Jefferson Expansion National Memorial General Management Plan 6:35 PM

I received an email request from the National Park Service to post this video to the blog. I'm happy to oblige. You'll notice that this blog has been mum on the issue; others, including STL Rising and Ecology of Absence, have been more proactive and involved. I, like you, have deferred to them for information.

The Arch and adjacent grounds are the most iconic features of the St. Louis region. Plans to alter the monument and its historic site plan deserve careful thought, attention, and commenting. The public comment period for the Archgrounds redevelopment is coming to an end, so please, heed the advice of the video and let your opinions be known.

Click here for the plan (including the alternatives). Click here to submit comments.

Will you take a Jane's Walk through St. Louis? 6:08 PM

WHEN: May 2-3, 2009
WHAT: (See below)

What's a Jane's Walk?

Jane’s Walk is a series of free neighborhood walking tours that helps put people in touch with their environment and with each other, by bridging social and geographic gaps and creating a space for cities to discover themselves.

Jane’s Walk honors the legacy and ideas of urban activist and writer Jane Jacobs who championed the interests of local residents and pedestrians over a car-centered approach to planning. Jane’s Walk helps knit people together into a strong and resourceful community, instilling belonging and encouraging civic leadership. Jane's Walk raises urban literacy by combining the simple act of walking with personal observations, urban history, planning, design and civic engagement. They help knit people together into a strong, connected and resourceful community.

Several cities across the country are scheduled to participate this year: Boston, Chicago, New York, Ogden, Salt Lake City, Washington D.C., Anchorage, and, yes, New Orleans (which I'm thrilled to say I've been asked to help out in).

The idea is that local residents would lead a tour of their own neighborhoods on foot to showcase one or more of many things: quality of life issues faced by the neighborhood and how they could be improved; architecture, history, and heritage; a vibrant business district; sites of cultural import; spots that have inspired civic action (think, for instance, the San Luis!).

The ultimate goal is to get people to discuss the potential of urban neighborhoods (examining both their assets and their shortcomings) while observing the neighborhoods through the best vehicle of all: your two feet (or wheelchair wheels, for some). Walking through the neighborhoods instead of driving or biking is more intimate, allows people to dwell on sites that interest them, and, of course, allows for the discovery of hidden, fine-grained urbanism that Ms. Jacobs so enjoyed!

If anyone would like to organize this event in St. Louis, I would love to help out in any long-distance way I can! I'll help write brochures and help plot the routes.

Here is just one example:

Old Frenchtown St. Louis: This tour would allow the observer to walk through some of St. Louis's best urban neighborhoods and some of its worst urban planning blunders, and everything in between. The tour could start at the corner of Missouri and Park in Lafayette Square, showcasing the Victorian splendor of the Painted Ladies along the park (and discuss that the neighborhood nearly fell victim to an urban renewal project--Lafayette Park itself almost became a truck stop. No lie!). It could continue down Park through the business district and talk about recent revitalization. Historic preservation could be a big focus here. Discussions could take place on how to appropriately design new construction/infill for well-established, high-integrity historic districts.

Keep walking east on Park through the new King Louis Square development. Talk about the ravaging of the near South Side (Frenchtown) for mid rise public housing projects in the modern era (Darst Webbe, chiefly). Speak about the planning process for the new development and whether or not it's a fitting replacement. Proceed east along Park until you arrive at South 9th. Walk the tree-shaded blocks of the LaSalle Park neighborhood before circling back via the pedestrian pathway on 10th Street. This would be an appopriate time to talk about the Purina complex and urban renewal efforts in LaSalle Park.

Keep south on 10th until the pedestrian bridge over I-55. Discuss the interstate's effect on Frenchtown.

Cross the pedestrian bridge (it's still open, right?) and end up on Ninth Street in Soulard. Walk south to (and through) the Soulard Market. From here, it's kind of open--many Soulard blocks would be worth a walk to show off old Frenchtown. The tour should eventually make its way back to Lafayette Street and proceed west towards Tucker. The last leg before returning to Lafayette Park (this time, walk through the park!) would be Bohemian Hill. Discuss the controversy of this 21st century renewal project and examine the remaining buildings.

There you have it? What do you think?

I'd love to help develop brochures for these "walks". Another walk possibility, in conjunction with Landmarks Association's Architecture St. Louis exhibit, would be Lewis Place, which would be a much shorter walk but no less interesting.

Old North St. Louis and Cherokee Street walks seem inevitable, too. Again, contact me and I will begin writing/planning!

For more information, please visit the website and let me know ASAP if you're interested!

West End Eclectic 5:45 PM

From Miscellaneous Items

Photo by me, February 13, 2009.

I know this was in the general West End/Hamilton Heights neighborhood, but I can't remember where I took it. Oops. I need one of those cameras that automatically geocodes the location of the photo upon its taking.

Regardless, this spacious multi-skinned-but-predominantly-frame Queen Anne is rare for the City of St. Louis. It's on a larger-than-usual lot, is perched on a hill, is not red or buff brick, and, well, is a Queen Anne. Though several St. Louis Foursquare style structures adopt minimal Queen Anne detailing (or, simply, the bay windows often associated with Queen Anne), there are few uncontested high-style examples within City limits. Clifton Heights on the South Side features a couple of exceptions.

