Developer pays city to ‘treat’ eyesores – Jake Wagman (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 30)
Category: Media
SLU’s Long, Slow Mistake (Built St. Louis): Rob Powers discusses the demolition of the livery stable on Locust Street.
Sunset Hills Teardown, Revised (B.E.L.T.): Toby Weiss finally gets to repost her tribute to the Brinkop House — because it has a new owner who is renovating it!
Steal Das Book (Riverfront Times): Kathleen Mclaughlin details the complicated question of the provenance of a book that a German museum wants back from a St. Louis book dealer.
Categories
Hanley’s Meadow
Filmmaker Carson Minow’s award-winning 48 Hour Film Project entry, Hanley’s Meadow, is now available online. Readers of this blog will recognize a few of the actors and many of the locations, which range from St. Louis Place to the Wellston Loop.
by Michael R. Allen
(Teen participants in the Adventures in Media program stand in front of a mural on the 14th Street Mall designed and installed by The Urban Studio.)
Hopefully people are following along with the blog entries produced by the teenagers who are taking part in the Adventures in Media Teen Program. Sponsored by the Urban Studio, Trailnet and KDHX, Adventures in Media is a two-week program that examines the role of media in our dietary practices to demonstrate the nuts and bolts of how media is produced. Sessions take place at the Urban Studio, 2815 N. 14th Street in Old North St. Louis, as well other locations on the near north side. The Urban Studio is basically a storefront space reclaimed by imaginative neighborhood residents interested in using creativity to shape and strengthen community. It’s one of the many bright spots making the near north side a lively and changing place to live.
One of the other places, the New Roots Urban Farm in St. Louis Place, is a logical part of this program. There, the teens learned a lot about the healthy, local organic food that isn’t often promoted through mainstream media.
As part of the program, the teens are making some media of their own — daily blog entries with photographs that chronicle this summer’s experience.
Read those blog entries here.
by Michael R. Allen
There are two excellent articles in today’ Riverfront Times pertaining to controversial development matters:
Phantom of the Hood, Part 2 by Kathleen McLaughlin
The newest member of the RFT staff has written a great article on Paul McKee’s north side project. Some of the new information she dug up includes the fact that McKee’s attorney Steve Stone of Stone, Leyton & Gershman was involved in drafting the Distressed Areas Land Assemblage Act. McLaughlin includes a choice quote from State Sen. John Griesheimer, original sponsor of the tax credit: “My idea of redeveloping is taking a blighted area and bulldozing it, putting mixed-uses in.” The “bulldoze the ghetto” rhetoric gains some credibility. Kathleen McLaughlin’s byline is definitely one to watch; she is tenacious and smart.
Rebuilt to Suit by Randall Roberts
Randall Roberts’ last story for the RFT covers the tension between St. Louis University and the developers and businesspeople who are transforming Locust Street (as well as parts of Olive and Washington) east of Grand into a force that puts the “life” in that fables intersection Grand Center advertises. The last part chronicles the livery stable demolition, bringing to light SLU’s promise to demolish no more of its holdings north of Lindell. Roberts has a fine sense of public journalism, and of how an article like this one can make a difference for the better. While this article comes out too late to make a difference in the livery stable fight, its timing is still good since few know SLU’s next step on Locust Street. I’m confident that McLaughlin will continue Roberts’ legacy of providing critical coverage of development and preservation issues in the RFT.
by Michael R. Allen
A tax-credit bill for one man? – Virginia Young and Jake Wagman (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 17) [DEFUNCT LINK]
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch makes up for its rather late coverage of Paul McKee’s acquisitions in north St. Louis with a well-written in-depth story that appears above the fold on the front page of Sunday’s paper. Online, there is additional material including a great Flash graphic showing the flow of campaign contributions and in-kind gifts from McKee to a host of Missouri politicians, from Matt Blunt to Lewis Reed.
Despite significant coverage from other media outlets ranging from the Riverfront Times (the first major media outlet to cover the story, thanks to reporter Randall Roberts), Pub Def, KWMU, KDHX’s “The Wire” program and KMOV Channel 4 TV news, this issue has not received the huge major publicity it deserves. Here it is, at long last — and before Governor Blunt’s decision on the economic development bill in which the tax credit program sought by McKee is embedded.
by Michael R. Allen
KWMU’s Matt Sepic is back with another built environment story, this time for NPR’s national “Marketplace” program. “Brick rustling on the rise in St. Louis” provides an overview of the problem plaguing parts of the city where there is more masonry than money — but brick yards offer a tempting conversion rate. The story features interviews with salvage specialist Larry Giles, brick dealer Bud Boldt and myself.
Pub Def just published an excellent video, What’s McKee Planning for Old North?. Thanks to Antonio French and Dan Martin for this good work.
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.)
by Michael R. Allen
The developers’ shills are now accusing critics of being “anti everything.” Once again, when given an opportunity to learn from people with ideas we see the apparatchiks dust off the old “obstructionist” and “zealot” hatchets. Yawn!
Obviously, they are counting on a city whose culture is stunted and whose citizens are eager to be commanded how to think. Unfortunately, the old St. Louis they wish to lord over forever has passed them by.
Nowadays, citizens are better-informed about development projects than ever. If that is inconvenient to developers, so be it. These are the lives affected by the developers’ projects — the flip side of the debate.
Complacency, submission and acceptance of whitewash campaigns are outdated. Try openness, dialogue and civic debate about issues. More innovative minds have already realized that the most effective development projects are those in which the most vocal critics eventually become stakeholders. Check the dreaded blogs and one will find praise for developers like Restoration St. Louis, Loftworks and others despite minor disagreements. These developers are those who don’t try to suppress discussion and dissent, but assume that is part of a healthy civic culture.
Honestly, finding someone who opposes redevelopment of Bohemian Hill or the near north side is downright impossible. To call smart suggestions for better development “obstruction” is to ignore the fact that there are more discussions of the built environment in St. Louis than in any other city. That actually helps development because it creates an intellectual culture interested in change and growth. (How many Milwaukee or Philadelphia built environment blogs are there? They would love to have some of ours!) After all, the odds in this state and this country are so tilted against a city like St. Louis, it’s a wonder there are so many motivated people working on all sides of development. With a scarcity of quality old media outlets, and an abundance of vacant land and buildings, there seems plenty of room for consensus in St. Louis.