Update: More Information on Hyde Park Rehabs 6:31 PM

This blog recently reported on 15 building permits for renovations in Hyde Park, all received in March 2010. All parcels in question are owned by the Eliot School, LP. The Eliot School, LP shares the same registered address as the Irving School, LP, owners of the now renovated Irving School. To view photos of that renovation, I point you to Michael Allen's Flickr page.

Here is a picture of the historic school prior to renovation, also courtesy of Michael Allen via Ecology of Absence:

Eliot School, LP will be rehabbing the Eliot School as well, located at 4218 Grove Street in the Fairground neighborhood, just outside of Hyde Park. The Board of Education is still the owner, but the city's development website says the former school will be converted into low-income housing. The city lists the developer as Better Living Communities--a project of Bethlehem Lutheran Church, which completed a development of several new townhomes on Salisbury called Salisbury Park I in the early 2000s, among other projects.

Pictured below, courtesy of the City of St. Louis, is the old Eliot School:

Better Living Communities has put a lot of effort into stabilizing and bettering its surrounding neighborhoods. Bravo to them. It's a thrill to see so much of Hyde Park's heritage rescued all at once.

I wonder if they had anything to do with Salisbury Street's new sidewalks and nifty acorn street lamps?

Above, a nicely redone streetscape along Salisbury. The Salisbury Park development is located on the south (right) side of the street staring down some historic beauties on the north (left) side.

This is all such great news! I cannot wait to check out Hyde Park the next time I'm in town.

Hyde Park's "Number Streets" See a Flurry of Renovations in March 6:47 PM

 In the month of March, the Hyde Park neighborhood saw over $4.8 million in building permit activity. Almost all of the permits are in Hyde Park's western half, in the "number streets" from 19th up to 25th.

Included in the mix of units with permits for substantial rehabilitation are:

--two single-family homes
--ten two-family homes
--three four-family homes.

The owner of the parcels in question is Eliot School, LP.

Below is a list of the addresses, with whatever pictures I could scrounge up from the city's website. UPDATE (4/26/10): Chris Naffziger of St. Louis Patina was kind enough to get some photographs of addresses I couldn't get pictures for online! Thanks, Chris!

4034 N. 23rd Street (courtesy of Chris Naffziger at St. Louis Patina)

4008 25th Street

3606-08 19th Street (at center)

3613 19th Street

3915-17 19th Street

3942-44 N. 20th Street (courtesy of Chris Naffziger at St. Louis Patina)

3918 N. 21st Street (courtesy of Chris Naffziger at St. Louis Patina)

3931 N. 21st Street (courtesy of Chris Naffziger at St. Louis Patina)

4031 N. 22nd Street

3906 N. 23rd Street

4013 N. 23rd Street (courtesy of Chris Naffziger at St. Louis Patina)

3610-12 25th Street (at left)

3933 25th Street (what a gem!?)

4009 25th Street

1918 Angelica (courtesy of Chris Naffziger at St. Louis Patina)

I am absolutely overjoyed to see so many venerable Hyde Park structures getting rehabilitated! Hyde Park is my favorite North Side neighborhood and among my favorites in the city. Concentrated rehabilitation is a great strategy for stabilizing this portion of the neighborhood. Way to go! Anyone care to fill in the photographic gaps for me? I'd credit your work and possibly buy you lunch at Cornerstone Cafe in Hyde Park the next time I'm in town!

We Demand...an Inspiring Showing of Hyde Park Students Pressing for a Better Neighborhood 12:51 PM

I hope you have been keeping track of the Pulitzer's Urban Alchemy/Gordon Matta-Clark exhibit. Not content at keeping the art inside their post-modern walls, the Pulitzer has created an interactive website where St. Louisans are asked to complement the exhibit, which, put simply, analyzes urban change and how people respond to it. (Visit "Your Saint Louis" Here).

The Pulitzer has also sought out local artists and change-makers and has displayed their work on the site. Of particular interest to this blogger is Theaster Gates, who is working with a group of students in Hyde Park on a project called "We Demand".

Any educational system should train students on how to be good and active citizens. In doing so, we just might fashion the next generation of leaders who will generate positive ideas on how to improve our cities and our neighborhoods. Hyde Park needs these creative, motivated children and their mentor, Theaster. I encourage you to watch the video below! In addition, there are other videos available here.


