Category: Historic Preservation

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Historic Preservation North St. Louis Wells-Goodfellow

A Corner in Wells-Goodfellow

by Michael R. Allen

1975
This photograph shows the corner building at 1975 Burd Avenue (at Wabada) in April 2005, before its demolition in October 2005. The bakery brick pattern at the cornice and the tiled roof porch over the entrance were fine distinctive features. Like many north side neighborhoods, Wells-Goodfellow, where this building was located, has lost many mix-used corner storefront buildings. These losses erode the bookends that hold blocks together. While walking the streets around here, one turns the corner to find a vacant lot rather than a landmark signifying this location. The impact of such loss on the neighborhood is obvious. Residents complain about the loss, but they also complain about having to live around so many vacant buildings.

Consequently, Alderman Jeffrey Boyd (D-22), whose ward includes Wells-Goodfellow, and residents have been working to leverage federal block grant funds to pursue historic district designation for buildings and sections of the ward. These designations create incentives for rehabilitation and investment. Sure, it is a long road, but the neighborhood has been down a longer road of decline. Things aren’t going to change overnight, but things won’t change at all without laying groundwork for reinvestment.

Categories
Demolition Fire Historic Preservation Shaw South St. Louis

Lost Chance on Shenandoah

by Michael R. Allen

The 2007 fire that struck the four-flat at 3927-29 Shenandoah Avenue in the Shaw neighborhood eventually proved fatal. The building had been under rehabilitation when fire struck. The owners stopped paying taxes and mortgage payments, and ownership somehow split between Heartland Bank and the Land Reutilization Authority (the building straddles a lot line).

Obviously, the building was struck severely by the fire. Like most house fires, the fire spread upward and consumed the roof and second floor worst. Most of the roof sheathing was lost in the fire, leaving the building open to the elements. However, the walls had been tuckpointed and remained solid until the last days.

In October 2008, the Building Division condemned the building for demolition and sought demolition. Neighbors had filed many complaints on the condition of the house. Immediately to the west, a developer is rehabbing a similar building using historic rehab tax credits and understandably did not want a big question-mark next door.

After first being placed on the November 2008 agenda of the Preservation Board, the demolition shifted into high gear. Suddenly, the Building Division issued an emergency demolition order and paid to wreck the building. By the middle of December, it was gone. (Wonder if owner Heartland Bank got a bill for half of the cost?)

While the condition of the building was extreme, it was far from being a total loss. With solid masonry, the building was in no danger of immediate collapse. This could have been a great reconstruction project. Instead, the house went through the motions of our failed public safety laws: damage and abandonment, citizen complaints, emergency tear-down order. As the developers next door show, there is more than one way to fix a broken building, but the Building Division never seems to grasp that fact. Nor does the Cultural Resources Office (CRO) possess sufficient legal authority to prevent a senseless demolition like this one; the office and the Preservation Board were at the mercy of the Building Division, which controls what matters reach consideration of our preservation agency and its citizen commission. The CRO cannot override an emergency order, no matter how silly it is (and many are).

The neighbors’ momentary complaints are addressed, but they ultimately lose a remarkable street scape. On a block with only two gaps in continuous historic building line, both across the street, this demolition stands out. The demolition stands out even more since the demolished house is one of a row of five near-copies of the same plan built in 1903. defined by rusticated limestone front elevations, central porches and projecting bays on each end, the row was a handsome group.

Looking at one of the extant members of this group, one sees the potential that the house at 3927-29 Shenandoah Avenue had, even in its fire-damaged state.

Demolition matters as much in a neighborhood as dense as Shaw as it does in a ravaged built environment like Old North. I would write that the only difference is why the buildings matter, but that would be false. The reason senseless demolitions harm our neighborhoods is because they erode the sense of place. Take away the last two buildings on a north side block, and the last vestige of the block’s urban character is gone forever. Take away one house on an intact block face in Shaw, and that block face is no longer intact. That brings a difference as big as taking down the last building standing. Besides, it’s not just a matter of blocks or neighborhoods but ultimately a matter of stewardship of this interconnected mass of resources we call St. Louis.

