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Missouri Public Policy

Tax Credit Review Commission Recommendations

Governor Jay Nixon’s Tax Credit Review Commission has approved the recommendation that the Missouri State Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit’s annual cap be lowered from around $161 million to $75 million. Other changes included in the final recommendations are disallowing combination of the historic tax credit with the Neighborhood Preservation and the Low Income Housing Tax Credit.

The Missouri Coalition for Historic Preservation and Economic Development has posted an article that outlines how these recommendations ended up being passed after the Subcommittee on Historic Tax Credits made completely different recommendations. Read that article here.

Categories
Events Historic Preservation Mid-Century Modern

Toby Weiss on Mid-Century Modern Preservation

Yesterday at Architecture St. Louis, my colleague Toby Weiss gave a wonderful talk on mid-century modern preservation in St. Louis. Reminding us of the who, what, when, where and why of the recent past, Toby inspired the crowd. Here are two clips, with apologies for the hand of this amateur videographer. – M.R.A.

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Demolition Forest Park Southeast Preservation Board

Preservation Board Considering Demolitions on Arco

by Michael R. Allen

Tomorrow the St. Louis Preservation Board will consider the demolition of four houses on Arco Avenue, located at 4217, 4221, 4223 and 4225 Arco Avenue. The owner and applicant is Restoration St. Louis, a company whose commitment to historic preservation is strong and well-known. The Cultural Resources Office recommends that the Preservation Board allow demolition of the damaged houses at 4223 and 4225 Arco but deny demolition of the other two, which despite decay are sound.

All are contributing resources to the Forest Park Southeast Historic District, which is why their demolition can go before the Preservation Board. I made the following video of the current condition:

Alex Ihnen posted an article on these houses on urbanSTL, and in an update stated that he feels they are “goners.” The Forest Park Southeast neighborhood association has endorsed demolition of all of the houses. Yet the Cultural Resources Office’s professional staff thinks that the eastern two are not, which is a reasonable assertion. Tomorrow’s Preservation Board meeting — held at 4:00 p.m. in the 12th floor conference room at 1015 Locust Street — should be interesting.

Categories
Brick Theft North St. Louis St. Louis Place

Brick Yard Loses Occupancy Permit

by Michael R. Allen

Brick thieves have attacked the house at 1925 St. Louis Avenue in St. Louis Place in recent weeks. Read more about this block here.

Yesterday the St. Louis Board of Adjustment revoked the occupancy permit for Unlimited Bricks, a brick yard located at 2600 University Avenue. Police had suspected that the yard has received stolen bricks taken from abandoned buildings in the area, which violates the city’s brick ordinance. Unlimited Bricks conducts business and storage outdoors in a chain-link fenced yard that neighborhood residents describe as unsightly.

The Secretary of State’s database lists no registered company or fictitious registration by the name of “Unlimited Bricks.” According to the Assessor, Charles Rosene owns the parcel at 2600 University Avenue as well as large fenced parcels to the north and south where there is open storage of demolition equipment and salvaged materials.

Categories
Demolition Gate District Historic Preservation South St. Louis

Two for One on Lafayette Avenue

by Michael R. Allen

In September, I wrote about the storm-damaged collapsing eastern house in a row of three historic houses on the 2800 block of Lafayette Avenue (see “Rowhouse on Lafayette Avenue Slated for Demolition”, September 10). The Building Division quickly condemned for demolition the 19th century house as an emergency public safety hazard, and demolition commenced last month.

The result shows the pitfalls of our current policy for abandoned buildings.

There is no mistake that the wreckers hired by the Building Division did their job, but that job itself is not all that needed to be done. What is left behind by the crew an adjacent row house now weakened to a point where it too may start suffering structural problems.  The first problem is that the side wall, of soft brick never meant to be exposed to weather, is now uncovered.

On the front elevation, as I predicted, the wreckers could not easily deal with the fact that the front wall of the row was laid as a continuous bond with no easy seams. The wrecking job led to loss of face brick and of part of the wooden cornice of the neighboring house. The loss of the cornice is inexcusable since a simple straight saw cut could have been used.

Again, I am not insinuating that the wreckers did anything wrong. Trouble is, they did what the city hired them to do. The city did not hire them to make sure the neighboring building was stabilized, or to do anything beyond removing 2804 Lafayette Avenue.