Urban Expression: We Demand from The Pulitzer on Vimeo.

Guest Piece: Sun Ministries in Hyde Park 10:52 AM

The following is a guest piece by Jason Calahan of Sun Ministries. Mr. Calahan contacted me after reading a previous post on the vacant buildings bill. Sun Ministries' "Board Up Hyde Park" effort--as well as other undertakings in the neighborhood--are, I feel, more than worthy and deserve space on this blog.


Sun Ministries is launching a nationwide effort to rebuild America's most devastated inner cities.  We are calling this undertaking the Isaiah 61 Initiative.  We hope to unite people to serve these areas, and are calling for missionaries to relocate to the inner cities, in order to live and work, rebuild decaying structures, minister to the neediest residents, and make a generational impact on these desperate areas.  We want to minister to the whole person and the whole community by addressing physical, emotional, spiritual, and educational needs, providing creative opportunities, as well as restoring homes and buildings, starting new business and cooperating with existing ones, and beautifying public spaces. 

This house, which actually faces Hyde Park, exemplifies the neglected state of the skillful artisanship found in the Hyde Park neighborhood.  It is one of the better preserved structures.

We are starting in the historic Hyde Park neighborhood, located in North St. Louis.  Although Hyde Park is beautiful in its layout, classic old-city brickwork and architecture, welcoming sidewalks and parks, the area has been subject to generations of poverty, oppression, and neglect.  There are over 900 vacant buildings in the ward, half the population lives below the poverty line, and a third are single parent households.  The neighborhood is one of the most desolate in St. Louis.  There is little tax base, as many residents and businesses have left.  You can walk down streets where one whole side consists of abandoned, decayed buildings, many of which look like they have been bombed.  Pruitt-Igoe was a notorious failed segregated housing project, and though it wasn't located in Hyde Park, it sent damaging shock-waves throughout all of North St. Louis, and is a symbol for the kind of abuse and division affecting the area.  

A common sight in Hyde Park.  Good examples of the architecture and brickwork of the area.

One of the many "bombed out" buildings.

Desolation.

Unfortunately, this is not a rare sight in Hyde Park.

We hope to partner with groups of any kind, including schools, colleges, churches, police forces, city governments, student activity groups, and other social entrepreneurial organizations in order to reach our goals.  We will be moving into homes in the area and restoring buildings.  We hope to provide job skills and training, start businesses, help the homeless enter the workforce, and provide business/retail incubator space.  We are working on providing community programs in sports, arts, and tutoring.  We hope to address spiritual and emotional needs in a one-on-one manner.  We aim to lay foundations of change and attack root problems to poverty and hopelessness in the area. 


Our current base of operations is a building on Newhouse that was given to us by G. W. Helbling and Sons, a silk screening business that had been in the neighborhood for 45 years.  We are currently working on bringing the building up to code and beautifying the property and surrounding city block. 

We hope to transform this huge, beautiful house into our Leadership Center, which will house missionaries and interns and provide space for them to develop community service ideas.

We are planning to restore this building and create our Opportunity Center, which will have offices for providing job skills and training, and a retail space for providing work for poor, homeless, and missionaries.

This building features exceptional brickwork, a cast-iron facade and corner entrance, beautiful architecture, and it is decaying at an alarming rate.  We want to preserve and restore it and use it to provide employment.

In ministering to this community, we have noticed that racism and division are still very alive in St. Louis and the surrounding counties.  St. Louis suffers from little tax support from its county.  People in the suburbs warn us of violence in the city, oblivious to the violence happening in their own “safe” towns.  It has been difficult getting groups with highly-aimed mission statements to come into a poor area.  Individuals and groups in the city have been confused by a group that seeks to build nothing but community.  But we have met really great people in the neighborhood.  Our neighbor Ralph was eager to help us clean out our building.  We played football and wrestled with a group of about ten rowdy young boys.  The people at Cornerstone Cafe have been very kind and welcoming.  Alderman Bosley and his staff have been cleaning parks and alleys with us, and have assisted us greatly in getting established in the neighborhood. 