Anyhow, it's an eye-catching home and a contributor to the North Side's architectural diversity.

Lose an Institution, (Re)Gain an Institution 12:33 PM

Sadly, Hamilton Jewelers downtown--in business for 72 years--will be closing.

If you're depressed, take in the joy of a local restaurant classic's return. That's right. Sauce Magazine's "Scoop" blog reports that Chuy Arzola's, AKA Chuy's, will be reopening.

No, not in Dogtown, but in Midtown--in the space that Joe Boccardi's will soon be vacating inside the Coronado.

-1 for Downtown
+1 for Midtown
? for Dogtown

Old Chuy's...

Photo Source

Meet New Chuy's!

Photo Source

Battle of the Banners: Benton Park vs. Marine Villa 4:56 PM

Both Benton Park and Marine Villa have recently adopted new banners/logos. The two neighborhoods stare across Cherokee Street at one another--and now their rebranding efforts go head to head as well.

Which do you prefer: Benton Park's clean, classic banner utilizing the colors of the St. Louis flag or Marine Villa's stylized crest emblazoned with the landmark Lemp Brewery?

From Miscellaneous Items

OR

From Miscellaneous Items

You decide.

The Beauty in Brutalism 12:09 PM

I saw the Wall Street Journal article "The Beauty in Brutalism, Restored and Updated" linked on Planetizen. It's a great read.

I particularly love how Ada Louise Huxtable sets up the history of recent-past preservation so eloquently and yet so concisely:

For a maverick movement begun by little old ladies in tennis shoes fighting bulldozers in the urban renewal demolition wars of the 1960s, historic preservation has achieved some astounding successes, from the passage of landmarks preservation laws and the establishment of the National Trust for Historic Preservation to the recognition, restoration and reuse of an impressive part of this country's architectural heritage. Guidelines have been established for a wide range of buildings, from the monumental to the vernacular -- repair first, restore second, rebuild last; make clear what is new or added, and honor the original materials and construction.

But when the vernacular expanded to the popular and kitsch joined high art in the pantheon of taste, nothing, potentially, was unworthy of serious consideration and a good argument could be made for almost any building that had survived. The new cultural ideals were inclusive and pluralistic. Objective scholarship was sidelined for subjective, emotional associations fueled by partisan passions. Familiar standards simply fell apart, and so did the comfortable operating consensus of the preservation movement.

It was at this moment of disequilibrium that modernist architecture came under attack, its aging landmarks threatened with destruction. These buildings broke with every convention of design and construction, but beyond disagreements about criteria, there were the failed experimental technologies of a now historic avant-garde. Preservationists were faced with a whole new set of problems.

Even so, amidst all the attempts to vilify Brutalism, perhaps modernism's most unapologetic and brash expression, Yale University has restored a brutalist gem, Paul Rudolph's Art and Architecture Building.




Huxtable goes on to attack Boston for its well-publicized hatred of its brutalist City Hall. Boston is not alone in its disdain for the 1969 building--VirtualTourist.com put it at the top of the list of the "World's Top 10 Ugliest Buildings and Monuments".


Huxtable's piece is a great defense of brutalism, and a call to re-examine our attitudes toward modern buildings. Surprisingly, she does not advocate for a full restoration of the building as it once was in the case of these experimental designs. As she notes in her first couple paragraphs, preserving modernism changes the whole game of preservation. The whole modern movement was founded upon the unrelenting notion of progress; whatever new materials and experimental construction techniques were available were then used. No modernist looked back; that was antithetical to progress. When we, nearly half a century later, look to the re-use of these buildings, we may have to recognize a need to retool them. Huxtable, of course, says it better, and in fewer words:

Nothing is the same when you reach the 21st century. Suddenly a 20th-century heritage is in crisis and in desperate need of a revised, realistic agenda to keep its landmarks useful and alive.

As we all well know now, modernism is the current battleground for preservation. The fifty year mark that is the rule of thumb for deeming a building "historic" now puts us at 1959. The label "historic" will soon sail into the tumultuous 1960s.


Because these threatened mid-century modern buildings were so landmark for their time, and still appear unique and apart from earlier eras, their loss is particularly noticeable. This is great for efforts such as the one to save the San Luis, which is not Brutalist, of course, but is also unabashedly modern and under threat. We will regret the loss of these buildings, and they are reworkable, even if not in their original, literal, experimental sense.

The Post-Dispatch and Metro 12:17 PM

From Miscellaneous Items

The above story from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch is a great slap in the face to the St. Louis County voters who rejected a sales tax increase that would have bolstered a financially ailing Metro agency back in November 2008. But where was this story in November 2008, before the vote? Sure, the details of the extent of Metro's cuts were not known at the time, but this is no excuse. Most St. Louisans knew these cuts would adversely affect many people within the region--urban dwellers dependent on transit, the elderly, disabled, etc. I just wish this story were printed pre-vote.

We need proactive--not reactive--government, citizens, and, yes, media.