Category: North St. Louis

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Mullanphy Emigrant Home North St. Louis Old North Uncategorized

Mullanphy Emigrant Home

by Michael R. Allen

The original appearance of the Mullanphy Emigrant Home. Line drawing by Pat Hays Baer, from the collection of Landmarks Association of St. Louis.

Those who pass by the Mullanphy Emigrant Home likely have no idea what this building used to be or how it appeared in its original state. Marred by a conversion that stole its distinctive pediment and cupola, the building is easier to neglect. This building is not abandoned, but it has fallen into disrepair and its current owner has not been able to keep up with the demands of its upkeep. An auto repair shop operates out of an addition to the building, but most of the original building is empty after years of abuse by previous owners.

The Mullanphy Emigrant Home was one of the charitable projects funded by the estate of Bryan Mullanphy, who left $200,000 — one-third of his estate — to establish the Mullanphy Emigrant Relief Fund for “poor emigrants passing through St. Louis.” Built in 1867, the Emigrant Home was a residential dormitory that provided temporary housing to immigrants. At that time and for decades to come, the near north side was becoming heavily populated by European immigrants. By the turn of the century, though, the tide turned and the European immigration slowed to be eclipsed by immigration into St. Louis by rural blacks from the American south. The Relief Fund abandoned the Emigrant Home in 1877, replacing the dormitory with a stipend for room and board to needy immigrants. The building went into use as Douglas School for the next decade.

The building is a noteworthy institutional application of the Italianate style designed by prominent local architects George I. Barnett and Albert Piquenard. The style was highly popular for schools and hospitals at the time of the building’s construction, but remaining examples are few. The State Hospital (formerly the County Insane Asylum), built in 1869 by plans by William Rumbold, is the one other example of an institutional Italianate style left in the city. The Mullanphy Emigrant Home deviated from conventions slightly by the curves of its central pediment, which exhibit a Spanish influence.


In 1900, H.R. Henderson — honored by the H.R.H. spelled in glazed bricks on the building — bought the old Emigrant Home for his Absorene Company. Henderson presided over some unfortunate alterations to the building, including the construction of an addition in the northeast corner that blocks the original facade.

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Architecture Hyde Park North St. Louis

More on Hyde Park "Security Wall"

Yesterday we posted about a security wall that Shreves Engine Company wants to build in Hyde Park, which would require them to tear down nine houses to make room for it.

Naturally, 3rd Ward Alderman Bosley approves this project.

Well, Mayor Slay has now written on his website that he is impressed with the idea, and may likely support it. He cites that this particular type of wall, gabion walls, “are really hot architectural elements in Europe.”

You know what else is popular in architecture in large parts of Europe, that’s also a green building strategy? Not tearing down historic buildings!!

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Demolition Hyde Park North St. Louis

Hyde Park Losses Continue

by Michael R. Allen

Hyde Park continues to suffer from stagnation and loss. Look at these proposed demolition plans:

Shreves Engine Company plans to demolish nine houses for some inane “security wall” plan that Alderman Freeman Bosley supports.

The Phillips 66 gas station at Salisbury and Eleventh, owned by Nidal Othman, wants to tear down the Cordes Hardware buildings. Some may recall the days when Cordes was still open with an old-time charm on par with Marx Hardware down in Old North. (Bosley opposes this demolition, although he has offered no substantial aid to the owner or others trying to renovate destabilized buildings in this neighborhood.)

These projects seriously compromise the intact density of historic buildings in this neighborhood. They must stop.

There’s also a big stir about a development underway between Natural Bridge, Salisbury and West Florissant avenues on the western end of Hyde Park. Here, Bethlehem Lutheran Church has financed a development of new houses and apartments  that has involved a liberal use of eminent domain. This development has some Hyde Park residents up in arms due to questionable offers made to affected property owners and the attack on poor homeowners the Church is accused of leading. Last night, a group of 25 neighborhood residents joined with the Citizens’ Coalition to Fight Eminent Domain and marched to Bosley’s home on Bremen Avenue to make their demands.

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James Clemens House North St. Louis Northside Regeneration Old North

Seeking Blairmont

by Michael R. Allen

Just saw this post (copied below) on Craigslist. It’s great to know that someone wants to save the James Clemens, Jr. House. It’s distressing to know that Blairmont Associates LC is causing yet another annoyance to a rehabber; Blairmont owns many properties on the Near North Side of St. Louis and is notoriously hard to reach. No one can find out anything about Blairmont except that a man named Harry Noble supposedly owns the company — but even that isn’t verified. A search through the Missouri Secretary of State’s corporation registry reveals that the “CT Corporation System” registered the name “Blairmont Associates LC” on behalf of an anonymous party or parties.

Many of Blairmont’s properties seem to be vacant lots in Old North St. Louis, St. Louis Place and other neighborhoods, although the company recently purchased a vacant St. Louis Public Schools property at 2333 Benton.

Other people report needing to make agreements with Blairmont to repair shared utilities or utilities that run through Blairmonnt properties, and having difficulty finding a phone number.

