Category: Fire

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Fire Louis Sullivan

Sullivan-Designed Getty Tomb Destroyed by Fire

by Dan Kelly (Special to Ecology of Absence)

(Chicago) Early Monday morning, as firefighters played canasta nearby, the tomb of Carrie Eliza Getty burned to the ground in Chicago’s Graceland Cemetery. Investigators are perplexed as to how the solid limestone and bronze-gated mausoleum caught fire, but chose not to pursue an inquiry, suggesting that, perhaps, the corpse of Ms. Getty was operating a blowtorch. The fire also defied the laws of physics by leaping into the night sky and descending upon and consuming the Sullivan-designed Ryerson tomb several hundred yards away. Traces of fire damage and spots of urine were likewise found covering Sullivan’s tomb nearby.

“It’s a shame, really. I guess. I mean, I don’t especially care.” said local developer Vic Sharkbastard as he and a surveying crew measured the 20 foot area formerly occupied by the Getty Tomb for a future, 500-unit condo. “But, hey, these things happen.” Sharkbastard then cleaned the mud off his boots by scraping them against the gravestone of photographer Richard Nickel.

“Chicago has to go forward, it can’t go backward,” said Mayor Richard Daley. “If you’re going backward, you’re not going forward. People like the fires. They’re pretty. It’s nice to pack a lunch and watch the fire. It’s a tragic loss of some of the city’s history, but not really tragic, because, you know, you’re going forward with the fire and the lunch and not backward.” Mayor Daley then unwittingly on accident and without malice sat down on a dynamite plunger, the force of his ass starting a chain reaction of blasts, causing Carson Pirie Scott, the Auditorium, the Gage group, and the Krause Music Store facade to implode. “Oopsy. Heh heh heh,” said Daley.

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Chicago Fire Louis Sullivan

Fire Strikes Adler & Sullivan’s Harvey House

by Michael R. Allen

Yet another Adler & Sullivan building burns in 2006, scarcely a week after the Wirt Dexter Building fire. This time it’s the George Harvey House, built in 1888 and the last remaining frame structure designed with either Louis Sullivan or Dankmar Adler involved. The house is a total loss.

The owner of the home, Natalie Frank, had discussed demolition earlier this year, meeting with opposition from preservationists. She eventually announced plans to renovate the much-altered house using the full original blueprints Richard Nickel rescued from a previous owner.

The Chicago Sun-Times has the bad news here.

Lynn Becker has commentary here.

Categories
Fire North St. Louis Northside Regeneration

Givens Row Suffers Fire; Another Blairmont Blaze

by Michael R. Allen

Givens Row, the group of three limestone-faced, three-story row houses on the north side of Delmar just west of T.E. Huntley, suffered a small fire yesterday. The fire started at the eastern building in the group, 2903 Delmar Boulevard, which has been owned by Noble Development Company since September 13, 2006. The fire spread to the middle building, but was confined to the upper floor or each building. The cornices of the eastern two buildings were damaged. The western building, which is in use as apartments, suffered no damage at all.

The Italianate-style Givens Row was built in 1886 by businessman Jay Givens, who would later make a substantial donation to Washington University.

Noble Development Company is named for Harvey Noble, the real estate agent who is its registered agent. However, the company has deep ties to the Blairmont land scheme. Readers will recall that a tragic fire struck the Brecht Butcher Supply Company Buildings, owned by Blairmont Associates LC, last month.

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Chicago Fire Louis Sullivan

Another Fire Hits a Sullivan Building

by Michael R. Allen

Tragedy strikes Chicago with yet another devastating fire at a building designed by Louis Sullivan. This time, the damaged building is the 1887 Wirt-Dexter Building on Wabash Avenue in the Loop, a formative work by Adler & Sullivan. The Wirt-Dexter Building possesses a lightness of form with vertical emphasis that Sullivan would develop further with the Wainwright Building in 1891. The building also has a unique exposed system of iron piers on its rear elevation, long before the expressed forms of Mies Van Der Rohe’s buildings and almost a century ahead of the postmodern exposed structure fad.

There is no conclusive report on structural integrity after the fire. However, press quotes from Chicago Transit Authority head Frank Kruesi seem to indicate that the building, which abuts an El line, may be demolished soon.

