Preservation Research Officeby Michael R. Allen
Did you know that, once upon a time, there was a restoration baseball league in St. Louis? At least, according to historian Larry Giles, the league existed for one season in the early 1980’s. The league consisted of teams from rehab neighborhoods, although apparently one neighborhood was head and shoulders above the rest.
The championship game was a match between the Soulard “A” and “B” teams.
by Michael R. Allen
I had no idea that the mailing address for the City of St. Louis was c/o Dodier Investors, 721 Olive Street, Suite 920. (See this parcel information page for the Assessor’s recording of the address for a section of the Illinois Terminal Railroad right-of-way on Tyler Street.)
Either the city is having such a tough revenue crunch that it had to move City Hall into the corner of a real estate office, or something else is going on.
UPDATE: The Assessor’s Office made a mistake in recording the transaction for the parcel. Here’s how it happened: On October 5, Ironhorse Resources transferred the parcel via quit-claim deed to Noble Development Company LLC, which sold the parcel on the same day to Dodier Investors LLC.
The parcel was carved from larger holdings of Ironhorse that were transferred on December 30, 2005, to the Metropolitan Park and Recreation District for the new trail that will utilize the old Illinois Terminal Railroad trestle. It seems hard to fathom that the future transfer to Noble Development was not in the works then.
The truth, then, is scarier than it seemed: the large parcel abutting a future trail is wholly owned by a private company with fictitious registration that is acquiring property at a rapid rate with little public scrutiny.
by Michael R. Allen
Givens Row, the group of three limestone-faced, three-story row houses on the north side of Delmar just west of T.E. Huntley, suffered a small fire yesterday. The fire started at the eastern building in the group, 2903 Delmar Boulevard, which has been owned by Noble Development Company since September 13, 2006. The fire spread to the middle building, but was confined to the upper floor or each building. The cornices of the eastern two buildings were damaged. The western building, which is in use as apartments, suffered no damage at all.
The Italianate-style Givens Row was built in 1886 by businessman Jay Givens, who would later make a substantial donation to Washington University.
Noble Development Company is named for Harvey Noble, the real estate agent who is its registered agent. However, the company has deep ties to the Blairmont land scheme. Readers will recall that a tragic fire struck the Brecht Butcher Supply Company Buildings, owned by Blairmont Associates LC, last month.
by Michael R. Allen
On October 13, the city recorded the quit-claim transfer of a sliver of property on Cass Avenue just east of the Greyhound station from Iron Horse Resources of O’Fallon, Illinois to Noble Development Company LLC. This parcel is the tunnel approach section of the right-of-way of the former Illinois Terminal Railroad’s electric interurban railroad.
The interurban ceased its runs in the 1950s, and this right-of-way has been vacant ever since. Currently, the section of the interurban line that ran on an elevated trestle to the McKinley Bridge is being converted into a trail. The “tunnel” section under Tucker Boulevard will be filled in by the city so that improvements can be made to Tucker.
Noble Development Company LLC is, of course, part of the “Blairmont” family of real estate companies. Supposedly a great mystery to city officials, these companies have a great knack for purchasing property that is strategic to various public works initiatives or urban planning projects. I find it very difficult to fathom that city leaders would let a parcel like the old Terminal Railroad right-of-way section slip through their fingers when it is needed for two large projects that are underway.
Is it possible that the transfer of the land to Noble Development Company was a result sought by someone in city government and that the mysterious company is holding the parcel and others in accord with a master plan for the near northside? I’m not sure, but it seems possible. Until city leaders address the strange property acquisition pattern of these companies, people are going to be led to such conclusions.
Hopefully, rehabbers and business owners on the near north side will stand their ground and avoid panic as rumors float. What a shame that as Old North St. Louis gains development traction the Blairmont scheme emerges without comment from the mayor or others who could instill confidence.
Someone (with the wry Flickr username of “flickr_screen_name”) has posted a photographic ode to the gasometer at Laclede Gas Company Pumping Station G on Chouteau Avenue in Forest Park Southeast. Here are the photos.
The gasometer, built in 1901 and rebuilt in the 1940’s, stands next to a delightful Renaissance Revival pumping station that will be renovated for condo use. The gasometer is not as fortunate, and is slated for demolition.
by Michael R. Allen
There’s a new developer in Old North St. Louis. How do I know? Well, one of my neighbors sold three buildings located at 1420 and 1424 Hebert Street to this developer.
The name of the developer is Dodier Investors LLC.
Its address is 515 Olive Street, Suite 1608. Wait a minute — that’s the address of Eagle Realty Company, the agent for Blairmont Associates LC and the countless other fictitiously-registered companies, some which also listed a return mailing address at the offices of McEagle Development. These are the same people who hired an agent who tried to trick my legally-blind neighbor into selling a parcel she didn’t want to sell. I guess they finally found a new name and a new offer that she could not refuse, so the trick is now on the neighborhood.
