Great buildings have been built in the worst of economic times

Last week AIA St. Louis noted Radio City Music Hall opened this week during the Great Depression (Dec. 27, 1932). Like our current situation with the stalled Ballpark Village project, plans for the site were stalled due to the economic conditions.

When the stock market crashed in 1929, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. held a $91 million, 24-year lease on a piece of midtown Manhattan property properly known as “the speakeasy belt.” Plans to gentrify the neighborhood by building a new Metropolitan Opera House on the site were dashed by the failing economy and the business outlook was dim. Nevertheless, Rockefeller made a bold decision that would leave a lasting impact on the city’s architectural and cultural landscape. He decided to build an entire complex of buildings on the property-buildings so superior that they would attract commercial tenants even in a depressed city flooded with vacant rental space. The project would express the highest ideals of architecture and design and stand as a symbol of optimism and hope. (Source: Radio City Music Hall)

Rockefeller saw the need to react and devised a new development strategy.

St. Louis is lacking leaders with the courage to change direction in the face of adversity.   We need people to build lasting quality.  If the St. Louis Cardinals had political & financial pressure on them the Ballpark Village site would be platted for others to begin developing it piece by piece.

I’ve seen one show inside Radio City, the interior is stunning.

I simply don’t buy the argument Ballpark Village isn’t happening because of the 2009 economy.  The massive project was announced in the Fall of 2006.

12/1/2008: The National Bureau of Economic Research said Monday that the U.S. has been in a recession since December 2007, making official what most Americans have already believed about the state of the economy.  (source; CNN Money)

The Cardinals & Cordish had a year before the downturn started to get the project off the ground.  It didn’t happen because the entertainment district concept is not a sound investment.  The economy is an excuse to cover for a failed development concept.

– Steve Patterson

Architects & Engineers should be required to have their name on their work

Earlier in the week I walked past the Eden Lofts at Chouteau & 18th. The name of the firm that designed the building was proudly carved into stone near the entry.  It is a beautiful building, I’m sure they were proud.

This practice should be mandatory.  You never see the firm name on a Wal-Mart or a Quik-Trip and given their lack of architectural character it is no wonder.  Highway interchanges should include the name of the responsible firm.  City intersections should tell you who is responsible for how they function.

My belief is that is more people had to put their name on their work we’d see much better work.  Before the anti-government folks get all upset I want to make it clear I don’t want laws passed requiring this.  It would just be nice if it was still a common practice.

– Steve Patterson

Harland Bartholomew negatively impacted many cities

Twenty Ten years ago today famed urban planner Harland Bartholomew died.  From his NY Times Obituary, Harland Bartholomew, 100, Dean of City Planners:

Harland Bartholomew, the dean of comprehensive city planning in the United States, died Saturday at his home in Clayton, Mo., a suburb of St. Louis. He was 100 years old.

Mr. Bartholomew, a consulting engineer, was appointed to Federal planning committees by three Presidents, Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

In 1941 President Roosevelt appointed Mr. Bartholomew to a committee to recommend a limited system of national highways. He also helped plan the Metro subway system in Washington, and he represented the Rockefeller interests in the restoration of historic Williamsburg, Va.

President Eisenhower appointed Mr. Bartholomew chairman of the National Capital Planning Commission a position he held for seven years, A City Planner in Newark Mr. Bartholomew became the nation’s first full-time city planner in 1914, when he went to work for the city of Newark. Two years later he went to St. Louis as a city engineer, and he later opened a consulting firm, Harland Bartholomew & Associates, which now has its headquarters in Memphis. He retired in 1965. His firm prepared comprehensive plans for more than 500 cities and counties, including Bal Horbour, Fla., St. Croix, V.I., and Grand Bahama Island in the Bahamas. Mr. Bartholomew also prepared plans for the reconstruction of the resort community of Bar Harbor, Me., after two-thirds of it was destroyed by a forest fire in 1947.

His firm also assisted in the preparation of many zoning ordinances. including a statewide ordinance for Hawaii.

He was an early advocate of slum clearance and city planning, and served on the national Slum Clearance Advisory Committee. His ideas helped shape the Housing Act of 1937 and the Housing Act of 1949.

There is no doubting Bartholomew’s influence on both cities and the profession of urban planning. His considerable influence is why he had such a negative impact on cities. We are still dealing with problems created by his solutions to early 20th century problems.

In 1919 he founded Harland Bartholomew & Associates here in St. Louis. For decades the firm operated from offices in the Louderman Building at 11th & Locust (map). From 1916-1950 he was St. Louis’ planner.