In ministering to the whole person and the whole community, we hope to preserve and restore the architecture and history of Hyde Park, to retain the beauty and artistry of the neighborhood and increase the sense of community identity.  Most of the structures in Hyde Park are beautiful, classic, St. Louis-style brick buildings with ornate brickwork, and some even feature cast iron facades.  In an effort to protect and preserve these properties, beautify the area, and make a declaration that someone cares about these people and this neighborhood, Sun Ministries is partnering with Alderman Freeman Bosley, Sr. in an effort we are calling Board Up Hyde Park.  We are looking for groups of all kinds who want to help us decorate boards with positive words and images that we will then install in the vacant properties.  If you want to be a part of this effort or learn more about our work, you can see the flyer below or visit http://www.sunministries.org or http://www.isaiah61initiative.org.

The flyer:

Vacant Buildings Bill 9:17 AM

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has reported that a measure to catalog vacant buildings and fine their owners for violations has moved along in the legislative process, winning the support of a key aldermanic subcommittee.

Personally, I am all about code enforcement. Making sure vacant buildings are secure and stabilized should indeed be a high priority. And finding owners of long-vacant buildings can be difficult. So I see where this bill is going and I don't disagree.

However, the obvious question arises: how will this bill affect the several thousand city-owned Land Redevelopment Authority (LRA) parcels? (Let's talk Paul McKee, Jr. later...)

Check out this building at 1435 Salisbury in Hyde Park--an LRA-owned building. The image is courtesy of Geo St. Louis.

While the picture above is dated from August 4, 2006, I was in town January of this year and saw it with each and every window open and un-boarded. I believe the city only requires a property owner to board the first floor to block easy entry. Yet won't open upper floor windows accelerate the decay of this handsome mixed use building, resulting in code violations? How can we as concerned citizens (whether because of safety concerns or historic preservation ones) see to it that this property is more tightly secured? Will the vacant buildings bill help? Will it put pressure on the LRA?

On that note, why doesn't the LRA have a storefront with staff to assist potential buyers? I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that the city has no money. Still, I'd like to see our city's budget reflect the needs of our community. We need to better manage and market the city's inventory of vacant parcels. While many LRA parcels are located in severely distressed neighborhoods and the properties themselves need several thousands of dollars of TLC to become livable, some LRA holdings are in stable or stabilizing neighborhoods. Benton Park West and Old North St. Louis, to name just two, should have dedicated LRA staff helping market viable properties.

Beyond that, I wonder if the city has ever considered an Urban Homesteading program, whereby you essentially get the house itself for free, in addition to other tax credits, if you bring the house to code and remain living in it for several years. Baltimore pioneered this type of thing in the 1970s and saw hundreds of properties renovated. From a 1986 New York Times piece entitled "Baltimore's Story of City Homesteading":

During the 1970's the city sold blocks of abandoned Federal-style row houses in downtown neighborhoods for $1 apiece and provided buyers with up to $37,000 in low-interest construction loans. The city provided technical assistance and authorized payments to approved contractors. Major work had to be completed within six months and, after 18 months in residency, homesteaders received the deeds to the houses.

The Baltimore homesteading program evolved as an alternative to urban renewal programs that were phased out. The first project, for example, was a block of 44 tiny row houses on Stirling Street in Oldtown -one of the lowest-income neighborhoods in East Baltimore.

Other solutions for vacant properties exist. What about a community service program whereby those convicted of certain low-level crimes could serve out their sentences rehabilitating vacant and city-owned properties? Skills would be gained in the process.

As I have posted previously, Kansas City is using federal monies (through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or ARRA) to establish what is being called a Green Impact Zone in the city's downtrodden east side. This program would employ un- and under-employed neighborhood residents in renovating and weatherizing both occupied and vacant housing. St. Louis has largely used its ARRA funding to plan bare bones streetscape improvement projects that didn't ever even seem to consult the surrounding community. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. Where are our priorities?

I think this Vacant Buildings bill is probably a good "stick" measure, but where are the carrots?

 

Preservation Board Agenda Now Contains Only One Demolition 3:27 PM

As reported on both Vanishing St. Louis and Ecology of Absence, three Old North St. Louis demolitions pursued by the LRA have been removed from the Preservation Board agenda, with one of them having been taken down a few hours ago. The active Old North St. Louis Restoration Group only supports demolitions when the front facade of the structure in question has been heavily damaged and is no longer recognizable as a historic building. The buildings on the agenda previously failed miserably to meet this demolition test. The neighborhood is lucky that they're off the agenda--and that they have such a great and progressive neighborhood organization.