Read more about the fire and the building in an incisive essay by Lynn Becker, Chicago’s leading architectural critic.

The Wirt-Dexter Building has been vacant for nearly twenty years, and there was little political will to find a new use for it. There may be Louis Sullivan key chains at the Chicago ArchiCenter gift shop, but that is no guarantee of the safety of any work designed by his hand. In today’s Chicago, time and time again we see that no pedigree guarantees protection of a historic building.

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Brecht Butcher Buildings Fire Hyde Park North St. Louis Old North Terra Cotta

Terra Cotta on the Move

by Michael R. Allen

According to a neighbor, a missing piece of the terra cotta cornice of the Brecht Butcher Supply Company buildings now resides in front of the firehouse at the northwest corner of Blair and Salisbury in Hyde Park. The buildings burned last Friday.

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Fire North St. Louis Northside Regeneration Old North

Brecht Butcher Supply Company Buildings Burn

by Michael R. Allen

A huge fire struck the Brecht Butcher Supply Company Buildings on Friday night. We have coverage and background here.

These beautiful buildings, at the northeast corner of Cass and Florissant avenues, were owned by Blairmont Associates LC. Critics who have alleged that Blairmont’s speculation scheme is endangering historic buildings have been proven right.  Of course, I never wanted to be proven right. All I wanted to see was an effort to sell or rehab great buildings like these.

(Photograph by Claire Nowak-Boyd.)

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Brecht Butcher Buildings Fire North St. Louis Northside Regeneration Old North

Brecht Butcher Supply Company Buildings Burn

by Michael R. Allen

Overnight on Friday, October 6, 2006, fire hit the magnificent Brecht Butcher Supply Company warehouses at the northeast corner of Cass and Florissant avenues. Fire ravaged the wood post-and-beam structure of the center building facing Cass Avenue, causing the roof and many floors to collapse into the building. The other two buildings sustained mostly superficial damage, due to clay tile and brick firewalls that stopped the spread of the intense heat.

The fire’s cause is officially unknown. However, observers of the buildings attest to the fact that since they warehouses fell completely vacant two years ago, a door on the east side of the building facing Hadley Street has repeatedly been opened by the squatters that called the warehouses home. (The warehouses are adjacent to the Sunshine Mission, a homeless shelter.) No matter how frequently the doors were closed, they would reopen. Residents of the Old North St. Louis neighborhood made repeated requests to the city’s Citizen’s Service Bureau and police seeking to have the doorway boarded up. These requests were met with inaction, by the city and by the warehouses’ negligent owners.


Entrance to center section before the fire.

Entrance to center section, after the fire.

The warehouses are among the many properties owned by the investment company named Blairmont Associates LC, a company enjoying fictitious legal registration but with a bad habit of sending political campaign contributions from a very well-known address. The sad fire illustrates the claim made by critics of Blairmont, including the authors of this website: their ownership endangers many historic buildings on the near northside that they own but will not sell to rehab-minded owners. Blairmont and affiliated companies now own over 300 parcels in the 5th and 19th wards on the city’s near northside.

In this free market society, the mere ownership of over 300 parcels of property is completely legal. Few would argue that Blairmont’s owners have no right to own land and speculate on its values. At issue are the dozens of historic houses, storefronts and other buildings that Blairmont and its affiliates own. These buildings are among the scarce remaining historic buildings that shape the physical context of the near northside. In an area as ravaged by building loss as this part of the city, residents are understandably upset that a large real estate company is holding hostage many buildings that could be restored to perpetuate urban character that is deeply endangered.

The Brecht Butcher Supply Company Warehouses are part of a very fragile group of buildings around the intersection of Cass and Florissant. Earlier this year, severe weather struck the Mullanphy Emigrant Home up the street, causing terrible damage. Last September, a huge fire destroyed the old St. Louis Bus Maintenance Center across Florissant from the Brecht buildings. Just a few weeks before that, the city demolished the Crunden Branch Library with little warning as a National Register of Historic Places nomination for the building was pending at the federal level. Across Cass from the warehouses is the old Cass Bank building, now used for the Greyhound Station. Greyhound plans to vacate the building within two years when it moves to a new station; the building is owned by the city’s Land Reutilization Authority. South of there, the old neon Cass Bank sign is poised to disappear soon. Then there are the countless buildings lost before last year.

