Categories
Architecture Industrial Buildings North St. Louis Riverfront

Kraushaar Brass Manufacturing Company

by Michael R. Allen

I frequently pass by this industrial building at 2509 N. Broadway in the north riverfront industrial corridor, and have long wondered about the distinctive stepped south elevation. On that side, the parapet steps up a full floor above the apparent building height to support a chimney. My first assumption was that the chimney was the remnant of a demolished interconnected taller building. That assumption didn’t seem right, though. Time for research.

The 1909 Sanborn fire insurance map (Volume 3, page 52) shows this building alone, with no building standing to the south. The stepped section chimney is part of the building, which Sanborn shows as being a three-story section of the Kraushaar Brass Manufacturing Company. Building permits indicate that the building at 2509 N. Broadway was built in 1904 at a three story height. Since the building was part of an active brass foundry, a destruction of the top story by fire is possible. Several metal-industry related buildings in the north riverfront areas lost top floors to fire. Early processes often resulted in industrial accidents, and we know that heat rises. However, my guess is as likely as simple decapitation of a floor deemed useless for some reason.

My research on Kraushaar Brass Manufacturing is incomplete. Records show that the company was founded by Charles Frederick Kraushaar, a Prussian immigrant born in 1847 who arrived in St. Louis after 1870. Kraushaar started a brass foundry on this block (city block 330, bounded by Broadway, Warren, 9th and Benton streets) in 1873 that expanded in size rapidly. In 1911, when Kraushaar retired, he resided at 3627 California Avenue in south city. His company made a lot of light fixtures, and its products appear in Missouri state government procurement records.

One mystery solved, dozens more created…

Categories
Downtown

Dapper Dan’s Closes Its Doors

by Michael R. Allen

As Skip to the ‘Lou reported, Dapper Dan’s closed on Saturday. Located at 410 North Tucker Boulevard, Dapper Dan’s was a downtown institution built on another’s legacy. Dapper Dan’s opened in 1976 in the space that reigned as the legendary Bismarck Cafe from 1923 through 1972. The Bismarck was known for turtle soup and cloaked booths where politicians, businessmen, reporters and mobsters would huddle over a meal or drinks. Dapper Dan’s, as Bill McClellan described well in his column last week, was of a different era for downtown. Born at a time when fortunes were declining, it was a haven for the working class to whom the city center was left as the elite retreated westward.

I first encountered Dapper Dan’s a few years ago, with the erstwhile Mickey McTague as my guide. McTague was then still working for the Sheriff’s Department, whose ranks gave the bar more than a little business over the years. Mickey introduced me to Rich Dallas and his daughters, and a cast of regulars that included Jefferson Arms residents, a parking lot attendant and a many retired folks. In subsequent trips, I saw these people and others, ranging from city workers to packs of youth waiting for their favorite bands to perform at the Creepy Crawl next door. Once, my colleagues and I took a prospective co-worker to Dapper Dan’s to give him an off-the-record account of what he might be getting himself into by taking a job in historic preservation. Either the drinks dulled his senses or he had a strong will; he came to work for Landmarks and remains here today.

However, never did I encounter a full Dapper Dan’s. I have been at a full Maurizio’s, and a crowded Missouri Bar and Grill. Dapper Dan’s did not pull in as many people. I think this is because the people it pulled have spread out. Just as the businessmen and politicians moved their meetings closer to their homes and even jobs in the Central West End and St. Louis Hills, the working class spread outward. Remember, the steepest population loss in St. Louis history was recorded between the 1970 census and the 1980 census. That Rich Dallas could open a downtown business in that period and keep it alive for another 32 years is testament to his canny and his loyal customer base.

Downtown will move on without Dapper Dan’s, just as it has lost many other of its hard-boiled establishments like Carl’s Two Cents Plain, Jimmy’s, Amitin’s and a plethora of others. I regret being too ill over the weekend to pay my final respects, because there will be nothing else like Dapper Dan’s with its weary, time-worn urbanity.

What becomes of the building that housed Dapper Dan’s is an open question. The building, built in 1890, was once five stories tall. In the days of downtown despair, the owner of this building and its next door neighbor joined a short-lived fad of lopping “unnecessary” floors. This crude pragmatism saved the historic restaurant fixtures on the first floor, which remain pristine down to the men’s room details, but gave the building an awkward, jagged crown. Still, what remains is a great turn-key opportunity for a bar and restaurant. The old truncated Creep Crawl building next door has found new life as a pet clinic, indicating that there is a market for an amputee building.

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
Downtown East St. Louis, Illinois Green Space I-70 Removal JNEM Laclede's Landing Planning Riverfront

Drawing the Connections

by Michael R. Allen

Robert W. Duffy’s article “To connect the Arch to the city (and the river), find the middle” in the Beacon broadcasts the good news from this weekend: a group of concerned citizens forged a coalition to address the issue of reconnecting downtown St. Louis to the Arch grounds and the riverfront, and vice versa.

