St. Louis Public Library Index of City Streets

Just discovered an interesting resource on the St. Louis Public Library web site – a Street Index dating to 1994. Street names are listed with a brief history. Here is an example:

Be warned, this is very interesting reading.

– Steve

Gravois-Jefferson Streetcar Suburb National Historic District in City Scene

In the June 2005 issue of The Healthy Planet I take a look at the new Gravois-Jefferson Streetcar Suburb National Historic District. From the story:

For the rest of the story you’ll need to pick up a copy of the Healthy Planet – it’s free! I saw some at Soulard Market and I think Mokabe’s also has it as well.

If you missed the May ‘City Scene’ article in the Healthy Planet on downtown you can read it online.

– Steve

Rare Lustron Home Razed by Developer on a Saturday

In December 2004 I posted the picture at right of a Lustron House endanger of being razed for what was a rather boring in-fill development. While the Lustron house is not the most urban of houses they are also quite rare and worth saving.

Today I learned we have one less Lustron house in the City of St. Louis. It wasn’t disassembled as others have done when it was in the way of “progress.” Nope, it was unceremoniously razed.

This picture and the following were taken by Angie Boesch of the Lustron Locator website on this past Sunday.

One person concerned about the future of the Lustron house went by a noon on Saturday and the building was still standing. At 8pm that evening it was demolished.

I can understand a developer wanting to use a site for a different purpose. What I can’t understand is not saving the house by having it disassembled and moved. They came to the site as individual parts and they could leave a site in the same manner. Leaving as twisted metal just is not right.

Sad. These neat houses deserve a better fate.

Residents of the 24th Ward upset over the alderman have started a recall effort. This project and others with the same developers are part of the reasons for the recall effort.

Click here to read a story about alderman Bauer and a picture with him and the developers responsible for razing the Lustron.

I’m all for development and keeping things moving forward but not at the expense of history. We need political leaders and developers that have respect for our built environment.

– Steve

The Future of Downtown St. Louis Depends Upon [insert latest project here]

Tavia Evans reports in yesterday’s Post-Dispatch that RGGA’s Dick Fleming is tossing out yet another scare tactic about the future of downtown:

That is funny. Last year all the downtown “advocates” said the future of downtown depended upon tearing down the historic Century Building for a parking garage serving the Old Post Office Square. Before that downtown depended upon a new Cardinals baseball stadium. A convention hotel was going to save downtown too. Don’t forget an arena for the Blues. And the football dome, that was the key to saving downtown.

I’m sick of it. These guys are worse than the local TV news. They couch all these projects as a must have so that nobody will speak out against whatever project they want to publicly fund.

The writing is on the wall. Federated is buying out May Company with the building next door to St. Louis Centre. The mall’s new owner, Barry Cohen, is saying it can be made to work as a mall, perhaps without the skybridges. Can another round of good money after bad be far behind?

Back to the Post-Dispatch:

Cohen bought the mostly-empty mall in August at a foreclosure sale, reportedly for $5.4 million; St. Louis Centre was built in the 1980s for about $95 million.

Massive public supported real estate projects sure don’t hold their value very well do they? Would you buy a house if the value 25 years later would be less than 10% of the purchase price? No wonder people such as Fleming must work overtime to sell the public a bill of goods.

If we are to believe them downtown will be in ruins if we don’t support the project of the year. I hope us in the general public are not stupid enough to believe this load of BS. I know I can see through it – although it keeps getting thicker and thicker.

Downtown is well on its way because of the work of residential developers and businesses like City Grocers. This is what makes downtown great. They add true value, not just take our tax dollars for a ride.

– Steve

St. Louis’ Clifton Heights Neighborhood Quite Unique

It amazes me that some lifetime St. Louis area residents still haven’t discovered the Clifton Heights neighborhood. I love to take visitors through the area as well, after seeing blocks of solid red brick housing in a mostly grid pattern the curvy streets and topography of Clifton Heights is an unexpected change.

I’ve sold two houses in the Clifton Heights neighborhood in the last few years. One just off the lake but still with a good view and another a couple of blocks away. I was back in Clifton Heights on Thursday showing a house to a client. I couldn’t help but grin as I arrived. I love Clifton Heights.

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