That task seems particularly short-sighted when one views the newly-exposed east elevation to find a gaping hole in the foundation wall.  I have no clue how this hole was created, but I do know that it leaves wooden joists unsupported.  Without support, those joists will eventually fall, and pull the walls downward with them.  This hole should be patched in with masonry of either stone or concrete masonry units, but if anyone complains the most likely result will be that a city crew will cover it with plywood.

Clearly, the Building Division’s demolition policy leaves unresolved issues when one building in a row — and despite perceptions there are many row houses in the city — gets wrecked but the row stands. The neighboring house now has been destabilized and joist collapse, front wall spalling and other maladies will set in. Hopefully if it gets demolished, the occupied house next door will be protected from careless damage.

Photograph by Jane Porter of Landmarks Association of St. Louis from the National Register nomination of the Barr Branch Library Historic District, 1981.

Before the demolition, the potential of this fine row of houses on Lafayette reminded me of another row, also on the south side of Lafayette between Jefferson and Compton avenues. The photograph of Barr’s Block above shows its deteriorated condition in 1981. The seven-house row built in 1875 by merchant William Barr (of Famous-Barr fame) was in dire condition when it was listed in the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Barr Branch Library Historic District in 1982. That designation made the row eligible for the federal historic rehabilitation tax credit and led to the row’s rehabilitation.  (One building was later demolished.)

Today Barr’s Block has been rehabilitated again, reverting to town houses from its previous incarnation as rental housing. While Lafayette Avenue in the Gate District may have lost building density and be marred by much vacant land, there remain many historic buildings and the potential for urban infill. The location is amazing. Why the row to the west — not part of any historic district — has been left to die is incomprehensible.

Categories
Events Historic Preservation Mid-Century Modern

Modern STL Blasts Off Next Thursday


Lindell Terrace (left; Hellmuth, Obata, Kassabaum) and the DeVille Motor Hotel (right; Colbert, Lowery, Hess & Boudreaux) rise on Lindell Boulevard in 1962. The newly-completed Optimists Club Building (Russell, Mullgardt, Schwarz & Van Hoefen) is at left.

Almost forty years ago, when the city was on a modern architecture building spree, the staunchest advocates for modern architecture in St. Louis were developers, civic leaders and architects.

Today, the advocates are going to have to be us. Care to join?

Modern STL makes its public debut on November 18th from 5-8 PM at Atomic Cowboy.  We will be accepting our founding members ($20 individual / $30 family annual dues) at this event.  You can be among the first to stand up for our mid-century modern architecture by joining next week.

If joining the cause of modern architecture preservation and attending a fun party aren’t enough enticement, try this: The first 25 people to become a Modern STL member (and here’s why you should join) get a gift bag stuffed with MCM souvenirs personally hand-picked by thrift-shopping board members. There will also be raffle tickets that give you the chance to win two ultra-modern watches.

See you there!

Categories
Events Louis Sullivan

Louis Sullivan Documentary at the Film Festival

The St. Louis International Film Festival includes the return of Mark Richard’s Smith’s Louis Sullivan: The Struggle for American Architecture, a lushly-filmed exposition on the architect’s work that first screened here this summer. The screening takes place Sunday, Nov 14th at 2:00 PM at the Hi-Pointe.

From Cinema St. Louis:

This compelling documentary examines the life and work of the great American architect Louis H. Sullivan (1856-1924), one of the original practitioners of the Prairie School of design and a key influence on Frank Lloyd Wright. Sullivan’s legacy is especially visible in his adopted home of Chicago, but his work is found throughout the U.S. and includes St. Louis’ Wainwright Building — one of the world’s first skyscrapers — and Union Trust Building. Playfully describing the film as “design porn,” the Kansas City Star says that “the genius of this movie lies in its almost sensual appreciation of Sullivan’s buildings, which formed an elegant yet utilitarian bridge between the solid formality of the late Victorian era and the lush ornamentation of art nouveau while planting the seeds for art deco. So you’ll learn about an important artist from this film, but you’ll also leave feeling a bit ravished.” With director Smith. Sponsored by Tjaden Interiors.

Tickets are $12 on the day of show. More ticketing information here.

