Yes, You Can Force CVS to Do What You Want

I have been following the proposed demolition of the AAA Club on Lindell for a while now, but Vanishing St. Louis says it best here. While honestly, it's not the most urban building in the world, the AAA building is WAY better than the crap that the CVS chain builds. And speaking of them, despite what they claim, they can make buildings that respond to local tastes and context. This CVS, at the intersection of Henry and Clayton Roads, was forced to be a little more stylish than the average CVS. So yes, they will do it if you make them.

Honestly, I think the Preservation Board is a complete joke, more proficient at forcing small home owners to do their bidding than forcing major local power brokers to do what is right. I'll never forget the meeting where I saw the Board fine a private citizen for two freaking windows that weren't perfect enough for their tastes, while later on in the meeting they rolled over for a powerful local entity who shall remain anonymous. Basically, if the mayor's office or alderman wants the building saved, it will be, and if not, it's toast.

Heck, even Walgreen's tries a little bit harder if forced, as this store at Clayton and Clarkson Roads attests. Do I think these two stores I just showed are the pinnacles of Western architecture? Of course not, but they're slightly better than the average, ugly stores the two chains build.

Holy Name Catholic Church, East Central Kansas City

I have no idea why Holy Name Catholic Church is being torn down, except that shortsighted leaders see more value in the cut stone than in the stunning work of Gothic Revival structure they're destroying.

Nominated for the National Register of Historic Places, it is now being torn down, one stone at a time, until what you see here is all that is left of the church.

You would think this is in some completely bombed out neighborhood, but in reality the neighboring blocks are relatively stable, with beautiful rehabs and new, seemingly expensive houses.

I guess they thought that an historic church was a detriment to their property values? More so than a vacant, weed-choked lot?

As I always say, just because you lack the imagination to see this church restored to its former glory instead of demolished, doesn't mean you should get in the way of someone, maybe not even born yet, who has the vision and drive to find a new use for the church.

Read about the history behind the church in the 1960's here.

The images remind me of pictures of post-war Germany after it had been bombed at the end of World War II.

See it from the air here, before most of the church was demolished.

In just a few short months, the entire church will be gone, and its striking presence will be gone as well.

As you can see, the stone is being carefully stacked and hauled off to another location. How stupid and short-sighted...

Five Year Anniversary Post: A Manichaean Choice? Preservation vs. Development

Five years ago today, when I started this website, I never imagined that I would be posting close to every day. In the first year, I posted anywhere from two to three times a week, at most. Somewhere along the line, though, I posted seven times in one week, and I've never stopped. Looking back, it's interesting to see places I've photographed repeatedly for five years, and places I've just started photographing this year. Sadly, the first building I photographed that was threatened with demolition was the Switzer Building on Laclede's Landing; five years later, the site still sits vacant, not even properly graded and planted with grass.

Why do I continue? Maybe it really is an addiction, but it's a very rewarding one. I love every comment you all send me, thanking me for exposing you to some new (old) building in some corner of the city. It's ironic, because for every "undiscovered" part of the city, there are hundreds of people living around it that have already known about it for years. I like to think though, that my work, and the work of my colleagues, is changing people's opinions of the city. If just one person moves to the city, buys a house and fixes it up before it gets demolished for "progress" then I feel I have accomplished something. If I can get at least a couple people to get over the odious pessimism that so often engulfs this city, then I consider my work meaningful.

I'm so proud of my friends for successfully rallying and saving the old Del Taco building on Grand; slated for demolition for being "undevelopable," it is now going to be developed into host two restaurants, perfect for the large student population around St. Louis University. Funny how a building can go from one to the other in the span of a couple of weeks, isn't it? Maybe it just has to do with your attitude?

Which brings me to the message I have for all of you on the fifth anniversary of this site.

This spring hasn't been good for historic preservation in St. Louis.