Categories
Architecture Historic Preservation North St. Louis

Art Deco on Natural Bridge

by Michael R. Allen

The narrow two-story commercial building located at 4712 Natural Bridge Avenue in north St. Louis sports exquisite terra cotta in the art deco style. While the smooth buff glazing is eroding, the terra cotta’s fine, curved abstract foliage and geometric patterns are intact. These form an integral part of the chamber drama of the building — pronounced piers define the four second story windows, which are topped by herringbone brickwork in the upper spandrel areas. These windows sit above a storefront that may have stretched the entire width between the building’s outer piers. Up above, the step in at each side of the parapet is a deft touch.

Of course, we don’t know much about that first floor storefront since the owners have bricked it in with a motley tapestry as well as concrete block surrounding a plain steel door. At least the filler brick in the second floor matches the buff color of the original face stock, because that first floor grabs the eye and tried to keep it from finding the beauty here. We do know that the buidling dates to 1929, and its first tenant was Peter Blumenschein’s shoe repair shop.


The blunders down the street are nearly forgiven two (long) blocks west of the old Blumenschein shop at the home of Droste Heating, Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning at 4956 Natural Bridge. Sure, the storefront openings have been changed, and two of the four upper windows have lost original steel sash for glass block, but at least the openings aren’t closed up to light completely. Of course, the big draw here is the stylized sheet metal sign, with its delightful fonts. Droste and Rockel, tinners, built the building in 1937 and have remained here ever since. Apparently the company is proud of its presence on Natural Bridge, a commercial thoroughfare that can take every bit of pep that old sign provides.

Categories
Adaptive Reuse Historic Preservation Housing North St. Louis SLPS

Harrison School Slated for Rehabilitation

by Michael R. Allen

On December 12, the Missouri Housing Development Commission approved issuance of 4% low income housing tax credits to the Harrison School Apartments project. Developer George Kruntchev’s North Tower Group plans to rehabilitate the historic Harrison School at 4163 Green Lea Place in the Fairground neighborhood as affordable rental apartments.

Harrison School has sat vacant since its closure by the St. Louis Public Schools in 1996. In 2003, the building was finally put up for sale at the behest of a new majority on the Board of Education that sought to lower the district inventory. In 2007, after sitting nearly four years on the market, a developer purchased the school and secured listing in the National Register of Historic Places before selling the school to North Tower Group.

Benjamin Harrison School is a magnificent example of the earlier St. Louis Public School buildings. The basic plan comes from architect August H. Kirchner, who designed the original 1895 section of the building. (Coincidentally, Kruntchev’s other school project, Grant School in Tower Grove East, also involved a Kirchner school.) That one-story, four-room section was designed for expansion. After all, the city and the Fairgrounds neighborhood were growing rapidly, and until construction of Harrison the only other school in the vicinity was Ashland School, first opened in 1870. Kirchner made attempts to overcome the limitations of previous school buildings, which were dour, crowded and devoid of proper ventilation and light. Kirchner made the classrooms large with substantial windows for light and air. His ideas would influence his successor as district architect, William B. Ittner, who expanded Harrison School with additions in both 1899 (adding additional floors to the 1895 section) and 1909 (adding the north wing).

The result of the architectural evolution is an imposing Romanesque Revival school whose brick body is articulated through buff brick and red Iowa sandstone. The design is very similar to other Kirchner schools later expanded by Ittner, including Adams and Euclid schools. One of the striking features of Harrison is a kindergarten in the 1909 addition that placed two trapezoidal bay windows on either side of a hearth, an Ittner innovation that was not repeated.

Now, over twelve years since closing, the school finally is finding a new life. That’s a cautionary lesson to the Special Administrative Board (SAB) governing the St. Louis Public Schools. The SAB will be approving a facilities management plan early in the new year that will include what is anticipated as as substantial round of schools closings. Hopefully successful conversion projects like the one at Harrison will convince the board that there are many possibilities other than demolition or abandonment. I remain impressed by the wide array of adaptive reuse plans that developers have found for St. Louis schools. The again, the architecture itself, with its spaciousness and care for natural light, is hospitable to almost any human activity.

Categories
Clearance Events Historic Preservation McRee Town People South St. Louis Urbanism

Talking About McRee Town

by Michael R. Allen

Jackie Jones introduces her presentation.