Categories
Events Housing North St. Louis St. Louis Place

Groundbreaking for Modular Homes in St. Louis Place

Categories
Demolition Downtown Terra Cotta

Locust Street Breathes Again

by Michael R. Allen

Our landmark Railway Exchange Building, home of Macy’s Department Store, breathed a sigh of relief last week as the last bit of the monstrous St. Louis Centre sky bridge over Locust Street came down. The wide, tall bridge connected the second through fifth floors of the department store space to the mall, and blocked views of the building’s north elevation.

Completed in 1913 and designed by Mauran, Russell & Crowell, the Railway Exchange occupies the entire city block between Olive, 6th, Locust and 7th streets. The 21-story mass is adorned with 183,000 white-glazed terra cotta tiles by St. Louis’ Winkle Terra Cotta Company. The tiles display a wealth of original work and Italian Renaissance-derived patterns. For the past 25 years, only three sides of the building have been fully displayed.

Removal shows that the sky bridge construction in 1984-1985 did entail grinding away of the faces of many tiles, but the damage is not as extensive as it could have been. Most of the area was simply coated with fire-proofing spray.

As with the former Stix-Baer and Fuller department store building to the south (coincidentally designed by the same firm), some replication of terra cotta is ahead. The Railway Exchange’s north elevation will again shine, perhaps with a substitute material (hopefully not a plastic-based one!) or perhaps with the real thing. Recent replacement work on the Orpheum Theater used actual new clay terra cotta pieces. Terra cotta is still manufactured in Italy, but there may be fewer than a half-dozen American makers. When the Railway Exchange was built, there were many makers domestically but none finer than our own Winkle Company.

The Railway Exchange has repair work ahead, but already Locust Street is a restored place. With both of St. Louis Centre’s sky bridges demolished, we have reversed one of the worst atrocities of the 1980’s urban renewal era in St. Louis. At an event Sunday, someone asked me if the Gateway One of the Mall building’s demolition could be far behind.

I won’t bet on that event happening soon, and I would certainly prioritize projects that reclaim the public space of the street eroded in the post-modern era.  (Also, with the mass of the bridge gone, the loss of density through demolition on Locust between 7th and 9th is terribly evident.)  The sky bridges may not have precluded pedestrian and vehicle passage, but they cast a psychological shadow that devastated the east end of downtown.  No more.

Categories
Housing Mid-Century Modern St. Louis County University City

The Joseph and Ann Murphy Residence

by Michael R. Allen

Published as “Joseph Murphy’s Own Residence Now Listed on National Register” in the Fall 2010 NewsLetter of the Society of Architectural Historians, St. Louis Chapter. The essay is based on text from my National Register of Historic Places nomination for the Joseph and Ann Murphy House (listed May 10, 2010).

The Murphy house as it appeared in Architectural Forum, April 1941.

Designed by prominent St. Louis architect and educator Joseph Denis Murphy (1907-1995) for his own residence, the Joseph and Ann Murphy Residence at 7901 Stanford Avenue in University City was built in 1938-1939 but expanded in 1950 and 1962. Built in the same year that Frank Lloyd Wright published his vision for the Usonian house in Architectural Forum, the Murphy Residence demonstrates Murphy’s contemporary and unique vision of residential architecture. While Murphy’s residential program has clear parallels to Wright’s, Murphy developed it simultaneously rather than subsequently. In 1938, few Modern Movement Houses had been built in the St. Louis area, although within twenty years Modern styles would dominate suburban residential construction. Newly arrived in St. Louis and serving on the faculty of the Washington University School of Architecture, Joseph D. Murphy’s career was at its start when he designed his own home. The house was one of the first small Modern Movement houses to attain national publication, and it contributed to wide interest in Modern houses in the St. Louis area.

Joseph Murphy’s submission to the 1934 Flat Glass Industry Architectural Competition. Courtesy of Mary Brunstrom.

In the 1930s, many American architects were working on developing ideas about Modern houses. With modernism on the rise in America amid the Great Depression, many American architects endeavored to create affordable small house designs that would advance Modern design principles. Joseph Murphy delved into the national architectural discussion on houses early, and published his first Modern house prototype ahead of Frank Lloyd Wright’s widely influential publication of his “Usonian” house. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian House would become the American standard for the small, affordable Modern house, but Murphy had already provided his own prototype when Wright first published his ideal.

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