That leaves only a Hyde Park demolition proposal, at 3959 North 11th Street. Luckily, the Cultural Resources Offices has recommended that the Preservation Board uphold staff denial of demolition of this fire-damaged building. The owners stated that they live in Texas and cannot afford to maintain the building at all much less repair it from its fire damage. Rightly, the Cultural Resources Office stated that the owners provided no proof of economic hardship and, furthermore, that Alderman Bosley (D-3rd Ward) is opposed to any demolitions within this sensitive district. Let us hope that the Preservation Boards heeds the decision of the CRO. Click here for the agenda item; the building is pictured below courtesy of Cultural Resources staff:

UPDATE (11/24/09): An UrbanSTL forumer has stated that this demolition has once again been denied. Good news!

The proposed demolitions on Southwest Avenue have also been shelved for now. As I mentioned in a previous post, the owner has told me that 5209 Southwest (the building closest to Favazza's restaurant itself) may still be subject to demolition at a later date. Its roof and rear portions are severely damaged from a storm a few years back. Favazza consulted with SPACE Architects, who reportedly recommended demolition of 5209 Southwest. The other structure, at 5211-13 Southwest, will be saved, Favazza informed me, and will be used once more. For what, I am unsure, but was told the plans were now in the works. If I get any more information, I'll be sure to let everyone know.

June Preservation Board, Proposed Demolition: 2100-02 Destrehan 6:02 PM

Photograph obtained from the City of St. Louis

2100-02 Destrehan is yet another Hyde Park structure to be threatened over the past couple months. This is another LRA-owned building, who is also proposing its demolition. Recently, the city demolished a group of handsome commercial buildings for a surface parking lot (for the Treasurer's Office).

Is the city wanting the sensitive Hyde Park historic district to further empty? You can count out an Old North-inspired revitalization of Hyde Park if the southern part of Hyde Park (adjacent to Old North) is fallow land.

May Preservation Board Meeting Update 2:49 PM

You can breathe a sigh of temporary relief: two proposed demolitions of North Side commercial buildings (one on North Grand across from Lindell Park and one on North Broadway in the Baden Business District) were not considered at the May 27, 2009 Preservation Board meeting since the applicants did not show.

In addition, two North Side alley structures--one in Hyde Park and one in North St. Louis, the latter a free-standing flounder--were denied their demolition permits yet again.

This is great news overall, though I expect another appeal down the road for the two contested commercial buildings. Let us hope the Board continues to deny these permits as these historic commercial buildings are truly neighborhood anchors and future investment opportunities.

Pictures of all of the reprieved buildings are below, courtesy of the Cultural Resources Office staff report:

3501 North Grand

From Preservation Board

7944 North Broadway

From Preservation Board

3424 (rear) North 14th Street

From Preservation Board

3015 (rear) North 19th Street

From Preservation Board

Commercial buildings and alley houses are increasingly threatened property types, especially in north St. Louis. We need to keep a special eye on these types and develop two separate Multiple Property Submissions to the National Register for both St. Louis classic commercial buildings and the much rarer and even more vernacular alley house.

May Preservation Board Agenda Includes Four Proposed Demolitions 10:25 AM

This month's agenda includes four demolitions--two preliminary reviews and two appeals of staff denial.

The first of the two preliminary reviews is located at 7944-48 North Broadway.

View Larger Map

This building in the Baden Business District is classic red brick St. Louis commercial architecture. The city says it was built in 1900, though it looks to be from an earlier era. Regardless, it's attractive and looks in good shape from the Google Streetview window (circa 2007). This Business District has a good portion of its DNA left to inspire a Main Street revival. The loss of this building (for what?) will definitely set things back considerably. See Toby Weiss's recent post on the Baden Triangle for a view of the architectural diversity and the potential of the area.

The second of the preliminary reviews is 3501-09 North Grand.


View Larger Map

I see a pattern here. Commercial buildings have seemingly been the first to go in any struggling neighborhood. When they go, a sense of a neighborhood's center fades and soon the residential component disappears too. This 3-story commercial building used to have similar in scale yet uniquely ornamented neighbors that lined the street for miles, unbroken. This building faces the intact and attractive Lindell Park neighborhood within Jeff Vanderlou. It would be most unfortunate for North Grand, which barely clings to a sense of urbanism from nearly its entire span north of Delmar, to lose yet another attractive historic commercial building.