Buildings get demolished every year in St. Louis, but the loss of two icons of the region's architectural heritage are meeting (or have met) the wrecking ball as I write this. I understand that not every building will be saved in this war for protecting the built environment in St. Louis, but what truly disturbs me is the attitudes of the people condoning their demolition and their sarcastic dismissal of preservation. While there are certainly preservationists out there that support saving buildings at all cost, even it means they sit empty for a century, most people I know who support historic preservation do so out of practical reasons. It simply is more logical to reuse an existing, great-looking building than waste the energy to tear it down and replace it with something that will probably not last nearly as long as the original. The walls of my house are one foot thick; short of an earthquake or roof failure, do you think anything would make them budge? Compare that to nowadays, where the floors of new houses I visit in the suburbs shake when I walk across them (I weigh 160 lbs). The floors don't shake in my house when I walk across them. Coincidence? I think not...

Numerous politicians and unelected leaders, who shall go unnamed, believe that the preservation of historic architecture, is an either/or Manichaean choice; you can either have development, or you can have old buildings. The simplicity, the shear stupidity and arrogance of this belief is killing St. Louis. Can you name one major historic building demolished since World War II in St. Louis that has given the city a huge boost in either tax revenue or economic activity? I challenge anyone to explain why tearing down the Ambassador Theater, Real Estate Row or any of the thousands of anonymous houses around the city that were structurally sound has benefited the city. Do you realize that all of the neighborhoods now featured in tourism brochures for St. Louis were once seriously threatened with complete or partial demolition? Yes, someone once thought it would be a good idea to clear cut Soulard, Lafayette Square, most of downtown and pretty much every house inside Grand Boulevard at one time or another. Stand up to those who say economic activity is impossible without demolition, and I suggest that if pro-demolition zealots are so principled, they should recuse themselves from enjoying all of those great, revitalized neighborhoods mentioned above which were saved from the wrecking ball--from their type of people.

In closing I want to share two pictures submitted to me by reader Keith Raske of a bizarre sight on Lafayette Avenue and Nebraska, an area heavily decimated by "good ideas." Yes, it is a double-wide trailer set up on three vacant lots, right next to two handsome Italianate rowhouses. Who wants to place a bet on whether the double-wide or the rowhouses will still be standing in fifty years?

Is that what you want your city to become?

Rock Hill Presbyterian, Totally Gone

I drove over to Rock Hill Presbyterian last Thursday, expecting to see some jagged walls sticking out of the ground, slightly more dismantled than I had seen it the Saturday before. Instead, I saw nothing. The church was completely gone, and I gasped when it dawned on me what had happened. According to the Post-Dispatch, they took it down "carefully" in three hours, numbering stones as they went. I seriously doubt that. What a joke.

Fairfax House, bizarrely floating on steel stilts, had been moved to its corner of purgatory on the north end of the site, ridiculously close to the road and completely devoid of context. I feel bad for all of the people who have worked so hard restoring it to its past appearance.

Anyways, it's been long established that the leadership of Rock Hill are a bunch of revenue addicts, willing to do anything--even sell their grandmother's wedding ring, or historic church--for their next fix. I predict here now that at least one, possibly two, of the currently operating gas stations in Rock Hill will go out of business in the six months after the UGas opens. It will be interesting, and depressing, to see if the fiefdom even comes out of this with more tax revenue than before they sold their community's soul.

But what's truly pathetic is the decision of the Giddings-Lovejoy Presbytery to sell such an historic church to UGas, fully aware that it would mean its demise. Sure, it was the smart business decision, but certainly not the smart moral decision. While I'm sure the Presbytery had full legal title to the church, I would argue that they did not hold the spiritual title to it. It belongs to the slaves, immigrants and the generations of members who first built and then attended services for almost 170 years. Was their hard work and devotion so meaningless?

Rock Hill Presbyterian Being Destroyed

Time has run out for the historic Rock Hill Presbyterian, and the wrecking crews have arrived and have already largely demolished the 1950's Sunday School wing to the east of the church.

Honestly, having attended church in this building in the 1980's, that is not really any big loss; it was a classic example of "sick building syndrome" and detracted from the simplicity of the original rock church.

As of Saturday, the original stone church, renovated after a fire in the 1930's was still largely untouched, the stain glass windows in place; whether there is any interior demolition occurring I do not know.