The meeting and consensus for forward movement potentially could tie together many disparate strands of thinking:

  • Former Senator Jack Danforth’s call for improving access to the Arch grounds and making the setting more attractive.
  • The notion of removing I-70 downtown advanced by Rick Bonasch, myself and others, which is enabled by construction of a new Mississippi River Bridge north of downtown.
  • The National Park Service’s release of a draft General Management plan for the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.
  • The call from open space advocates and preservationists to refocus public discussion from the museum prospect on connecting the Arch grounds to surrounding urban fabric.
  • The outpouring of many good ideas in the recent student charrette on the Arch grounds and riverfront.
  • Mayor Slay’s recent attempt to focus planning energy on the St. Louis riverfront.
  • Chivvis Development’s efforts to revitalize Chouteau’s Landing.
  • Plans by Great Rivers Greenway District to develop a South Rivefront Trail that would connect to the North Riverfront Trail in front of the Arch.
  • Plans for new development at the Bottle District and a second phase of Lumiere Place north of downtown.
  • Ongoing efforts to redevelop the North Riverfront Industrial Historic District north of Lumiere Place.
  • Efforts to improve the East St. Louis riverfront, including construction of an architectural museum.Finally, there is the very real prospect that the Obama administration will look for an initial wave of federally-funded public works projects and will push for long-term funding for urban infrastructure projects.

    All of these ideas and plans are in various stages of reality. Most have yet to move beyond talking points and renderings. Isn’t the moment ripe to link these plans together through a master vision for the central St. Louis riverfront? The people who came together on Saturday think so, and will spend the next few months trying to link the many ideas for making the city’s front entrance a beautiful one.

    • Categories
    Demolition Fire Housing McRee Town

    Folsom Avenue Blues – Part Two

    by Michael R. Allen

    Here are some images showing the 3900-4000 block of Folsom Avenue in McRee Town on October 31, 2004. As the images show, the castellated two-flats were more abundant then, providing a sense of their effect on the block.

    One of the buildings had recently experienced a suspicious fire.

    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)

    Categories
    Historic Preservation Housing Preservation Board South St. Louis

    Dutchtown Center Hall House on December 22 Preservation Board Agenda

    by Michael R. Allen

    On Monday, December 22 the St. Louis Preservation Board will again consider demolition of the frame center-hall house at 4722 Tennessee Avenue in Dutchtown. New Life Evangelistic Center (NLEC) applied for a demolition permit in the fall that the city’s Cultural Resources Office denied. NLEC appealed the denial to the board, which was set to consider the matter at its November 2008 meeting. (See “NLEC Seeks Demolition of Frame Center Hall House on Tennessee,” November 23.) NLEC obtained a deferral, and the item was moved to the current agenda.

    The Preservation Board previously denied an appeal of a staff denial in 2007. NLEC purchased the house after this denial. Alderwoman Dorothy Kirner (D-25th) is opposed to demolition, and many neighbors are opposed to NLEC’s presence in Dutchtown. Seems like the smart path would be for NLEC to act on Kirner’s opposition to find assistance in rehabilitating the historic house.

    At the last Preservation Board meeting, the NLEC representative who attended testified that NLEC might want to explore rehabilitation of the house. I have no knowledge if NLEC has decided to suspend plans for demolition or not. As far as I know, the Board will be considering the appeal on Monday, and citizens need to be prepared to testify on behalf of preservation then.

    The Preservation Board meets Monday, December 22 at 4:00 p.m. in the 12th floor conference room at 1015 Locust Street downtown. Written testimony can be sent to the board via Adonna Buford, BufordA@stlouiscity.com.

    Categories
    Housing National Register North St. Louis The Ville

    Chuck Berry House Listed in National Register of Historic Places

    by Michael R. Allen

    Photograph by Lindsey Derrington.

    On Friday, the National Park Service listed the Chuck Berry House at 3137 Whittier Avenue in the National Register of Historic Places. The listing is the result of the diligence of my colleague Lindsey Derrington, Researcher for Landmarks Association of St. Louis. Last year, Lindsey identified the house and its National register eligibility. She pursued the nomination against long odds — the National Park Service has a long-standing policy to not list properties whose significance comes from association with living people.

    Lindsey demonstrated that the significance of the house lay in the work Berry wrote while living there some fifty years ago — not recent achievement but music that has long been recognized as foundational in American rock and roll. The staff of the State Historic Preservation Office, especially reviewer Roger Maserang, joined the cause and persuaded the federal staff to review the nomination. Now the house has its official place in history, and a modicum of protection against demolition. The owner of the vacant one-story house is a holding company based in Washington state with no discernible intent to rehab the house. The next step is finding a responsible owner for the important house. Meanwhile, we can celebrate the big step taken through Lindsey’s work.