Preservation Research OfficeFrom an ad on CraigsList posted in the “materials” section:
1860’s Missouri Log Cabin, dismantled, tagged and diagrammed for sale. Pictures available by request. Original cabin 15X16 with an addition of 15X16, all log. Please respond to judy249@centurytel.net
by Michael R. Allen
Meet the building at 2817 N. 14th Street. This is the sort of buildings that many preservationists would hem and haw about when asked if it would be expendable to redevelopment. This is the sort of building that many Old North St. Louis residents would defend to the moment before the bulldozer arrived.
This 1860s-era row house has some noticeable problems. It’s owned by the city’s Land Reutilization Authority. The front wall is bulged outward, necessitating the bracing that was installed only recently. The roof is sagging inward. Bricks routinely fall from its parapets. The interior is barely recognizable as anything other than a tangle of water-damaged wood. The floors have collapsed, and the walls have descended.
Yet the building still shows its elegant Greek Revival brickwork. Simple segmental arches are repeated over the windows and doorway. A dentillated brick cornice creates a stately crown to the front elevation. The front-gabled roof draws the passer-by’s eye upwards to a small dormer. Long ago, chimneys would have provided more visual interest at the roof.
This building demonstrates the craftsmanship of vernacular architecture from an era with relatively little traces. How can Old North St. Louis tell its story to future generations without it? The neighborhood is unwilling to try.
This building joins over 25 other historic buildings to form the $32 million “Crown Square” project in Old North. This project is spearheaded by the Old North St. Louis Restoration group and the Regional Housing and Community Development Alliance — a neighborhood group and a not-for-profit. These are organizations whose missions allow them to take the risk to tell the neighborhood’s story. These are organizations acting long ahead of any moment at which a private developer would dare spend $32 million in Old North. If that day comes, the developer spending that money may own a building like this one. That developer may look for a precedent on how to handle the thorny question of what to do with a half-collapsed old brick tenement.
By then, projects like Crown Village and the investment of the community in its history will set a pretty strong precedent for doing the right thing. The right thing here is to safeguard the traces of a community’s heritage that will inform future generations who will live inside and alongside historic buildings in Old North.
by Michael R. Allen
Developer Paul J. McKee, Jr. may speak about his acquisitions in north St. Louis in public next Thursday, October 25 at Holy Trinity Church in Hyde Park. McKee is an invited guest to the next regular public meeting of Metropolitan Congregations United (MCU), the interdenominational Christian alliance formed to promote social justice and high quality of life for the region’s urban core. According to MCU members, if he appears, McKee will state his agreement to a number of conditions MCU has set for their endorsement of his plans for north St. Louis.
While McKee’s willingness to make a public appearance is laudable — and some might say is an appropriate response to recent criticism of his silence — the fact is that the meeting is not a public forum intended to expose affected north side residents to the developers whose plans have altered their neighborhoods.
Given the format of MCU’s public meetings, a reasonable expectation is that McKee will make a brief statement of his intention and why he needs MCU support. A representative from MCU will list their conditions for support, which had been agreed upon by McKee and MCU prior to the meeting. McKee will state that he will abide by the four standard MCU conditions for supporting development: respect for urban character, not displacing people, affordable housing, and community participation.
Hence, the format does not allow McKee to present any substantial information. He will not be taking questions, or listening to comments. The audience will be composed mostly of MCU members, with a smattering of any near north side residents who manage to learn about the event and bother to attend. Residents whose homes are within McKee’s project area had a greater chance for engagement at the public meeting hosted by elected officials on August 30 at Vashon High School. McKee is not coming to the north side to address residents; he is coming to symbolically accept the political support of the influential MCU. Residents of north St. Louis will have to keep waiting for a meeting with McKee that is truly public.
In the meantime, perhaps MCU can consider the message sent by endorsing plans with details are unknown to the residents of the areas the plans affected; with an acquisition program fraught with allegations of fraud and deception; that has created nuisance properties on healthy blocks, driven down property values and led to displacement of poor residents; and that has created a climate of uncertainty and resignation in an area showing strong signs of revival. Does it not bother MCU leaders to endorse a development plan long before people affected by it eren know what it is?
