’ historic architecture. In 1888, the tallest building in St. Louis wasn’t a skyscraper — it was a sugar refinery. As industry demanded ever taller and larger buildings, technology evolved to accommodate it. Join us as we travel the landscape of downtown St. Louis, tracing the architect’s quest for height and mass throughout the 20th century. We’ll look at warehouses, power plants, industrial sites, and skyscrapers from Louis Sullivan to Philip Johnson.
Our bus will depart at 9:00am from the Museum and return by 12:00pm. We will be guided by local architectural historians Michael R. Allen and Lynn Josse. We will tour (both by bus and on-foot) some of the city’s notable landmarks. Beverages and a snack will be served. Thank you for your dedication to the arts and patronage to the Museum. Should you have any questions feel free to contact us at 314.655.5390 or members@slam.org. The tour fee is $25.
Twelfth Annual Big BIG Tour on Sunday, May 15, 2011
St Louis’ only free city-wide tour of for-sale residential properties will kick off its 2011 Big BIG Tour on Sunday, May 15, 2011 from 11am to 3pm with the City Living Expo.
The City Living Expo and Big BIG Tour starting point is St. Louis Language Immersion Schools, located at 4011 Papin St., St. Louis, MO 63110 just south of the eastbound Hwy 40 / I-64 off ramp onto Vandeventer Ave. St. Louis Language Immersion Schools is a great central location in The Grove District / Forest Park Southeast Neighborhood, allowing attendees to easily explore the Big BIG Tour properties listed throughout the City.
Make Pruitt-Igoe #1. The button’s message had an obvious irony by the time that a reporter held it to a camera in 1968. Yet as the new documentary The Pruitt-Igoe Myth makes clear, the fate of Pruitt-Igoe was intertwined with the fate of St. Louis. Few would have scorned a “Make St. Louis #1” button although its message in the 1960s would have been as naive as the wish for the 33 towers of Pruitt-Igoe.
The Pruitt-Igoe Myth plots the rise and fall of Pruitt-Igoe against a larger context of change in St. Louis. The film is particularly poignant in making clear that for the entire life span of Pruitt-Igoe, St. Louis was shrinking rapidly. Built at a higher population density than the DeSoto-Carr neighborhood they replaced, Pruitt-Igoe’s towers were built on the notion that the city would being growing, and that it would come to grips with the poverty of its residents.
Instead, St. Louis drained thousands of people and spent the 1950s and 1960s imposing a harsh and destructive spatial segregation on the region. If Pruitt-Igoe had a chance to be #1, it was a long shot. Besides, St. Louis itself didn’t fare much better.
This week The Pruitt-Igoe Myth screens at 7:00 p.m. Wednesday, May 11 and at noon on Saturday, May 14 at the Tivoli Theater. Tickets are $10. The directors and former Pruitt-Igoe resident Sylvester Brown, Jr. will take questions after each screening.
1922-24 Cherokee Street
Saturday May 14, 9 am – 4 pm ($5 admission from 9 – 10)
Sunday May 15, noon – 4: bag sale!
The collection has grown so large that it will be filling not one but two storefronts on Cherokee Street’s Antique Row. Donations can be made at the Chatillon-DeMenil House Wednesday through Saturdaybetween the hours of 10 am – 2 pm. The Chatillon-DeMenil House has operated as a museum for more than 40 years, interpreting the lives of the Chatillon and DeMenil families, their extraordinary home, and their impact on local history and national developments. For more information visit www.demenil.org or call (314) 771-5828. The House is located at 3352 DeMenil Place at Chwerokee Street, just off Interstate 55.
