Eighty-two years ago a big change occurred downtown, modern street lights were switched on. Â From the 1989 book St. Louis Day by Day by Francis Hurd Stadler:
Today we take modern lighting for granted but to earlier generations the streets of St. Louis were not always so well lit. Most likely these lights were a result of the 1923 bond issue:
The first effort to coordinate the City’s street pattern came in 1917, when the recently organized City Plan Commission published its first major street plan. The majority of the street widenings, connections and openings which were accomplished under the 1923 bond issue were based upon this plan. The City is indebted to the wisdom of the electorate of 1923 for wide streets such as Olive, Market, Gravois, and Natural Bridge. A glance at a city map made prior to these improvements shows many of these streets to be in 60 feet rights-of-way accommodating only two streetcar tracks and one lane of parking on each side. In addition, they were paved with cobblestones, a rough surface for motorists. The passage of the 1923 bond issue of $87, 000, 000 was a notable achievement in a period characterized by a much slower growth rate than had been enjoyed immediately after the World’s Fair. St. Louis became aware of its outmoded physical features and gave itself an extensive face lifting by means of the bond issue. Civic inertia was attacked on many fronts resulting in new hospitals, electric street lighting for the entire City, construction of the Memorial Plaza, Kiel Auditorium and the Civil Courts building, as well as extensive street improvements. The largest single project to be completed was the River Des Peres drainage works which eliminated an open sewer in the West End and provided for proper drainage of flood waters over the full length of the stream within the City.
Eighteen years later, November 11, 1936, the cornerstone for St. Louis’Â Soldier’s Memorial was laid.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt came to St. Louis to dedicate the site for the Soldiers Memorial building on October 14, 1936.(Source)
But in 1936, November 11th wasn’t yet a holiday:
An Act (52 Stat. 351; 5 U. S. Code, Sec. 87a) approved May 13, 1938, made the 11th of November in each year a legal holiday-a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated and known as “Armistice Day.” Armistice Day was primarily a day set aside to honor veterans of World War I, but in 1954, after World War II had required the greatest mobilization of soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen in the Nation’s history; after American forces had fought aggression in Korea, the 83rd Congress, at the urging of the veterans service organizations, amended the Act of 1938 by striking out the word “Armistice” and inserting in its place the word “Veterans.” With the approval of this legislation (Public Law 380) on June 1, 1954, November 11th became a day to honor American veterans of all wars. (Source)
Word War I seems so long ago, the 100th anniversary is just eight years away.
ABOVE: St. Louis' memorials to WWI, Korea & Vietnam
Thank you to all who have served in our armed forces.
Forty-five years ago Saarinen’s Arch was completed:
“During a nation-wide competition in 1947-48, architect Eero Saarinen’s inspired design for a 630-foot stainless steel arch was chosen as a perfect monument to the spirit of the western pioneers. Construction of the Arch began in 1963, and was completed on October 28, 1965, for a total cost of less than $15 million. The Arch has foundations sunk 60 feet into the ground, and is built to withstand earthquakes and high winds; it sways up to 1 inch in a 20 mph wind, and is built to sway up to 18 inches. A Grand Staircase leads from the St. Louis levee up to the base of the Gateway Arch.” (NPS)
It would be a number of years before the landscaping around the Arch would be completed but for decades the site looked like this:
Image courtesy of JNEM/NPS
Of course before it was a parking lot it was 40 city blocks of the original St. Louis.
Five years from today we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Arch. Â Civic leaders hope to show off revised access to the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, I hope they succeed.
ABOVE: Original 1894 structure with 1914 north wing (left) and 1922 south wing (right)
St. Elizabeth Academy, located at 3401 Arsenal in the Tower Grove East neighborhood, is planning to raze some or all of their original structures. Which historic buildings is unclear, an email request to administrators for a response have gone unanswered.
In addition to strengthening our academic program this year, we gathered a group of volunteers to join us in strategic planning for the future of SEA‟s facilities. The result of that study is a 10-year plan that includes renovation of the 1957 building and eventually replacing some of the buildings that no longer serve SEA‟s mission with a new facility. In order to implement this plan, we are beginning a capital campaign to raise the necessary funds.
While the funds for upgrading SEA‟s facilities are crucial for SEA‟s mission, even more important is creating an endowment to provide tuition assistance for the young women God asks us to empower. Therefore, the first phase of the capital campaign will raise funds to establish an endowment in addition to raising funds for the renovation of SEA‟s 1957 building. The second phase of the capital campaign will raise funds for a new facility.
The original structure with the two wing additions is what is I assume they want to replace. The only other structure on the site is the 1927 gymnasium, apparently in good condition.