Early writings showed he was concerned about suburban expansion — in the 1920s. He advocated widening streets to accommodate the automobile. In the above image the right-of-way of Franklin Ave from 3rd to 9th is getting widened from 50 feet to 80 feet – a 60% increase! Widened streets and numerous parking lots/garages made the decision to buy a car and move to a house beyond the streetcar line was a no brainier for many.

Soon the widened streets weren’t enough so highways were the next step. Each time steps were taken to make motoring life easier the further people moved from the core. Eventually families needed to have two cars. As a country we would have embraced the automobile anyway but he made it easier and faster. Highways cutting through cities also did much damage.

Bartholomew was a major pusher of Euclidean zoning — the rigid segregation of land uses. Overcoming this segregated view of cities today is a challenge. I’ve spent time in the basement of the Washington University archives library reading through comprehensive plans HBA prepared for hundreds of U.S. cities. Each one a repeat of the prior: widen streets, build a highway loop around downtown, build parking, require high parking standards for new construction, make the zoning even stricter.

Harland Bartholomew left his position with the City of St. Louis in 1950 and after 42 years, in 1961, he retired from the firm that bore his name. I can’t help but think our cities would be better off in the 21st century if this man born in the 19th century had become an accountant. I take some pleasure knowing the building where his office was located currently includes a mix of retail, office and residential uses.

– Steve Patterson

Sit anywhere on the bus

Fifty-four years ago today a 42 year old (my current age) woman refused to move to the back of the bus in Montgomery, Alabama.   Of course the woman was Rosa Parks:

Her refusal to surrender her seat to a white male passenger on a Montgomery, Alabama bus, December 1, 1955, triggered a wave of protest December 5, 1955 that reverberated throughout the United States. Her quiet courageous act changed America, its view of black people and redirected the course of history.  (source: rosaparks.org)

I am so grateful to her for refusing to give up her seat simply based on her race. But it wasn’t so simple:

Montgomery’s segregation laws were complex: blacks were required to pay their fare to the driver, then get off and reboard through the back door. Sometimes the bus would drive off before the paid-up customers made it to the back entrance. If the white section was full and another white customer entered, blacks were required to give up their seats and move farther to the back; a black person was not even allowed to sit across the aisle from whites. These humiliations were compounded by the fact that two-thirds of the bus riders in Montgomery were black.

Parks was not the first to be detained for this offense. Eight months earlier, Claudette Colvin, 15, refused to give up her seat and was arrested. Black activists met with this girl to determine if she would make a good test case — as secretary of the local N.A.A.C.P., Parks attended the meeting — but it was decided that a more “upstanding” candidate was necessary to withstand the scrutiny of the courts and the press. And then in October, a young woman named Mary Louise Smith was arrested; N.A.A.C.P. leaders rejected her too as their vehicle, looking for someone more able to withstand media scrutiny. Smith paid the fine and was released. (Source: TIME)

We have come a long way but we still have so far to travel. We all owe Parks (and so many others) for chipping away at the walls of hate that were commonplace at that time.

– Steve Patterson

The opposite of the big box store

Nothing defines “big box” more than Wal-Mart, take this recent bit from Iowa:  “the Wal-Mart Supercenter will cover 150,000 square feet of land — around 40,000 feet fewer than the company originally planned.” (source)  40,000 feet fewer?

In the earlier days of our city we had the small box store.  No, make that tiny box.

This tiny storefront was built in front of a single-family detached home just down the street from the streetcar commercial district at Meramec & Virginia (map).  Built in the time before zoning laws this storefront extended the established commercial district just a bit farther.  But head down Virginia or most city streets and storefronts dot the landscape.  Commercial activity was not limited to the strip/power center or mall.  Of course most customers were on foot back then.  Thanks to our progress we are forced to drive a car to make purchases.

I can see in the future adding such structures in the sprawling suburbs.  Attitudes and zoning laws will need to change before we will see these in suburbia but it is an option I think we will see explored to make sprawl more walkable in the next half century.

This storefront on Virginia Ave. was vacant for many years.  Finally a creative couple found the answer.

Last month I attended the opening of The Virginia House, a new art gallery.  I had seen the inside 4-5 years ago so I know they did a lot of work on this tiny space. So the space is no longer offering sundries, it is adding activity to the street.  It is a window to peek into even when closed.

I’m not the only one that likes these storefront.  Michael Allen has featured many on The Ecology of Absence.  Here is a recent post of a fine 3-story home that gained a storefront addition in 1912.

It makes a much more intimate space for a gathering than say a former Wal-Mart big big store.

– Steve Patterson