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Tuesday, December 16, 2008

My next project: Mapping SLU's demolition derby in Midtown for the past few decades

Wish me luck.

It's going to be a lot of work.

But I was inspired by this saddening piece of news (and I'm not overly pleased by SLU's proposed demolition of Laclede Street for new student housing, either. There are other viable sites. Try Olive Street west of Spring. It's vacant, large, and waiting for redevelopment. Or build taller, rather than wider, adjacent to, but sparing, Laclede Street).

Another mansion to be lost; a context, already faded, wiped away forever.

What will be the model to rebuild by? I shudder to think.

5 comments:

Vanishing STL said...

That's ironic... I was just thinking today of doing some kind of retrospective of SLU's demos.

Mapping it is a great idea!

Vanishing STL said...

What is SLU proposing to knock down on Laclede?

Matt M. said...

Laclede Street Bar for student housing. See here: http://www.urbanstl.com/viewtopic.php?t=6495.

I took a GIS class this semester and have a St. Louis city parcels file. That's all you need!

If you want to work together (I was partially going to use your site for research anyway), let me know!

Brian said...

And there's always the GIANT VACANT LOT at Grand and Lindell that would be good for student housing.

With regards to the proposed development on Laclede, I like the fact that it would be built at the corner of Laclede and Vandeventer, on the site of a huge parking lot.

I don't like the fact that it would take out the Laclede Street Bar and Grill. I have a lot of great memories of that place, but even taking the emotion out of the equation, it doesn't make much sense to tear the building down. It is a very nice building, built right up to the sidewalk, with perfect massing and proportions - a great urban building and a business that adds a lot of life to the area.

Matt M. said...

Brian--

I also like the idea of wiping out an unsightly surface lot. I totally agree with you: this site is fine so long as it avoids tearing down Laclede's.

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