ABOVE: The 1957 structure faces south toward Arsenal St rather than west as before.ABOVE: view looking east down Crittenden St. toward the 1894 St. Elizabeth buiding
The original building with the two wings is a central part of the Crittenden Historic District listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983:
ST. ELIZABETH ACADEMY COMPLEX (City Block 1458)
Establishing an impressive visual focus for the District is the building constructed in 1894 for St. Elizabeth Academy with its projecting entrance tower facing west on Crittenden.1 Designed for the Precious Blood Sisters by Joseph Stauder & Son and built at a cost of $18,900 by contractor George Bothe, the three-story red brick building is 64 feet by 53 feet. Typical of much Catholic institutional architecture of the last decades of the nineteenth century in St. Louis, the building is a High Victorian amalgam. The central entrance tower with steeply pitched pyramidal roof is enriched by panels of ornamental pressed brick and by stone sill courses, key stones and skew backs at the second and third stories. Tower windows are paired below broad,slightly pointed arches. The heavily carved,double entrance doors with paneled wood reveals are set beneath a stone-trimmed arch and framed by stone-capped piers. Decorated copper-clad crosses crown the entrance tower and north and south gables of
the slate mansard roof. A strongly defined pointed arched corbel table is at the cornice onallelevations;slightlypointedarchesheadthewindows.
The architectural firm of Joseph Stauder & Son was one of several specializing in Catholic institutional design at the turn of the century in St. Louis and was responsible for numerous churches, parsonages, convents and schools in Missouri and southern Illinois. Their work included the complex of St.Agatha’s parish, one of the schools where the Precious Blood Sisters taught, and the order’s Mother House in O’Fallon,
Missouri. The firm’s founder,a second generation German,began work as a carpenter in St. Louis in the 1870s and was joined by his son Joseph, Jr. in the early 1890s.’ Later generations of Stauders designed the 1957 addition to the school.
A $40,000 north wing 51 feet by 97 feet was built in 1914 by contractor F. Kratzer from plans drawn by Brother Leonard Darcheid, who was trained as an archi tect before becoming a Franciscan. The design of the three-story building sustains, with variations, the idiom established for the 1894 structure. The central bay of the west elevation is marked by pilasters rising to a gable. Pointed arched corbel tables appear at the cornice and between the first and second stories of this Day. Window openings are segmentally arched and trimmed with stone key stones. Stone lintels head the second story windows of the five central bays on the east elevation. At the third story on this elevation and at the three eastern bays of the north Stone trim.  Similar arched openings appear on both elevations of the three- story passageway linking the 1894 and 1914 structures; the three bays of the first and second stories are doubled to six bays at the third.
The $51,000 south wing incorporating a chapel on the east was planned by the firm of Ludwig & Dreisoerner and constructed in 1922 by contractor John Grewe. The design of the west elevation matches and balances the north wing. The chapel portion of the building employs crossed gabled roofs and triads of lancet windows flanked by stone-trimmed buttress forms on the second story of the north and south elevations. Window openings at the first story of these elevations are unembellished rectangles set below a stone course. Five bays of similar windows are at the second story of the east elevation. A passageway identical to the earlier one links this building to the 1894 structure. A new entrance and three-story stairwell were added at the east elevation in 1957. (Wooden infill panels have been placed at the heads of all of the arched openings of these three structures and their linking passageways except for those of the lancet windows of the chapel.)
Architect Henry Dreisoerner designed the 1927 gymnasium at the eastern edge of the campus. The interior features one of the first lamella roofs licensed and constructed in the Midwest. (See Section 8.) A building cost of $34,000 was recorded on the permit for construction of the gymnasium which extends 141 feet along Louisiana Avenue and is 60 feet deep. S. W. Schuler was the contractor. On the exterior eccle siastical echoes are evident in the pointed arched roof covering the modern lamella roofing system, the copper-clad gablets above the buttresses of the fourteen-bay side elevations and the corbelled arcading on the north elevation. The basement is random- sized limestone set in dark mortar. Side elevations are articulated with arched bays at the north and south ends. On the south elevations diapering of contrasting dark brick is employed in a large blind arch; diapered brickwork also appears on the north elevation below five rectangular openings and corbelled arcading. Although there is no record: of replacement, the present asphalt, shingles probably replace the original asphalt roof. In the interior, the interlocking transverse arches of the wooden lamella system creates a diamond-shaped grid. It is now almost completed concealed by a dropped ceiling. The new school building of 1957 joins the gymnasium on the south; a one-story addition was built the same year at the north elevation.
A low crenellated wall of random-sized, quarry-faced limestone laid in dark mortar was constructed to extend along three sides of the school camous in 1938.
Very significant structures! I can just hear them at the Preservation Board in 5 years requesting demolition, ‘We’ve been planning this for years, we’ve spent a lot of money on architectural design for our new buildings.’
ABOVE: aerial of the campus. Image: Google Maps
The state mental hospital west on Arsenal comes to mind. Â Originally the State of Missouri wanted to raze the original domed structure hidden behind a 1950s building. Â Thankfully the state realized it was better to raze the 1950s building and renovate the more stately original structure while building new structures elsewhere on their grounds.
The campus is located within the current boundaries of the 6th ward,  alderwoman Kacie Starr Triplett is alumni of St. Elizabeth Academy.
I’m not suggesting St. Elizabeth raze their 1957 building, just that they find a way to incorporate their historic west-facing structures into their plans for the future.
Macy's parking garage next to Charlie Gitto's on 6th Street
This view of Charlie Gitto’s with an big parking garage on the left and a surface parking lot on the right exemplifies everything that went wrong with urban planning. On this city block, only one other building dodged the wrecking ball.
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Today we take modern lighting for granted but to earlier generations the streets of St. Louis were not always so well lit. Most likely these lights were a result of the 1923 bond issue:
