Category: People

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Chicago Documentation Media People

Past the Margins of Chicago

by Michael R. Allen

Rob Powers (creator of Built St. Louis) has launched A Chicago Sojourn to chronicle the non-iconic corners of his new home. In his first post, Rob writes that “I’ve always gravitated to the forgotten: in St. Louis, in Milwaukee, everywhere I go. And so it shall be here.”

Beautifully-designed Forgotten Chicago features photo essays on those traces of Chicago’s past few celebrate, let alone investigate. Recent topics the Schoenhofen Brewery, pre-1909 street numbering system and Chicago’s largest vacant lot, the site of US Steel’s South Works. Jacob Kaplan and photographer Serhii Chrucky are the editors.

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Mayor Slay Media North St. Louis Old North People

MayorSlay.com Posts Video on Old North

Carson Minow’s latest video for St. Louis Traffic is about Old North St. Louis. Check it out here.  Thus continues the continued interest in Old North by the editors of MayorSlay.com. Hopefully that is an indication that our current mayor understands a thing or two about the urban character of the near north side.

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Media People

Shoo Fly Shoo

by Michael R. Allen

The Riverfront Times declared me “Best Gadfly” in this week’s “Best of St. Louis” issue (more coverage at Urban Review).  I’ll take the honor, but I’m puzzled that the writer seems to know where I buy my pants.

Categories
Detroit Documentation People

Detroit Ruins

by Michael R. Allen


Photograph by Nicole Rork for Detroit Ruins. Used with permission.

I want you to look at a website of photographs of abandoned places…

I already sense the disinterest.

Well, hear me out. I want you to look at Detroit Ruins.

I want you to see how Nicole Rork offers a tour of the ruins of Detroit, Gary and a few other cities through images that are at once prosaic and beautiful. I want you to notice that she provides short histories of the places she documents, with accurate information and links to other sources. Rork captures the vividness of faded colors, the brightness in dark rooms and the larger world in confined spaces. She’s a bit of a conjurer — taking shots with views wide enough to suggest that life in some form is lurking right outside of the frame of the still scenes she documents. Perhaps she is confronting that force somewhere while her camera takes its picture. Perhaps not. Does it matter? The subject matter itself gains a new life through her gaze.

I want you to look at Detroit Ruins.

Categories
Mullanphy Emigrant Home North St. Louis Old North People South St. Louis

Marti Frumhoff Memorial Garden, Mullanphy Emigrant Home Efforts Moving Forward

by Michael R. Allen

Christian Herman announces a new blog covering fundraisers for the Marti Frumhoff Memorial Garden, including the fun event held at Tin Can Tavern this past Saturday.

Meanwhile, some work has begun on the effort to rebuild the Mullanphy Emigrant Home. E.M. Harris Construction Company has performed stabilization and debris removal needed to prepare for reconstruction of the south foundation wall. The New Old North blog posted photos of work back on July 17. More work has taken place since then, and foundation work could start any day now. Look for further updates there and here.

Categories
Events Hyde Park North St. Louis People

Today’s Rehabbers’ Club Meeting in Hyde Park

by Michael R. Allen

Under the cover of great weather, this morning the Rehabbers’ Club made its way to Hyde Park for its monthly meeting. The meetings follow a show-and-tell format designed to expose city residents to dedicated rehabbers and developers, unique projects and the city’s many fantastic neighborhoods.

Today, the meeting began at the Friedens United Church of Christ Fellowship Hall at 19th and Newhouse, where Friedens Neighborhood Foundation YouthBuild Program Director Brian Marston discussed the new YouthBuild academy and its rehabilitation of the church’s long-vacant historic school building. Afterwards, I gave a short walking tour that went through the park and ended at what will be a spectacular rehabilitation project: developer Peter George’s rebuilding of the Nord St. Louis Turnverein.

Included on the tour was a garden that Friedens has dedicated in honor of Marti Frumhoff, founder of the Rehabbers’ Club as well as the Publishing Group.

While attendance was atypically low, typical of summer meetings, the crowd’s mix was noteworthy: a former president of Metropolis, a 37-year resident of Hyde Park, a micro-developer who is taking on the difficult rehab of five historic buildings in Old North, one of the earliest members of the Rehabbers’ Club, a Riverfront Times reporter, a resident of Carondelet, a young family seeking to buy and rehab in Hyde Park and myself. Marti’s desire to connect all of us continues to realize success.

Categories
People

We Need More People Like NiNi Harris

by Michael R. Allen

This past Sunday, people flocked to the St. Stanislaus Kostka Church complex on North 20th Street for their annual Summer Picnic. Many of these people were there to purchase the new book Unyielding Spirit: The History of the Polish People in St. Louis and meet its author, historian NiNi Harris. NiNi’s book signing line was steady throughout the day.

Unyielding Spirit was definitely the main attraction, but NiNi is worth a lot of attention. Over the last thirty years, NiNi has gained a vast knowledge of the people and places of this city, especially her native south St. Louis. Her recall is quick, and her details usually precisely remembered. She likes to tell good stories, too — the hallmark of a great historian. NiNi seems possessed by a desire to see that the people and places of this city live forever.

NiNi shares both knowledge and passion through frequent walking tours, lectures, seven books, over 600 articles and what must be millions of conversations. The remarkable thing is that she is self-employed, having never sought the safety and salary of nonprofits, government or the other places historians’ circumstances usually lead them.

Above all, NiNi remains approachable and joyful about her work — and modest. She actually called me on Monday to thank me for stopping by her book signing.  (Unyielding Spirit is available for sale through St. Stanislaus Kostka and at the Chatillon-DeMenil House shop.)

Categories
Media People

Reading

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.

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Hyde Park Mortgage Fraud People

US Attorney Indicts Doug Hartmann

by Michael R. Allen

Today the US Attorney’s office announced that it is indicting mortgage fraud artist Doug Hartmann for bank and mail fraud. Hartmann’s scheme involved nearly 250 properties, including scores of historic houses in the city of St. Louis and the Nord St. Louis Turnverein, which burned last July under Hartmann’s ownership.

The Post-Dispatch has the story here.

Categories
Northside Regeneration People

Paul McKee Praised

by Michael R. Allen

In her latest post to the Riverfront Times blog, Kathleen McLaughlin profiles one “flaming liberal” and unexpected WingHaven resident who has genuinely come to respect developer Paul J. McKee, Jr.:

The Softy Side of Paul McKee