This area would have seen massive disruption under a plan to build a bridge over the Mississippi River that would have included huge ramps terminating at Cass Avenue just east of the warehouses. The first plan called for demolition of many buildings in the path of the ramps, including these warehouses. That plan was scrapped due to funding cuts. A later plan called for less demolition and fewer ramps, but still called for demolishing the Brecht buildings even though they were no longer in the path of any ramps. Blairmont certainly did not object to a planned state buyout of the property. The new plan looks unlikely as the State of Missouri is balking on providing major funding for the bridge project.

Of course, now it may not matter what bridge plan comes to fruition. The center section of warehouses will almost definitely be demolished soon, although its front elevation could be quickly stabilized and its rear sections (the building has a “U” shape) are stable. The other two sections of the group may fall, too, since there are little restrictions involved here. The warehouses are not part of any federal or local historic district, have no landmark status, are not in a preservation review area and have owners who probably want to sweep the matter away before meeting more scrutiny.

What a tragic ending here. These buildings are of the sort that developers hungrily convert to housing in downtown and south city, and there is little doubt that with the passage of another decade the Brecht warehouses would have been sought-after residential or office space. Imagine if the Schnucks site across the street was redeveloped, the Cass Bank building restored and new infill construction was built to the west and north of here. There is no reason why Cass Avenue could not have vitality, and there has never been any reason why the Brecht buildings could not have a forward-thinking owner. Of course, no building can last a decade of vandalism and squatters without sustaining damage, and a few fall down while waiting.

Background

The Brecht Butcher Supply Company, founded by merchant and automobile pioneer Gus von Brecht, first built the four-story section of the buildings at the corner of Hadley and Cass in 1890. Here, the company had production facilities, warehouse space, offices and a showroom. The first section was designed in a practical commercial style hinting at the Romanesque Revival style, with a cast-iron storefront (look closely for the Star of David on each column) by Scherpe and Koken. The building was designed with load-bearing masonry walls and a mill method skeleton inside.

This building was expanded in 1897 with a large U-shaped addition designed by William E. Hess. Hess streamlined the style of the original building, and gave the windows full expression through large rectangular openings. Notably, he gave the addition a ruddy terra cotta cornice in the Classical Revival style, which was likely extended to the original building in place of its original cornice. The addition, which sustained fatal damage in the fire, also had wooden structural elements. His addition and a two-story, steel-and-concrete addition in 1900 designed by William Schaefer and built by August Winkel maintained the same exquisite cornice motif as the original building.

Brecht’s butcher supply business boomed around the turn of the century, and the company built a few other buildings on the block, including the garage now used by Ackerman Auto Repair. The north end of the block was occupied by a five-story factory of the Roberts, Johnson and Rand Shoe Company designed by Theodore Link (now demolished). The warehouses were eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

Categories
Fire JeffVanderLou North St. Louis

Houses at 3654-60 Cook Avenue

by Michael R. Allen

The fire marshal’s car sits in front of the houses on Cook Avenue after the fire on August 28.

On the night of August 28, 2006, a fire struck the two turreted houses at the southeast corner of Cook and Spring avenues. These two houses are splendid examples of how the Romanesque Revival was interpreted by local architects and made part of the city’s turn-of-the-century architectural vernacular. They also illustrate the St. Louis tendency to group houses that re so similar to each other that at first glance they seem like copies, while in fact the details and ornament are completely different even as materials, style and proportion are synchronized. According architect Paul Hohmann: “The buildings are actually two pairs of townhomes, for a total of four units. The two portions are connected only at the center, with the projecting fronts separated to appear like two large mansions. … Unfortunately the way the two halves were joined at the middle at the third floor would have provided an easy conduit for a fire to spread from either side.”

Continue reading “Houses at 3654-60 Cook Avenue”
Categories
Fire Granite City, Illinois Industrial Buildings Metro East

The Remains of the National Enamelling and Stamping Company Plant

by Michael R. Allen

This engraving of the National Enameling and Stamping Company plant appeared in the company’s 1903 catalog.