The first of the two appealed denials is 3424 N. 14th Street in Hyde Park. If you click the link, the building in question is the multi-family building third from the left on the east blockface of North 14th.

The second of the two appealed denials is 3015 N. 19th Street. I can't seem to find this one in city records or on Google/Microsoft Live. Yet there are two important observations: it's located in the sensitive Murphy-Blair National Register District (part of Old North St. Louis) and the applicant is a church. This happens all too often.

It looks like May will be an important Preservation Board meeting. With a full scale attack on the North Side's architectural legacy, often-vacant commercial buildings and sometimes troublesome multi-family buildings are the most threatened.

More to come.

Axed in April 8:18 PM

So what have we lost of the built environment just this past month? Over the next couple days, I'll show you.

First up is 4220 N. 20th Street. Michael Allen has already covered the loss of this striking set of commercial buildings in Hyde Park, so I need not post it here.

But I did notice that the wreckers took down a smaller residential building (a Second Empire) at 1916 Farragut Street to complete their new parking lot as well. See below. There are now no buildings on the south side of Farragut at all. All of this demolition took place in a very fragile historic district:

From Axed in April

This was a shameful and unnecessary loss. There is no justification for a parking lot for the Treasurer's Office in Hyde Park at the expense of historic buildings. As one can see from the aerials, on-street parking is plentiful.


It's these incremental losses to the built environment that get too little air time. Places like Hyde Park will continue to slip away one building at a time without any intervention.

Update: 2521 Farrar in Hyde Park on Preservation Board Agenda (Not 2125) 12:43 PM

This post is a correction to an earlier one stating that there is a demolition being reviewed at 2125 Farrar in Hyde Park. The correct address is 2521 Farrar.

Here is a Live Maps capture:

From Hyde Park

It's a Second Empire micromansion by the looks of it. Anyone know of its current condition?

UPDATE: Ecology of Absence has posted on the circumstances between 2521 Farrar's demolition. Read more here.

Early April Preservation Board Agenda Contains Two Proposed Demos 1:28 PM

Click here for a link to the agenda, which does not yet contain the Cultural Resources individual staff reports.

On the chopping block this month is a two-family structure in Shaw on the 4100 block of DeTonty. Based on the description provided, this could be the corner structure (4100 DeTonty) or the next actual structure located all the way down at 4158 DeTonty. Both are attractive, historic buildings. The block, though, is almost entirely vacant lots. The proposed 11 new single family homes and 4 town house units would be great for Shaw. Millennium Restoration still owns these lots.

Millennium applied for demolition of two structures in the middle of this now mostly empty block back in 2006. Click here for that CRO report.

This is under the "Background" section of that 2006 report:

The original applicant for this site was McBride and Son, who proposed to construct 15 single family houses using designs created for the Botanical Heights subdivision in the McRee neighborhood, a few blocks north. At its meeting of September 26, 2005, the Preservation Board found that both 4118 and 4126 DeTonty Avenue are structurally
unsound and rehabilitation is not feasible. The Board also required that revisions be made to the design of the proposed buildings to make them compatible with the historic buildings in the neighborhood. Subsequently, McBride chose not to make the required revisions and withdrew from the project.

The current applicant, Millennium Restoration and Development, proposes 17 new
houses in place of 15, with detached garages at the alley.

Apparently, plans have changed a bit. The proposed 17 units has gone down to 15 once more.

Here are the buildings that were ultimately demolished (pictures are captures from the Cultural Resources Office reports):

From Preservation Board

From Preservation Board

And here are the two buildings that were spared before, one of which, likely 4100, that may get demolished after all:

From Preservation Board

The renderings for the original project are also contained on that 2006 agenda:

From Preservation Board

Is Millennium still on this project? Do these renderings still stand? What will the town house units look like? Once we answer these questions, we can begin to critique this demolition.

While I am not so much a fan of purely historicist new construction, Millennium certainly have shown themselves capable creators of a historic aesthetic in new construction.

Again, I'll have to reserve judgment for when I see the (potentially new) designs for this site. In the meantime, here are Millennium's older renderings that are available on their web site.

The second proposed demolition is an LRA property at 2125 Farrar in Hyde Park.

The city doesn't seem to think this address exists on its city data website. The application for demolition is for a "2-story, single family brick structure." Since odd-numbered addresses are on the north side of the street, and since the north side of the 2100 block of Farrar is a large industrial complex, I don't know where this property is. It could, of course, be a typo.

More information will be posted as it becomes available.

Preservation Board Meeting, January 26, 2009 - Outcome 2:45 PM

First of all, does anyone know where, besides Landmarks Association, that I can find Board meeting minutes online? The results of these meetings seem like information that should be more public--meaning, put online.

I happened to call the Board yesterday to find out about the fate of three buildings proposed for demolition.

1108-10 Mallinckrodt was not given consideration since the owner did not show up.

Apparently, the rear of the structure has collapsed. Despite this, the other walls remain solid. Adjacent propert owners complain of continual debris on account of this building and would like to see it come down. Concerned for the demolition of historic properties in his Ward, Third Ward Alderman Freeman Bosley, Sr. would like to see the building remain standing.

I applaud the alderman's commitment to see this 1892 building be preserved. I hope that he can work with the nearby residents to assuage their concerns. I believe that the city should eminent domain the property, secure it, and auction it off at a later date. The Hyde Park Historic District cannot afford another gap, especially so close to Interstate 70.

Luckily, 5214-16 Kensington in Academy was denied a demolition permit.

Finally, 7001-03 S. Broadway in Carondelet was approved a demolition permit.

This is a shame, particularly due to the age and size of the building. St. Louis has very few structures remaining from the antebellum period. This one was constructed in 1857. By virtue of that fact, it should likely be left alone. Yet, its inobtrusive size makes this demolition even more puzzling. It rests at the edge of the lot, actually facing Quincy and not Broadway--the city demolished the main structure in 2000 under an emergency demo permit.

The CRO staff report notes that the owner wishes to "clear the lot for future development". Considering that, fairly recently, a building used to be on this lot in front of the tiny structure in question, why is it that the original footprint of this already demolished building cannot be used for this unclear "future" development?

The New Orleans preservation agency, called the Historic Districts and Landmarks Commission (HDLC), does not allow demolition without a redevelopment plan having been submitted first. Further, if the plan is for a parking lot, it is usually denied. If the parking or other lesser use happens to be approved, it is reassessed each year to determine if parking is needed and if there are no other development plans. Urbanistically speaking, this just makes sense. The St. Louis Preservation Board should not approve any demolition without a submitted statement of purpose and redevelopment plan.

From a preservationist standpoint, it pains me to see the loss of an early Carondelet structure--even if it has been altered with permastone.

Recall that Steins Row, another one-story rowhouse from the 1850s, was almost knocked down for a service station.

I already emailed Matt Villa, 11th Ward Alderman, urging him to deny this demo, but received no word back. The application notes that he supported the destrution of 7001 S. Broadway.

Covering St. Louis's Oldest Buildings: #1, from 1810(?) 1:15 AM

Since I have a list of all the properties in the City of St. Louis by date of construction (that is, according to the Assessor's Office, and where this information is available), I thought I would begin posting on the city's oldest remaining structures. My list is from 2007, so it will be interesting to see what is still remaining.

It is sort of counterintuitive to start a countdown at the most coveted spot, but it is also difficult to determine where to start on the other end. So I'll begin with the oldest listed date of construction for a structure in the city of St. Louis. And I have a big feeling that it's a total mistake.

First, though, how do you spot an old building in your neighborhood. Well, what is old, I guess, is the first thing you need to figure out. In the city of St. Louis, anything pre-1880 is lucky to be there still. Even so, St. Louis has quite a few scattered pre-1880 structures, mostly in a couple neighborhoods (Soulard, Old North, Hyde Park, Benton Park, etc.). If it's pre-Civil War, and it's not a monumental, public, or religious structure, it's extremely lucky to still be standing. Think the DeMenil Mansion in Benton Park or the Bissell Mansion in Hyde Park.

The second sign of an especially old building is a sudden break from the street wall. Often, these buildings were intended for rural settings, as they were the first structures on their blocks, certainly, and perhaps in their "neighborhoods" for quite a number of years. Their construction predated any sort of formal zoning, for sure, as well as informal zoning and early urban development.

Another sign, often, is simplicity and small size. Many post-Colonial buildings were fairly small and unadorned structures. Colonial buildings were often very functional, rather than decorative, stressing symmetry and utility in daily life. They needed to be simple to heat in the wintertime, another reason for their small size.

But I just don't believe there's anything left from 1810's St. Louis. At that time, St. Louis only had a couple thousand people, if that.