Now that the only block in Old North that did not suffer demolition in the 20th century now has been infilitrated by the northside’s largest land scheme, everything is uneasy. Does the land scheme accomodate historic preservation and respect for an existing community? Or does it aim to superimpose upon the near northside a theoretical and lifeless vision of community based not on relationships between people but on a cyncial vision of development profit?
Answers to such questions are impossible to get when the people behind Dodier Investors LLC thwart communication and accountability.
by Michael R. Allen
The Chicago Sun-Times reports that emergency demolition of the Wirt Dexter Building began today. The building, designed by Adler & Sullivan and built in 1887, burned in a huge fire on Tuesday.
Try to stanch the pain of tragedy by reading Carl Sandburg’s poem “Skyscraper.” The poem invokes the golden age of American tall buildings, started by rapid architectural innovation in which the Wirt Dexter Building was an integral part. The roots of the American skyscraper pass back through what is now a blackened wreck and what will next week be nothing but rubble. Although the building is falling, it was one of many that — through narrow piers, wide windows, pronounced height and embrace of the metal frame — proclaimed to Chicago and the world that a new soaring architectural form was being born in America. That legacy remains vibrant, even as the Wirt Dexter building dies a senseless death.
by Michael R. Allen
Been to the corner of Sarah and Cottage avenues in the Ville neighborhood of St. Louis before last week? If not, you have forever missed your chance to experience the intersection with the anchor of its southeast corner, a row of flats with a corner storefront. The row was typical of those built west of Grand during the early years of the twentieth century: two stories tall, walls of buff brick, Classical Revival in style and with pale terra cotta ornament, window sills and coping. This one was flat-roofed, like this row nearby on Martin Luther King Boulevard documented on Urban Review awhile ago during its demolition.
Alas, this row began falling last week and will be gone by Monday. Already, only the storefront end still stands; the rest of the row is only a pile of rubble falling into the pits of coursed rubble limestone foundations. When it’s all gone, this intersection will be a blank slate that likely will stay blank for awhile.
by Michael R. Allen
Tragedy strikes Chicago with yet another devastating fire at a building designed by Louis Sullivan. This time, the damaged building is the 1887 Wirt-Dexter Building on Wabash Avenue in the Loop, a formative work by Adler & Sullivan. The Wirt-Dexter Building possesses a lightness of form with vertical emphasis that Sullivan would develop further with the Wainwright Building in 1891. The building also has a unique exposed system of iron piers on its rear elevation, long before the expressed forms of Mies Van Der Rohe’s buildings and almost a century ahead of the postmodern exposed structure fad.
There is no conclusive report on structural integrity after the fire. However, press quotes from Chicago Transit Authority head Frank Kruesi seem to indicate that the building, which abuts an El line, may be demolished soon.
Read more about the fire and the building in an incisive essay by Lynn Becker, Chicago’s leading architectural critic.
The Wirt-Dexter Building has been vacant for nearly twenty years, and there was little political will to find a new use for it. There may be Louis Sullivan key chains at the Chicago ArchiCenter gift shop, but that is no guarantee of the safety of any work designed by his hand. In today’s Chicago, time and time again we see that no pedigree guarantees protection of a historic building.
by Michael R. Allen
MORSE SHOE FACTORY UNDER DEMOLITION
Workers have begun removing the terra cotta ornament from the O. Morse Shoe Company Building at Duncan and Boyle. Apparently, some of the ornament will be “reused” in construction of the building that will replace the venerable shoe factory building: the sleekly boring, sub-urban headquarters building for Solae. Whether or not such reuse is appropriate remains to be seen.
FOREST PARK SOUTHEAST DEMOLITION SPREE NEARLY DONE
Meanwhile, the clearance of 22 buildings in Forest Park Southeast is nearly complete. The demolitions at the north end of the neighborhood on Chouteau and Donovan avenues has created a large open space that is extremely jarring. Hopefully redevelopment will be swift. To the west, the Laclede Gas Pumping Station G will lose its landmark gasometer but retain its delightful Classical Revival pump house (built in 1910). West of there, the Freund Bread Company site has been cleared since last year, awaiting new buildings that are part of the Pumping Station project.
Overall, though, the neighborhood is looking better than ever. The transformation of Manchester Avenue within the last year has reversed the decay of many historic buildings and led to the openings of several new businesses.
BRECHT BUTCHER SUPPLY COMPANY BUILDINGS HOLDING ON
On October 10, the Building Division issued an emergency condemnation for the Brecht Butcher Supply Company Buildings. However, demolition is up to the Blairmont Associates LC of O’Fallon, Missouri, owners of the complex. So far, there is no demolition application at City Hall.