If you know anything about Blairmont, please post a comment here and maybe we’ll be able to help Lyra and others who are interested in contacting the company.


Contact info for Blairmont Associates LC?
Reply to: thegamestlouis@yahoo.com
Date: 2005-06-19, 1:58AM CDT

Do you know how I can get in touch with a company called “Blairmont Associates LC”? aka Blairmont Associates, Blairmont Associates Limited Company.

They buy and sell property in St. Louis, and they currently own (bought just this April) a house on Cass Avenue that I am *REALLY* interested in purchasing… the Clemens House. I have fallen in love with this abandoned house, and intend to restore it to it’s old glory. The house’s history is intriguing (Buddhists, nuns, insanity, and the title of “the Taj Mahal of St. Louis”), and the history of the family that built it in 1858 – James Clemens, Jr – is even better (James Clemens Jr was Mark Twain’s uncle, and helped found the city’s first electric company and first bank, among other things). The house itself is beautiful, but dying, and I want to help this city landmark return to it’s golden days.

Problem is, Blairmont Associates LC’s last address is on Olive Street, and they are no longer there. I have been unsuccessful in finding their current address, or their phone number; although I do know that they are under a corporation based in Clayton called “CT Corporation System.”

If anyone out there has any info on the address, phone numbers, owners/officers of this company, or anything I might have missed, the information would so very appreciated! Please contact me (Lyra) at thegamestlouis@yahoo.com

Categories
Abandonment Churches Hyde Park North St. Louis

Bethlehem Lutheran Church

Photograph by Michael R. Allen, 2005.

LOCATION: 2153 Salisbury Street; Hyde Park; Saint Louis, Missouri
DATE OF CONSTRUCTION: 1895
ARCHITECT: Louis Wessbecher
DATE OF ABANDONMENT: 1980’s
OWNER: Bethlehem Lutheran Church Congregation

Photograph by Michael R. Allen, 2003.

Photograph by Michael R. Allen, 2003.

Photograph by Michael R. Allen, 2005.

The Bethlehem Lutheran Church congregation now meets in a 1920’s school building next door to this beautiful church. The congregation wants to raze the old church, and has not kept it maintained for many years.

Photograph by Yves Marrocchi, 2005.

Photograph by Michael R. Allen, 2005.

Categories
Abandonment Fire Hyde Park North St. Louis

Nord St. Louis Turnverein, Yesterday and Today

The Nord St. Louis Turnverein, open for business in 1981. (Source: Landmarks Association of St. Louis Archive.)

The Nord St. Louis Turnverein, after a devastating fire on July 4, 2006. (Photograph by Claire Nowak-Boyd.)

LOCATION: 1926-30 Salisbury Street; Hyde Park; Saint Louis, Missouri
DATE OF CONSTRUCTION: 1879; 1893 (addition); 1898 (addition)
ARCHITECTS: H.W. Kirchner; Oscar Raeder (1893 & 1898 additions)
DATE OF ABANDONMENT: 1994
OWNER: DHP Investments LLC

Categories
Demolition Housing North St. Louis O'Fallon

Florissant Center Apartments

by Michael R. Allen

The sturdy 36-unit Florissant Center Apartments are undergoing demolition, to be replaced by new construction. The demolition is representative of a larger planning hostility toward large-scale unsubsidized multi-unit apartment buildings. The city government is discouraging the renovation of apartment buildings for apartment use, favoring either conversion into upscale, larger condominium-style units or outright demolition and replacement with new construction. The only sort of multi-unit apartment building that city planners seem to favor is the federally-subsidized, income-restricted sort. While income-restricted apartment buildings are certainly needed, market-rate apartment housing is equally needed by thousands of people. There are many people who cannot qualify for mortgages, or who would rather not own property, whose presence in the city is beneficial. Students, young couples, elderly people, disabled people and others who may prefer apartment living aren’t the undesirable folks city planners make them out to be nowadays. Renters bring energy to a neighborhood.

The planners’ disdain for rental housing, though, stems less from a hatred of renters than from a tendency to not question the profit-drive desires of developers who can make more money from selling larger living spaces than from rental units — without having to stick around and maintain the buildings they renovate or build. Developing and maintaining quality apartment housing requires patience and commitment, values many developers don’t have — or won’t allow themselves in their rush to make money.

The trend to destroy apartment buildings is short-sighted, of course. Apartment housing usually is more dense than what replaces it, and thus makes for more street life and greater population. A city as desperately in need of increasing its population as St. Louis will kill itself if it does anything but increase the number of new apartment units (along with numbers of other kinds of units, of course). Planners who view apartments as obstacles to big projects and big sales are hurting St. Louis.

The Florissant Center Apartments are better-built than whatever will replace them. Dating from the late 1910’s, the building exemplifies the best tendencies in simple Craftsman stock design, with ample fenestration and restrained ornament. (I am pleased to mention that Larry Giles salvaged nearly all of the ornamental terra cotta from the building.) The interior courtyard affords some privacy for tenants as they enter and exit the building but also encourages interaction among them in what is a transitional space between public and private. The materials used are among the best from that time: birch wood, solid Hydraulic-Press-Brick face-brick and stock terra cotta ornament of local design. Even in the early stage of demolition, the building is sound enough to rescue. The still-level floors that we saw inside indicate that the structure could have stood at least another 100 years. The location across the street from O’Fallon Park is simply lovely.