Yesterday afternoon St. Louis University doctoral student Jackie Jones presented her dissertation thesis, “Picturing a Neighborhood: McRee Town in Saint Louis, Missouri,” to a crowd at the Royale, 3132 S. Kingshighway. The interesting venue for Jones’ presentation and resulting discussion offered a relaxed setting for what remains a controversial topic: the wholesale clearance of six blocks of an urban neighborhood by the Garden District Commision and resulting replacement by new housing. Jones disavowed any stance on the clearance, instead focusing on how images were used to justify the clearance in the press — and how other images contradict the story told by the Commission’s carefully-selected images.

Here’s Jones’ own description of her presentation:

In 2003, the Garden District Commission demolished more than two hundred buildings on the eastern half of the McRee Town neighborhood in Saint Louis. The Commission, a private coalition headed by officials from the nearby Missouri Botanical Garden, demolished six blocks of historic brick homes and apartment buildings that housed primarily low-income renters and homeowners, relocated hundreds of residents, erected twenty-five acres of market-rate, single-family, suburban-style housing on the cleared land, and ceremoniously renamed the area Botanical Heights. This presentation explores how visual representations of McRee Town between 1998-2003 helped legitimize this urban renewal project and the dislocations it caused in the lives of McRee Town residents. It engages viewers with the photographs of burned-out, boarded-up, weed-infested buildings that populated newspaper reports and public relations documents during these five years, and juxtaposes them with photographs taken by Genevelyn Peters, a McRee Town resident prior to the neighborhood’s destruction. These images – of family, homelife, play, and community – complicate and challenge the dominant understanding of this neighborhood and its residents as criminal and atomized by presenting images that depict a vibrant neighborhood community.

People listen to Jones’ making a point.

The people present included someone involved in the decision to clear the six blocks, residents of Botanical Heights (the new housing development), the area’s Neighborhood Stabilization Officer Luke Reven and others. While I had to leave before discussion was over, discussion touched on the damaging impact of I-44 construction in the early 1970s, the way in which similar images as those taken in McRee Town galvanized Lafayette Square and Soulard residents to pursue preservation instead of clearance, the deceptive nature of photographs and whether or not the term “suburban” applies to Botanical Heights.

Looking west down McRee Avenue from 39th Street.

On another note, if Royale proprietor Steven Fitzpatrick Smith is attempting to revive the tradition of the discussion salon, count me in!

Categories
Historic Preservation Media SLPS

Historic Preservation Should Be Part of St. Louis Public Schools Facilities Plan

by Michael R. Allen

KWMU aired my latest commentary today, on my birthday: Historic Preservation Should Be Part of St. Louis Public Schools Facilities Plan

Categories
Downtown Historic Preservation Planning Urbanism

A Different Washington Avenue

by Michael R. Allen

This photograph from the collection of Landmarks Association of St. Louis shows a section of Washington Avenue in 1978. Obviously, the photographer was intrigued by the Fire Department’s activity, but ended up documenting more than just a one-alarm call. This view shows the north side of Washington from the mid-point of the 700 block east through the 500 block.

From the left, one sees Loews Theatre still in business with its marquee advertising “Greased Lightning.” Then there is Unique Jeans ‘n Shirts, Stan and Julio’s Spaghetti House, H.R. Perlstein Furs, Amitin’s Books, the Big Men’s Shop and Lane Bryant. On the next block east is the Stix, Baer and Fuller Department Store, later Dillard’s, long before any skybridge marred its lovely commercial facade. Beyond the department store is the old May Company Building, now 555 Washington and then home of the Dollar Store.

This retail environment was dense with stores and small-scale buildings. The 700 block, with the exception of the theater, was occupied by narrow four-to-six-story buildings. These small buildings were the lifeblood of downtown retail in the 20th century, offering low rents and lower operating costs to owners. The buildings and the shops also imprinted streets like Washington, Locust, Olive and others with architectural variety and commercial abundance.

Alas, this photograph captures that downtown street life in end times. By the time this photograph was taken, city planners had decided to smother the retail environment here with the colossal failure that was St. Louis Centre. Opened in 1985, St. Louis Centre stands diagonally across from the Lane Bryant Store here. To build St. Louis Centre, two blocks of modestly-scaled historic downtown buildings — all with ground-floor retail — were leveled. St. Charles Street was closed. The two giant department stores, Stix and Famous-Barr, were joined to the mall rather than being separated by a diverse array of urban retail accessed on the sidewalks.