In 1895, the St. Louis Stamping Company opened its new 550,000 square-foot plant in Granite City. The facility was designed by architect Frederick Bonsack. In 1899, the company’s name changed to the National Enameling and Stamping Company (NESCO). Production continued at the plant until 1956, and subsequently the buildings were used for storage.

On October 27, 2003, the plant mostly burned to the ground in a spectacular blaze. Among the items stored inside were thousands of tires and propane fuel. The buildings had creosote-treated wood block floors that were gentle on workers’ feet but highly combustible.

A detailed version of the story of the founding of Granite City and NESCO can be found here. Here are two views of the remains of the NESCO plant. The five-story building is the end part of the western wing of the building, seen at the right of the engraving above.

Categories
Demolition Fire Midtown

Stairs to Nowhere

by Michael R. Allen

The limestone steps on August 28, 2005. Photograph by Michael R. Allen.
Grandel Square, known in the 19th century and early twentieth century as Delmar Avenue, once was one of Midtown’s populated residential streets. The Midtown area was settled as early as the 1850s, but was not subdivided with official streets until after the 1861 death of Peter Lindell, who owned much of the area. His Lindell’s Grove was subdivided by heirs and became a fashionable and somewhat bucolic retreat for wealthy and middle-class families eager to escape the polluted and overcrowded inner city.

By 1875, when Compton and Dry published Pictorial St. Louis, Midtown streets were lined with dense clusters of mansions on streets like Lindell and West Pine and stone-faced townhouses in Second Empire, Romanesque and Italianate styles on streets like Delmar, Olive and Westminster. Delmar’s residents were upper-middle-class to wealthy, building townhouses more lavish than those on neighboring streets but more restrained and smaller than the largest houses in the neighborhood. The wealthier residents used limestone to face their homes, while others used sandstone. The house at 3722 Delmar, built in 1884, was among the neighborhood’s most impressive townhouses, with an ornate Italianate style, pale limestone face and a three-story height.

The fashionable blocks of Midtown changed by 1900. Just as residential growth spread outward from downtown, so did commercial growth, Streetcar lines made it easy to live in Midtown — and to work there. Some of the older houses were purchased and demolished for new office buildings on Grand and Lindell, and the neighborhood’s character changed. Some observers saw Midtown becoming a second downtown, and the wealthiest residents began to flee further west.
A photograph from the Heritage/St. Louis architectural survey, taken around 1972, shows the house at the top of stairs. Apparently, it had recently caught fire and was in use as the “Grandel Square Hotel” in its last years.

By the 1930s, the neighborhood was scene to office buildings, hotels and the “Great White Way” of movie theaters. People crowded the streets day and night, even as the Great Depression’s arrival spelled the end of dramatic growth for the city. Houses remained, but many were converted into multi-family apartment buildings or rooming houses. The house at 3722 Grandel Square was one of the old townhouses that were carved up into a hotel. The other likely fates of the day — demolition, alteration by storefront addition — were actually worse. Even by the time of this house’s demolition, many other houses of this type in Midtown were long gone.

The house burned around 1970, and was demolished by 1975. The staircase from the sidewalk to the front door was not removed, though and remains to this day. The limestone steps have cracked and settled, making the once-elegant proposal of ascending an earthier endeavor. Those who climb the steps stand on a rugged lawn, no doubt still containing parts of the house pushed into the foundation during demolition.

Next door to the east, the Meriwether House — built by Elizabeth Avery Meriwether, a descendant of Meriwether Lewis — survives as one of the dozen or so single-family dwellings remaining in Midtown. (Around 1900, there may have been as many as 250 such buildings.) The Meriwether House, almost demolished in 1999, closely resembles the house that stood at 3722 Grandel Square, giving those who see the stairs to nowhere a good idea of where they once lead. The owners of the Merriwether House are completing a restoration and condo conversion that will brings its appearance and use full circle.



Now is again a good time for the Meriwether House. Photograph by Claire Nowak-Boyd (August 28, 2005).

The stairs next door, also owned by the Meriwether House’s owners, aren’t as likely to return to their former life. They may remain tentatively in place, but no more shall they lead to a Gilded Age manor. However, perhaps the stairs will bring awareness to newcomers that the Merriwether House is no singularity, and that Midtown once was something far from the sun-baked plain of asphalt and grass that it has become.