Categories
Demolition LRA North St. Louis Old North

Dummitt’s Confectionary

by Michael R. Allen

Dummitt’s Confectionary on April 22, 2005.

The decaying confectionery building at 1300-04 Hebert Street in Old North arrived in the 21st century, withstanding arson, demolition and disinvestment since its construction around 1870. The building came so close to a day when someone inspired by the new energy of the neighborhood would have come to purchase and restore it. Alas, the owner was the city government’s coldest shoulder, the Land Reutilization Authority, which wrecked the building in May 2005 after its roof had collapsed.

Categories
2005 St. Louis Election Demolition Downtown North St. Louis South St. Louis

Some News Today

OVER AT THE CENTURY BUILDING SITE

Masons are working quickly to close up the holes in the Syndicate Trust Building. Meanwhile, the Century basement is entirely excavated. The parking garage will sit on the basement floor, which will not be removed. So some part of the 1897 building will live on for the 60 years it will take for the parking garage replacement to collapse.

Oh, and the renderings of the replacement garage continue to show less and less detail. Perhaps the plan is to make the Old Post Office look better by building the ugliest downtown garage ever next to it.

THE LITTLE BUILDING THAT DIDN’T

Wreckers recently demolished the two-story storefront building directly north of Uncle Bill’s Pancake House on South Kingshighway. The little building, respledent with braided terra cotta columns and other details, was the only traditional storefront building remaining between Connecticut (near Arsenal) and Beck (near Chippewa) streets. The building fell for a an expansion of the Uncle Bill’s parking lot. Across the street, QuickTrip is building yet another new location.

PROGRESS, IN MY BOOK

A new Big Lots has opened in the once-moribund plaza at Kingshighway and Devonshire, behind the Department of Motor Vehicles office.

BUT WAIT!

Arch City Chronicle reports that both Payless and OfficeMax in the St. Louis Marketplace are closing.

THEM KIENLEN BUNGALOWS

I love the one-story bungalows lining Kienlen Avenue north of Martin Luther King Boulevard. They are sturdy and simple, and due to road expansions now sit almost directly on the sidewalk line.

IRENE AND DARLENE — AND MIKE

I am spotting lots of paired Irene Smith for Mayor and Darlene Green for Comptroller signs, including some in Shaw. In Ward 19, the pair often gets a third wheel — Re-Elect Michael McMillan for Alderman signs.

UPDATE ON WESTERN LANES

Steve Patterson posted an informative update on the shuttered Western Lanes bowling alley in his campaign blog. Steve in running for aldermen of the alley’s ward, 25, in the Democratic primary. If he wins the primary, he’ll be the next alderman, because no other parties have any candidates. Don’t forget to vote for him — in just eleven days!

Categories
Abandonment Demolition North St. Louis Old North

What the 14th Street Mall Could Be

by Michael R. Allen

On St. Louis Avenue in Old North St. Louis, a one-story storefront building just bit the dust. Located at 1315 St. Louis Avenue, the modest narrow building was once a productive part of neighborhood commerce, and was part of a connected group of three buildings. Such groups have allowed the neighborhood to evince strong historic character despite the fact that over half of its 20th century built environment is gone.

Across St. Louis Avenue and a half-block to the west is the two block “14th Street Mall,” a section of the commercial district turned into a pedestrian mall in 1977. The buildings on the mall are largely abandoned and some have been lost.  However, this is the most dense and intact group of commercial buildings left in Old North, or anywhere on the near north side between downtown and Salisbury Avenue.

A remnant of 1970’s era urban planning, the closure of 14th Street from St. Louis Avenue southward to Warren Avenue left a once-bustling shopping district in decline. The shop buildings gradually became vacant, and only a few businesses on the fringes remain open — notably the venerable Crown Candy Kitchen at 14th and St. Louis. With some renewed attention to the surrounding Old North St. Louis area in the last two years, though, the 14th Street Mall could enjoy some form of rejuvenation soon. Hopefully, rejuvenation will not consist of massive demolition; the two blocks suffered from much demolition when the mall was built to accommodate parking behind the stores on 14th Street.

The scale of this shopping district is as intimately urban as that of the Cherokee Street district. Buildings here are small and close together, and within walking district of beautiful and remarkably intact — by northside standards — 19th century row and town houses. It could be instrumental in developing a multi-racial, mixed-income district of housing and shopping north of downtown, which is priced out of range for most of Saint Louis and is woefully lacking in diversity in its emergent population.

This area could anchor a near-north belt of family-friendly housing, cooperatively managed rental units, urban gardens, live-work spaces (Neighborhood Gardens, anyone?), and neighborhood schools. Imagine: affordable, restored historic living space in the inner city in the 21st century!