So apparently a winery owner has bought the church, and it will be disassembled and moved to Warren County. Sounds good, but the original church will be gone; only its stones, moved to a new site and placed in different positions, will remain. The new church will be nothing more than a pastiche of the original structure. My favorite line from the Post-Dispatch article is this:

"But no one had anticipated that [the church] would be so expensive to move."

It's made out of stone! How easy did you think it was going to be?! The whole thing stinks, and I want to know what was really behind this whole deal to build this gas station. What is the IQ of the Rock Hill city council?

The aspect of the whole U-Gas proposal that mystifies me the most is the seemingly inhospitable lay of the land where this gas station will now go. As you can now see more easily, the site is actually a giant hollow, buffeted on the west by a giant retaining wall that holds up McKnight Road. Surely huge amounts of fill will have to be brought in to make the site usable as a gas station.

By the way, it bears repeating; there is a gas station a grand total of maybe 500 feet from the new gas station. How would you like to be the owner of that place?

And even more infuriatingly, there is a dumpy, run-down strip mall across the street. Geez, do you think that maybe the gas station--or even the church--could have possibly been moved there?

So in a couple of weeks, the "city" of Rock Hill (I use that term loosely) will still have one run-down strip mall and one less incredibly historic church. Does it make sense to you?

1,500th Post: The Death of Central St. Louis

Continuing the tradition of my 1,000th post, I will again address a serious threat to the City of St. Louis

When was the last time you heard some say the following? "Hey guys, let's go take a stroll down Kingshighway in between Highway 40 and Interstate 44!"

Even if you replace "Kingshighway" with "Grand" or "Jefferson," I have a feeling the answer is still a categorical "Never."

Why is that? Why has a whole swath of the city become a no-man's land, devoid of houses, stores and really anything of value other than some rusty industrial buildings, most of which are empty? Was it always like this? Scanning over old property records and Sanborn maps, it's clear that the large Mill Creek railroad tracks have long occupied the area between Highway 40 and Interstate 44, so that could explain some of the malaise that occurs in this wide swath of land from Jefferson to Kingshighway. But the bookends, Dogtown and Lafayette Square, show that there was life in these areas, and indeed life still remains in those two vibrant neighborhoods.

I strongly believe the real culprits are the interstates which have sliced off the central portion of the city from the north and south sides. No one likes walking over an interstate, as planners realized in Washington, DC, luckily before the interstates could be completed in that city. Now, you can walk all the way from the Washington Monument to the District border in most directions and never have to confront the hell of an interstate on-ramp. In St. Louis, however, the central city neighborhoods were left isolated and targeted for "experimentation" on the part of city leaders who could use the different, admittedly suffering Compton Hill and McRee Town areas because they lacked strong advocates and neighboring areas to fight them.

Thankfully, the days of interstate building are over, but there's something just awful about the drive down what should be the major avenues of the city. It almost seems like the city's planners gave up on the area between the interstates, and started redesigning Kingshighway, Grand and Jefferson to get people in cars through the wasteland as fast as possible. We can do better, and the wastelands can hold new buildings again--or for the first time.

Let's work so that some day that Central St. Louis is the actual center of the city, and not the barren border lands between two vibrant halves.

Still Hope for College Hill Neighborhood

I'm disappointed that College Hill has been removed from Preservation Review. The argument that the neighborhood is too far gone to save is the wrong attitude.

If anything, the fact that so much has been lost warrants that what is left should be preserved that much more carefully.

While admittedly several streets in the neighborhood have lost large amounts of housing stock, there are ample survivors on neighboring blocks that can help inspire the in-fill that could eventually fill the holes.

I'm just really worried that when an entire neighborhood is swept away, we end up with bland, suburban-style housing that looks bad, is built cheaply, and ends up abandoned even faster than the original building stock.

Take the example of the failed housing development in nearby Hyde Park; the last thing we need is "blank slate" development that always seems to fail.

What remains in College Hill, which is substantial, should be likened to the remaining good teeth in a mouth; why on Earth would we want to pull more teeth when so many have already been lost? Do we want partial dentures, or pull all the healthy teeth out for an entire new set, and risk having no teeth at all?