Here is a quote about St. Louis in 1809, from the City's website.

Frederick Billon, who first saw St. Louis in 1809, described the town as virtually unchanged in over forty years. At that time, he said, there were but two roads ascending the bluff from the river at the present locations of Market and Oak (Delmar) Streets. They were abrupt ascents that had been quarried by the settlers for access to the river for water. He further commented that in 1809, Fourth Street south of Elm was a road with only two or three houses.

Structures in just-post-Colonial St. Louis were crude and often temporary. I cannot imagine that this building has been around since 1810, or all of the preservation community would know of it.

Nevertheless, it's at the bottom of the list, and so I'll report on it:

It's actually two almost contiguous properties: 3324 and 3328 North Ninth, in the section of Hyde Park that was trapped east of Interstate 70 upon its construction.

Unfortunately, Google Streetview largely ignored the North Side, so I'm relegated to this somewhat inconclusive Microsoft Live Maps view.

Still, from the looks of it, I do believe the building with the extreme setback (a former "slave quarters"?) could be quite old. But I am really not sure of the stone building on the southeast corner of Angelrodt and Ninth. Next time in St. Louis I will have to take a look.

Anyone care to do an investigation for me?

On this month's Preservation Board agenda: 11:14 PM

The chopping block (translation: requested demo's):

5412-14 Kensington, in the Academy Neighborhood

View Larger Map

Sigh. Academy is one of the North Side's shining stars for preservation. There are troubled blocks, however, and this demo certainly looks unnecessary from this circa 2007 Google Streetview. Has anything changed since then?

7001 S. Broadway, in Carondelet

View Larger Map

I can't get a good view of this one, but the city says it was constructed in 1856. Really...? I don't care how unattractive it is. It should not be touched.

The last demolition proposed, at 1108-10 Mallinckrodt, is perhaps the most egregious. It's that two-story, four family building so typical of the Near North Side. It could provide affordable housing or expensive condo units, depending on the pace of improvement of the surrounding Hyde Park neighborhood. One thing is for certain though--with demolition, this block, and this very historic neighborhood will suffer greatly with this incremental, yet tremendous loss.

When will the residents of St. Louis recognize the value of historic structures--their embedded energy and future value? Why does St. Louis--almost barring any others--have some of the most vacant lots in the entire country? Surely, other cities have experienced struggles to maintain a built environment nearly sacked by depopulation and disinvestment. Why does St. Louis always offer the same solution? Has it ever worked?

I certainly hope the Board will deny these unnecessary demolitions. After the tremendously wasteful demo of the castle-like multi-family on Shenandoah mentioned in the previous post, the City of St. Louis simply cannot afford even one more vacant lot. They add up, and they chip away at the image of St. Louis so many need to see more clearly--the urban one, with a scarcity of gaping vacant holes and a density of buildings and people.

Please, if you're like me and are out of town and cannot make it to the meeting, be sure to email the Preservation Board and express your concerns: BufordA@stlouiscity.com.

If you're in town and available, please attend the meeting on Monday, January 26, 2009 at 4:00 p.m. The location of the meeting is 1015 Locust, Suite 1200.

Hyde Park Master Plan...and speaking of trees... 12:02 AM

I warned you all about my busy week. Still, I feel compelled to apologize for this blog's sparsity.

Accordingly, since the City of St. Louis website is so unfriendly and doesn't do a good job advertising its content, I found this Hyde Park Master Plan worth a click (it's for the Park itself, not the neighborhood). All the necessary elements are to be found: creating a better entryway and gathering space right off of Salisbury, renovating the old fishing pond in the northwest corner; planting new trees, ridding of sick/dead ones...

While we're on that topic, does anyone know why the city has chopped down several trees in the median on River des Peres Blvd.? My mother called me today to ask me why, figuring I'd know. She said it looks like a murder scene: there's been a tremendous loss to the beauty of this stretch. If it's true, it's very unfortunate to hear. Can anyone confirm?

I expect it's because some of the trees are really close to the roadbed and just don't agree with wayward and speeding drunk drivers.

Preservation Directory has published my post on Paul McKee and the Blairmont scheme! 11:37 PM

Hopefully this will give the story a bit more national exposure! Check it out at Preservation Directory's preservation blog, listed under "Endangered History".

Here is my earlier post with an excerpt.

