Architect James Wehmueller submitted this rendering of a possible renovation based on the photograph below.
Category: Historic Preservation
by Michael R. Allen
The brick former livery stable at the northwest corner of Locust and Josephine Baker (formerly Channing) stands out as an expressive masonry building that serves as the western anchor of the commercial district on Locust Street that is typified by a streetscape of two-story commercial buildings. West of this building are the taller, more monumental buildings of Midtown. This building’s presence eases the harshness of the transition between the two architecturally distinct areas.
R.W. Crittenden built the first section of the two-story brick Romanesque Revival livery stable in 1885, with additions in 1888 and 1889 as well as a major remodeling in 1902 by architect Otto Wilhelmi. In 19th and early 20th century St. Louis, the livery stable was a place where horse owners boarded their horses for a fee to keep their boarding away from genteel residential streets or to store their horses while they enjoyed a day in the central city. (Another related and prevalent building type was the carriage repository.)
Located on the section of Locust Street known as “Automobile Row” because of its 20th century association with automobile distributorships, dealerships and repair shops, the building’s use by the 1920s as the salesroom of the Salisbury Motor Company comes as no surprise. In recent years, the building has been used for storage, with its windows filled in and its street elevations painted white. A spate of recent historic renovation projects on Automobile Row make it a likely candidate for reuse. Apparently, there have been many suitors in recent years although St. Louis University won out when the building was for sale in 2004.
The university plans to demolish the building for parking related to its new arena located four blocks south. On May 31, 2007, St. Louis University applied for a demolition permit. The old livery stable enjoys no protection, since it lacks both official landmark status and preservation review (the 19th Ward opts out of preservation review). Alderwoman Marlene Davis (D-19th) has introduced a bill to vacate the alley between the livery stable and a parking lot to the north.
In response to the proposed demolition, Landmarks Association of St. Louis included the building on its 2007 Eleven Most Endangered Buildings List. There is much to admire in the building’s robust form, adaptable interior and articulated brickwork. Surely a better future than demolition is possible.
The Landmarks Association of St. Louis has announced its 2007 Eleven Most Endangered Buildings List. Selected by a committee, the list highlights buildings in the city of St. Louis in desperate need of intervention. While not conclusive, the list is a bellwether of current preservation battles — and can be sadly accurate at predicting those buildings that are lost.
This year’s list retains several buildings from last year’s list:
– Mullanphy Emigrant Home (1609 N.14th Street)
– Mullanphy Tenement (2118 Mullanphy Street)
– Givens Row (2903-7 Delmar Boulevard)
– Bethlehem Lutheran Church (2153 Salisbury)
– James Clemens House (1849 Cass Avenue)
– Carr School (1421 Carr Street)
– Wellston Station (6111 Martin Luther King Drive)
Additions to this year’s list are:
– Bohemian Hill Houses (Between Tucker and 13th Street south of Lafayette Avenue)
– Einstmann House (2347 Virginia Avenue)
– Crittenden Livery Stable (3401 Locust Street)
Categories
The Right Moment?
by Michael R. Allen
Sometimes I wish that I had been around in the 1950s to found a historic rehabilitation business. Or better yet, doing the same in the 1930s. Still better would to have been a United States Senator in 1934 when Congress passed the bill that established the Federal Housing Administration. (According to an article by Sam Smith, “91% of the homes insured by the agency in metropolitan St. Louis between 1935 and 1939 were in the suburbs.”)
Perhaps being a St. Louis alderman at the start of the clearance of the DeSoto-Carr neighborhood for Pruitt-Igoe would have made a big difference. There definitely were better times to intervene on behalf of preserving north St. Louis. But what demographic narratives were playing out? Those of decline. These were narratives built on the struggle of every great American city to stay alive, to survive the onslaught of the automobile so forcefully enshrined in the Interstate Highway Program (oh, to have been in Congress to vote against that!) and countless deadly urban renewal projects. What truly could have made a difference was national resistance to the destruction of cities.
Sadly, that came later when countless intellectuals, designers, politicians and others arose to find the overwhelming evidence of the realized destruction to be the most persuasive argument to mend their ways. In some ways, now is a better time to make the argument for categorical preservation. I’m not one of those people who argue that the thousands of St. Louis buildings that came down had to, because there was no other way for St. Louis to renew itself save through some blight, population loss and decrease of density. That’s not true. I think that a variety of forces that conspired to destroy urban areas could have been stopped, but the warning signs were too unclear and the faith in technological progress too strong for the people who were on the front lines. Today we simply know more, can do more, and see the lines of defense so much more clearly.
by Michael R. Allen
On May 31, St. Louis University applied for a demolition permit for the former livery stable building at the northwest corner of Locust and Channing (see record here). The possible demolition had been rumored for months. If rumors of end use are true, expect a parking garage or lot where a restored and vital part of the Locust Street business district could otherwise be.