Retailers like Lane Bryant moved into St. Louis Centre and failed. Establishments like Stan and Julio’s lingered until city planners again decided to stamp unitary order onto functional, if messy, urban life. In 1989, the 700 block of Washington was seized for construction of an addition to the convention center. Some retailers, like Amitin’s, moved westward on Washington, but many closed their doors forever. The buildings fell. Today, the view captured in 1978 is depressing. Where delightful urban life thrived sits the giant convention center, with its sidewalks a pedestrian danger zone of taxi-dodging. The Stix building is empty, with a giant skybridge fused onto its facade that blocks sunlight and site lines.

Fortune may lead to rehabilitation of the Stix buidling, demolition of the skybridge and reconstruction of St. Louis Centre. However, the very urban architectural and commercial character of this stretch of Washington is lost.

Categories
Historic Preservation Preservation Board South St. Louis

Preservation Board Blocks NLEC Demolition Plan

by Michael R. Allen

Yesterday, the St. Louis Preservation Board unanimously upheld staff denial of a demolition permit for the house at 4722 Tennessee Avenue in Dutchtown. The New Life Evangelistic Center (NLEC) applied for a demolition permit in September, and the Cultural Resources Office denied the permit shortly afterward. NLEC appealed the denial to the board. At the November meeting of the Preservation Board, NLEC representative Jeff Schneider waved the right to a timely appeal in order to return with a stronger presentation.

Schneider failed to do so. Yesterday, he asked the board for yet another continuance despite the fact that several people, include Dutchtown South Community Corporation Executive Director Kelly Kress and myself, had already attended a meeting with prepared testimony against the appeal.

Schneider did bring engineer Michael Mahaney, who attempted to make the case that the building was structurally unsound although he has not yet been inside of the building or produced a detailed assessment.

Board member Mike Killeen made a motion to defer consideration for one month but withdrew the motion after both Cultural Resources Office Director Kathleen Shea and Board Chairman Richard Callow stated that board members, staff and citizens had as much a right to timely consideration of the appeal as the appellant. No one of the board disagreed with Shea’s assessment that the proposed demolition met none of the criteria for demolition established by the city’s preservation ordinance.

Alderwoman Dorothy Kirner spoke against the proposed demolition, and Kress and myself were recognized by the chairman but did not speak since the board’s stance was already clear. David Richardson moved to uphold staff denial, and the board unanimously supported that motion. The matter may be far from over, though.

Also yesterday the board unaimously approved National Register nominations for the Gill Buidling, Liggett & Myers Historic District, the Bel Air West Motel and the Grand-Bates Suburb Historic District. The board unanimously granted preliminary approval to plans to build a new house at 2308 S. 10th Street in the Soulard Historic District.

Categories
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
Abandonment Historic Preservation Housing North St. Louis Old North

The "Mini Mansion" Over Thirty-Five Years Ago

by Michael R. Allen

Here’s the “mini mansion” at 1501 Palm Street in Old North in better days. Rather, here it is in slightly better days. The photograph dates to July 1972, and was taken by a volunteer surveyor working on the Heritage/St. Louis project. Heritage/St. Louis was an all-city architectural survey coordinated by Landmarks Association of St. Louis that nearly succeeded in documenting every historic building in the city (and many others) with a photograph and short evaluation sheet. Between 1970 and 1975, volunteers surveyed thousands of buildings, leading to more intensive later surveys and eventual National Register historic district nominations across the city.

As the photograph shows, the house was then occupied and not boarded. Wooden sash are intact, as is a recessed entrance foyer. The cornice is in place, as is part of a cast iron fence. However, the surveyor who took this photograph noted that the condition was only “fair” and the future was uncertain. This was long before Paul McKee’s holding company purchased the house, and even before it sat vacant for 16 years. Even while occupied, the house was not in great shape.

The reality of the near north side sinks in: the work needed goes beyond remediation of recent dereliction. Many of these houses have been in disrepair for thirty years or longer. Most houses in Old North marked “fair” or “poor” in the Heritage/St. Louis survey are gone, and many that would have been were gone before the surveyors arrived. What we now have is a remainder of building stock, and the vacant buildings we now have require extensive repair. Fortunately, this odd little house has survived to an age where there finally is massive rehabilitation efforts underway in Old North.

(For more information on this house, read “The “Mini Mansion” on Palm Street Needs Urgent Assistance,” November 26)