Saint Louis Patina Wins Best Architecture Blog Award

I was elated to learn Tuesday night at the Riverfront Times 2012 Best of the Web Awards Ceremony at the Old Rock House that I won the Best Architecture Blog Award. You can read the write-up here, and also you can find me in the print edition available at your local coffee house or market. You can also see me accepting the award here; it's a funny picture because I almost never wear that shirt and it is clearly that I really need a haircut. My photograph in the article is from in front of the Washington Terrace Gates, which I featured earlier this week (It all makes sense now, right?). Jennifer Silverberg, the photographer, did a great job and really captured the essence of my website in the portrait. Please stay tuned; I have all sorts of great posts coming up in the next couple of weeks, focusing on hidden treasures around St. Louis.

Welcome (Back) to Saint Louis Patina

Maybe this is your first time here, or maybe you're a long time reader. Regardless, I want to welcome you to my site dedicated to the beauty, the patina of St. Louis. What began almost five years ago as a hobby has grown into an integral part of my life, and I want you to understand how lucky St. Louisans are to be blessed with some of the most stunning architecture in America.

I'm coming up on my 1500th post, so perhaps as a good way to start getting acquainted with my site is with these three tags, which break the city down into geographical parts:

North St. Louis

Central St. Louis

South St. Louis

If you have great memories, or even historic photos from the past of St. Louis architecture, I would love to hear from you. I have many contributors who have provided me with a wealth of fascinating stories about our great city.

In closing, I think my words I wrote a week ago, when speaking of the demolition of an historic church in Rock Hill, actually sums up perfectly the purpose behind this website:

I remarked to myself recently that Americans spend billions of dollars each year as tourists traveling to iconic, beautiful cities such as Rome, London or Paris in order to experience what humanity has accomplished in the fine art of building great, memorable and iconic cities. How sad it is that many Americans don't realize or care that we are free to make our own cities as beautiful as the aforementioned cities, but we choose a gas station over an historic structure. Let me ask you, would the city of Rome allow the demolition of an historic church for a gas station? If not, then why do we?

Rock Hill Presbyterian To Be Demolished

I normally don't get too controversial on this website, instead seeking to building consensus and appreciation for the saving of the historic built environment of St. Louis and its surrounding communities. For the planned demolition of Rock Hill Presbyterian, I cannot be diplomatic. Simply put, Rock Hill's cynical ploy to offer to save the structure if private citizens can magically find hundreds of thousands of dollars in a short period is reprehensible. Reading their offer, I realized I had heard the same such hollow olive branch from the owners of an historic mansion recently demolished in Kirkwood: "We're not bad guys, we love old buildings, but it's your fault, you crazy preservationists, because you couldn't come up with the money to move the building before our arbitrarily short deadline ran out."

Let's review some of the facts:

1) Rock Hill is allowing U-Gas to demolish a church built by slaves before the Civil War for a gas station.
2) Rock Hill already has three gas stations, which is already a violation of its own ordinance against having so many gas stations.
3) Rock Hill, infamous as a speed trap, has numerous abandoned store fronts lining Manchester Road.
4) Rock Hill currently has its city hall in a strip mall/run-down building.

I remarked to myself recently that Americans spend billions of dollars each year as tourists in iconic, beautiful cities such as Rome, London or Paris in order to experience what humanity has accomplished in the art of the urban environment. How sad it is that many Americans don't realize or care that we are free to make cities as beautiful as the aforementioned cities, but we choose a gas station over an historic structure. Let me ask you, would Rome allow the demolition of an historic church for a gas station?

Perhaps the church can still be saved, but it will require your help to do it. Start by visiting this site as well as their Facebook page and see what you can do.

Snow and St. Louis through the Centuries

At times like these, I always wonder how St. Louis dealt with snow such as what we're seeing today. Certainly, back in the Nineteenth Century, there were no automobile crashes backing up interstates. Also, I have a feeling that most people lived relatively close to work and could walk there, albeit carefully since the cobblestones were probably slippery with snow. Likewise, would the streetcars, which served every section of the city, just glide through a couple of inches of snow like we're seeing right now? I know commuter railroads would probably have had little trouble. Are we as a society perhaps going backwards as far as accessibility and safety during inclement weather?