Awesome! I wish they had accepted my later edited version though. Oh well.

[Oops, by the way. I fudged on the beginning of McKee's buying spree--saying 2006 rather than 2003. And McKee owned more than 500 parcels even on April 25, 2008, at the time of my writing. Ah well, hopefully it stirs someone up nonetheless!)

Can we go back? Please? 1:47 PM

My cry for attention to the National Trust re: Blairmont 5:37 PM

I wrote the following to the National Trust for Historic Preservation's online blog, where anyone can submit an (approved) article for publication on the site. I posted a long entry regarding the Blairmont situation in north St. Louis.

I think it is important to attract more attention to Blairmont's activities than we've currently seen. One St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Riverfront Times article each just isn't enough. There needs to be constant coverage--the kind you'll find in painful overbundance in Built St. Louis's ongoing "Daily Dose of Blairmont" posts.

Here is a snippet of the article I posted. I correct a typo or two along the way (Oops! Must have been a bit too fired up! Hopefully they'll contact me to publish it and will let me do a couple edits).

The St. Louis Place, JeffVanderLou, Hyde Park, and Old North St. Louis neighborhoods lose historic structures by the day at this point. These neighborhoods' recovery is contingent upon retaining such inimitable architecture. Old North St. Louis, for one, is something of a preservation showcase. Severely abandoned and dilapidated, the neighborhood suffered the worst of suburbanization and deindustrialization. The Old North St. Louis Restoration Group, however, has fueled a remarkable turnaround. Now, circa 1870s German vernacular rowhouses are being renovated. On one block, a commercial row is being converted back to a through street after an ill-conceived 1970s-era scheme that turned the street into a pedestrian mall.

Blairmont has bought into this tight-knit neighborhood with disastrous results. Mysteriously accelerated decay, removed boards, damaged rear corners, windows left open to the elements or removed altogether are the identifying features of a Blairmont property. Surely, McKee's demolition by neglect (and by BobCat) are threatening the future of a neighborhood with an admirable grassroots effort to revive itself.

The other neighborhoods involved are much worse off. St. Louis Place is home to a large swath of land that has already witnessed wholesale clearance. Likewise, JeffVanderLou contains many vacant buildings and those who remain in the occupied units are often extremely impoverished.

Nevertheless, it is vital that these neighborhoods' built environments be rescued from the clutches of a secretive and destructive developer. McKee's wealth and development experience should be working to benefit the neighborhoods involved, bringing in much needed investment, new residents, and jobs. Instead, historic buildings are being lost and, along with them, the heritage of once dense and vibrant urban neighborhoods. Whether a limestone faced three-story row house or a modest turn-of-the-century red brick shotgun, north St. Louis has a more than worthy architectural heritage. It should be spared such an ignoble demise, especially considering that the decline of the Rustbelt has taken its toll on these neighborhoods for nearly a half-century already.

I urge you to show your support for St. Louis's North Side and contact anyone you believe could care enough to make a difference.

We're not all brick: the Goodfellow-Julian Concrete Block Historic District 5:21 PM

These are Missouri's first concrete block houses, all constructed between 1905 and 1906. All of them are on the 1200 block of Goodfellow or the 5700 block of Julian in the City's West End neighborhood.

I would recommend reading the National Register nomination (from whence these pictures came) for some invaluable history about concrete block construction in Missouri and St. Louis.

The pictures are from the late 1980s; at least one of the homes has suffered damage from a fire since. The second photo of the set (of 1200 Goodfellow looking northeast) has lost one of its buildings to demolition, confirmed via Maps.Live.Com's bird's eye view.







Luckily, the row of Concrete homes on Julian looks mostly intact.

Another great historic resource the city should be guarding with all its political might and yet, look at its condition. Then consider that this is a well maintained district in comparison to demolition-happy Ville, Murphy Blair, and Hyde Park. Of course, it's one block, and it's later construction than the majority of the contributing resources to those districts.

The West End has not been totally isolated from the remarkable turnaround of the East Loop just to the south: near whole blocks of new homes have been erected just north of Delmar in the past couple years. While it's nice that a middle class demographic seems interested in the homes, it'd be even nicer if somehow the spirit of the Concrete Block District (its bold new take on homebuilding at the turn of the century) could have graced the new construction of this century. Instead, vaguely "Colonial Revival" styles dot the cityscape.