MCU missed the chance to hold out their endorsement until McKee gave affected residents a chance for real dialog. Instead, MCU is stepping over residents of Old North St. Louis, St. Louis Place and JeffVanderLou. Hopefully McKee won’t do the same, and will meet directly with residents.
by Michael R. Allen
A resident of north St. Louis is heading south to see a friend. He drives south on Florissant Avenue but then remembers that the section of Florissant/13th/Tucker over the old Illinois Termianl Railroad tunnel is closed indefinitely. So he makes a left turn on Cass Avenue, figuring that he can useBroadway to head south and bypass downtown. oops! The bridge over I-70 is closed indefinitely. So he turns around, heads west on Cass and then south on Jefferson. That is fine until he passes I-64. Jefferson is closed.
In the kind of city where north-south connectivity is easy, this driver would not be having so much trouble. But in a city with fewer than a half-dozen north-south streets that actually connect downtown to the city south of it, he’s in a bind due to some coincidental road repairs.
There is definitely a spatial dimension to our city’s polarization between north and south. I sure hope that Richard Baron is thinking about this fact as he contemplates Chouteau Lake.
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.
by Michael R. Allen
Photo from What’s New in Old North.
Old North St. Louis has made a big step in the effort to stabilize the imperiled Mullanphy Emigrant Home. The foundation of the south wall of the Mullanphy Emigrant Home is in the midst of reconstruction this week. Once the foundation work is completed, masons can begin laying the block that will form the new inner wythes of the walls; face brick will come later. Hopefully by winter’s onset the roof of the building will be supported by masonry walls.
Remember that the greater the progress made, the greater the cost. The effort to stabilize the landmark continues to seek donations.
More from What’s New in Old North: Mullanphy Foundation Begins to Rise
by Michael R. Allen
Gateway Connector Lacks Funding – Nicholas J.C. Pistor (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 8)
Apparently, the State of Illinois lacks funding for a $500 million east side highway that would connect Troy and Columbia. Plans aren’t dead, though — and that’s a bad thing for the character of the small towns in Illinois that it would “connect.”
Proponents of the connector call it a boon to the growing cities of the metro east. Careful scrutiny might show that the cities are losing investment and residents in their core areas while using annexation of placeless sprawl to offset the losses. The road would reward and subsidize an a trend that is slowly killing the small urban areas of the metro east.
by Michael R. Allen
Photograph by the author.
At last week’s grand opening for “The Laurel” condominiums in the former Grand Leader Department Store Building on Washington Avenue, the Pyramid Companies unveiled this model of the building.
by Michael R. Allen
Paul Hohmann reports that the city Building Division has granted an emergency demolition order for the Central Apartments at 3727 Olive Street in Midtown.
The building is owned by Grand Center, Inc. Brick spalling has beset the western wall for the past three years, and the owner has not performed preventative maintenance despite obvious trouble. Still, the Central Apartments are structurally sound in fact and under the terms of the city’s Preservation Ordinance, which stipulates that the building must be stable enough to stand for at least another six months to be deemed stable. Clearly, there is no emergency here.
by Michael R. Allen
Photograph by author.
At last week’s meeting of the Preservation Board, the board considered the appeal of a Cultural Resources Office Staff denial of an application for demolition of a two-story commercial building downtown located at 2217-19 Olive Street. The board unanimously upheld the denial.
The owners of the building, Gary and Gail Andrews, have owned the building since 1977 but have failed to maintain the building according to city building codes. A section of the roof of the building collapsed several years ago, causing parapet damage, but the building is stable. The owners seek to to demolish the building, replacing it with a lawn and eventually a surface parking lot to serve a building that they own at 2206 Locust Street. (Read the CRO report here.)
The building is a contributing resource to a pending national historic district, the Olive and Locust Historic Business District. The nomination is awaiting final approval from the National Park Service. According to the nomination, prepared by Melinda Winchester:
The residential character of both Olive and Locust easily gave way to commercial activity, as many people converted homes into first floor shops with apartments above. An example of this is the building at 2217 Olive. Constructed as a home for Margaret Hilton in 1888, the first floor was converted into Walter C. Persons Photo Supplies Company in 1929 by William Duerback.
Examples of such conversion on Olive and Locust east of Jefferson are nearly extinct. The nomination does not identify a single other example of the converted residence within the historic district boundaries.
Once the building is listed on the National Register as part of the district, its rehabilitation will be eligible for state and federal historic rehabilitation tax credits. This building and others on the block have not been eligible for the tax credits before. With the availability of the credit, these buildings should be attractive investments.
I concur with Cultural Resources staff that replacement of a historic downtown building with a grassy lot substitutes a high land use with an inappropriately low land use.