September 11th

On September 11, 2001, I was living in Washington, DC, attending grad school at George Washington University. My apartment was in Foggy Bottom, six blocks from the White House. I hate to admit it, but I slept through history that morning; due to my own screw-up, I didn't have a part-time job my third semester at GWU, and as most of my friends know, I liked to sleep in back in the day when I didn't have classes until the afternoon.

I was awoken by the phone ringing, which I didn't answer, but then my father's voice came over the answering machine (remember those?), simply saying, "You're mom's worried sick; give us a call as soon as you get this."

I was totally confused; what was there to worry about on a Tuesday morning? I got up, groggily turned on the TV and was confronted with live footage of smoke and flames pouring out of the Pentagon. My first reaction was shock, obviously, and realized immediately why my parents were concerned about my safety, despite living about five miles from National Airport and two miles from the Pentagon. Honestly, I thought it was just a terrible accident, as National Airport has one of the most dangerous approaches in the US, and tragedy had struck a plane before due to the perils of the short runways that end in the Potomac River. I picked up the phone and called my father to tell him I was alright, of course. What he told me after he answered the phone left me flabbergasted and confused.

"It wasn't an accident, Chris. They flew two planes into the World Trade Center; they're both gone."

"What do you mean they're both gone?" I exclaimed, "there's no way an airplane could do that." I had believed, ironically just as Osama bin Laden had, that only the tops of the towers would have broken off, leaving two stumps. My father and I talked for a bit more, and then I got off the phone so he could call my mother and let her know I was alright. I ran up on the roof of my eight-story apartment building, and saw the sickening sight of smoke rising up from the Pentagon two miles away, over the roofs of the neighboring buildings. I stayed glued to the TV the rest of the day, until I met up with some friends that evening in Arlington to get some hamburgers and watch the news, which of course had co-opted every other show on the television that night. We debated whether we should go drive by the Pentagon, which was only a mile away from the restaurant. Was that morbid? Was that insensitive? We didn't want to be voyeurs to a scene where almost two hundred people had just been murdered, but we ultimately decided that we felt we needed to say our respects, even if it was only fleeting.

As we merged into traffic on I-66, which loops around the southside of the Pentagon, we witnessed what to this day was one of the most heart-wrenching scenes I have ever seen. Framed by a red and orange sunset, black smoke billowed up from the still burning Pentagon, as large flood lights lit up the site of the impact. It was hard to believe I was really seeing what was in front of me, that a plane full of people had slammed into a building only two miles away from where I lived.

Fast forward to this year, and Osama bin Laden was gunned down in Pakistan, living a comfortable if confined life with computers chock full of Western pornography. My father walked by the TV while I was watching a clip the Special Forces had found of bin Laden watching himself on TV.

"What's he doing, watching himself on TV?" my father asked.

"Yeah," I replied.

"Sick."

What I will never forget were the children killed in Arlington that day. While most of the victims that day were adults, several Washington, DC school children were on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. Their names were Rodney Dickens, Asia Cottom, and Bernard Brown and they were accompanied by their teachers James Debeunere, Sarah Clark, and Hilda Taylor, as well as two National Geographic employees, Ann Judge and Joe Ferguson. The three children, who came from some of the poorest and most troubled parts of DC, had won a trip to the Channel Islands through National Geographic. I am not sure, but it probably was the first time they had ever flown on an airplane. While three thousand people died that day, I still find myself coming back to thinking about these three children and how disgusting their murder was. I mean, it's one thing to fly an airplane into a building, which is terrible enough, but how depraved does a person have to be to do it with the knowledge that children were sitting on the plane behind him?

I hope on this day that all of my readers think about that terrible day ten years ago, and think how that day can inspire you to work on making the world a place where murder and terror no longer exist. I know in my own city, fraught with murder, pain and outright chaos at times, that goal is worth fighting for.