For more information about the stable, see my June 2 post, Alley Closure Bill Indicates Livery Stable May Be Endangered.
by Michael R. Allen
Rumors that St. Louis University plans to demolish a former livery stable at 3401 Locust Street are bolstered by a bill introduced at the Board of Aldermen by Ald. Marlene Davis (D-19th). Board Bill 129 would vacate the alley in the eastermost 239.47 feet of the alley on the block bounded by Locust on the south, Theresa on the west, Washington on the north and Channing (also known as Josephine Baker) on the east. This is the stretch of alley between the old stable and a parking lot owned by St. Louis University to the north.
R.W. Crittenden built the livery stable in 1885 with later additions in 1888 and 1889. A major renovation occurred in 1902 from plans by architect Otto J. Wilhelmi. In the 20th century, the stable served as a sales room for the Salisbury Automobile Company; it stood in the stretch of Locust known as “Automobile Row.” In recent years, the brick building was painted white and had its windows filled in. However, broad arched entrances are evident in addition to other masonry elements common to the local interpretation of the Romanesque Revival style.
With this board bill, the fate of the building seems bleak. Landmarks Association of St. Louis lists the building on its 2007 Eleven Most Endangered Buildings list.
Categories
The Periodicals Room
by Michael R. Allen
Walk into the main hall of the St. Louis Central Library these days, and you will notice a cluttered appearance. The once-grand space was originally the main reading room, a place that delicately balanced the public purpose of the library and the private sphere of reading. Nowadays, the hall is chock full of computers, kiosks of videos and other intrusions. There are even books on shelves lining the grey marble walls. This has been the case for a long time, but the situation has been worsened recently by the library’s decision to close the periodical room and move the periodicals and the legions of periodical readers into the already-overcrowded main hall.
The reason behind this decision was the creation of a “reception room” for special events and lectures that raise money for the library’s capital campaign. Thus the drive to build money for what could be an architectural travesty — a plan is afoot to remove the original glass-floors book stacks system on the north side — has led to a momentary loss of one of the many ornate and supposedly public spaces of the library.
One of the wonderful things about the downtown library is that no matter how prosaic a reader’s purpose may be, her reading experience will take place amid the visually stimulating opulence of Cass Gilbert’s Italian Renaissance design. The periodicals room was a hopeful sight — students, travelers, homeless people and downtown workers all getting their news under a finely-detailed painted and coffered ceiling. The scene was prosaic itself — perhaps too much so. However, the periodical room and its use illustrated exactly why a city would have a public library at all.
Now, the periodicals room sits empty, dark and locked off during the day. Pass through the lobby and you get a glimpse through the bars that keep readers out of this reading room. An empty podium stands where the reference desk once was. Meanwhile, across 14th Street, the library’s annex building (formerly the Farm & Home Credit Bank) sits underutilized, with large expanses of empty space. The first floor features a wide-open and unfinished space; many of the offices located there provide ridiculously generous space for their occupants.
The Central Library will necessarily make big changes in the coming years to adapt to changes in use, and the capital campaign is an essential component of the changes. However, some parts of the library are working fine — like the periodicals room. Obviously, raising money for routine and functioning parts of the library is not easy. Donors are probably more attracted to buzzwords related to new technology and big changes. However, many people come to a library to handle a newspaper or book in the company of others. Print itself is a technology, but one that tends to reinforce socialization far more than the visual-centric technologies with which our libraries flirt nowadays. Hopefully, in the end, Central Library will still have a periodicals room.
– MayorSlay.com reports that the Powerhouse Building at 11th and Clark, part of the Municipal Garage and Services Building, will soon undergo renovation.
– Vanishing STL discusses St. Louis University’s proposed demolition of the 19th century mansion at 3740 Lindell. Paul Hohmann considers the building Second Empire, while I think that it’s more Italianate.
by Michael R. Allen
Granite City considers artist relocation program – Michael Heil (Granite City Press-Record, May 23)
What Granite City officials need to note is that historic preservation is often a good part of attractive artists to an area. The idea of affordable buildings requires a stock of buildings with no outstanding financing to retire or transfer. Those buildings are usually historic. Unfortunately, Granite City has not pursued a historic preservation plan for its downtown area; last year, the city went so far as to tear down 54 buildings, including many potentially eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. Perhaps the artist relocation idea will turn around the city government’s inability to protect historic buildings.
Last night, television channel KMOV (“channel 4”) aired a report on an Italianate farm house in Shiloh that is for sale for $1 to anyone who will move it out of the way of a new field of balloon-frame homes. Reporter Donna Savarese interviews architectural historian Matthew Bivens of SCI Engineering. Watch the report here.
(Thanks to Susan Sheppard for the link.)