Council Plaza and Grand Center Part 4: Accessability and Social Justice

I couldn't help but notice what a horrible pedestrian environment Grand Boulevard provides south of Laclede to Chouteau. Perhaps the most galling problem is the double-decker interstate that cuts right through the middle of the area.
Imagine being in a wheelchair, or even maybe a little less mobile than the average person, and walking through this mess of broken cement and weeds at the corner of Forest Park Avenue and Grand. For the residents of Council Plaza, the majority elderly or wheelchair-bound, this is not a theoretical exercise, it is reality.Then, after you somehow manage to cross over the broken pavement, you're faced with the overpass over the traffic sewer that Forest Park Avenue is at Grand. Pedestrians hate the roar of traffic, and avoid areas where they're subjected to it.Do you remember when Highway 40 only went under Grand? Already, in the 1960's, streets were being designed to move cars, not people.Nowadays, you are faced with the double-decker interstate at the same spot, with the claustrophobic east-bounds lanes above you...
...and the east-bound lanes roaring by below you. It's not surprising that the Fox Theater doesn't recommend its patrons take Metrolink, located south of the interstate to evening shows. A little known fact: Highway 40 follows the path of the old Manchester Avenue through this area. If you look closely at some of the buildings through the area, you can see storefronts facing the highway.When I visited Council Plaza, while gazing at the buildings, I couldn't help but notice all of the people sitting around inside the complex, almost like they were prisoners. I don't blames them; take a walk up Grand from the interstate sometime and imagine doing it in a wheelchair, or with a walker.I think it is a social crime that American society has gotten to the point where its elderly and disabled are warehoused away in an isolated apartment complex, removed from everyday society and the benefits social interactions provide to the psyche.A first step would be to fill in the underpass for Forest Park Avenue under Grand; the bridge is deteriorating and will need to be replaced soon. Why not fill it in and create a humane, pedestrian-friendly intersection? I frequently use Forest Park Avenue, and I would be fine with having my trip extended by 30 seconds at a traffic light at Grand, just so this intersection could reflect the energy so long suppressed in this area.

Hodgen Elementary Demolition Pending

Much of the Gate District, formerly the Compton Hill neighborhood, has been obliterated. But much to my delight, much of it still survives. If the St. Louis Public Schools system has its way, it will lose a critical component of the area that has stood since the late Nineteenth Century. Hodgen School, a simple, but stout Italianate school building that I've heard is the oldest school building left in the city of St. Louis, is slated for demolition in order to provide a parking lot for the new Hodgen School. A parking lot? Are they kidding?!So the Hodgen School might not make it into architectural history books, but its restrained style, with Tuscan pilasters and architrave cut an elegant profile in this corner of the city that so needs a sense of real style.The school's sign shows that the pediment was most likely not originally painted.The circular niche, an interesting oddity, seems to be awaiting the return of the bust that once sat on its plinth.On the facade, cut-stone rosettes accent the red brick walls. The detail might be a little rough after one hundred years, but they are still well-preserved.These windows must bring huge amounts of light into the classrooms. Speaking as someone who went to a high school that resembled a dungeon, I wish I could have attended school at such a light-filled space.The back side of the school, visible from I-44 (how I'm most familiar with the building) is an interesting mix of curved stairwells and what might be the curved back of the library.Below is what presumably is the outside of a staircase.I like this picture of the back of the building; what is the large, semi-circular structure sticking out of the back?Rather conveniently, a window has been left open, exposing the interior of the building to the elements.I include a picture of the new Hodgen Elementary: a boring, bland building that is so typical of the 1990's in American architecture. Where are the Michelangelos, Berninis and Sullivans of the past? I know, they're dead, but do we have to have such antagonism to solid, elegant and timeless architecture?Below, I have included a Sanborn map showing how dense the neighborhood once was, and how the elementary school fit in so perfectly into the fabric of the area.So you don't care about historical architecture? That's fine, but realize that Proposition S, passed by voters in November, specifically mentions only upgrades to public schools. Read the text here. As you can read at the Post-Dispatch website, Hodgen will be torn down in the wave of new repairs made with the money from Prop S. While it does say specifically if the District will use Prop S money to tear down Hodgen, but if they do, I believe they are violating at least the spirit, if not the law, of Prop S, and its purported use of taxpayers' dollars.