Alfred P. Murrah Building Destroyed 14 Years Ago Today

A lot has changed in the world in the 14 years since the Oklahoma City Bombing.  Tomorrow marks the 10th Anniversary of the Columbine Shootings.  It has been nearly 8 years since 9/11.  Shootings seem almost commonplace these days.

This August marks the 23rd anniversary of the Post Office shootings in the Oklahoma City suburb of Edmond. That day 14 were killed and six others were injured.  The shooter took his own life.  I was about to begin my sophomore year at the University of Oklahoma.  By 1995, when the Alred P. Murrah Federal Building was bombed, I had been living in St. Louis for nearly 5 years.

I knew the building well.  It opened on March 2nd, 1977, two days after my 10th birthday.  The late 1970s was a year of transition for many cities.  Oklahoma City, like St. Louis, sought to be on the cutting edge by razing large areas, creating formidable superblocks, and constructing new buildings that were hostile to pedestrians.

Later that same year the once magnificent 33-story Billtmore Hotel was imploded.  I cried that day.  The block that had contained the Biltmore was combined with 3 others to create asuperblock.  Ditto for the four blocks to the East.  Thank you I.M. Pei.

The Murrah Federal building was on the opposite side of downtown.  Not part of a superblock, the building did consume an entire city block.  Like most buildings of this era, it was brutal and demeaning to the sidewalk.

The tower was heavily damaged in the bombing so what remained was imploded a month later.  But part of what made the building so horrible remains as part of the memorial.  The Southern half of the block was a raised plaza (Plaza = Pretty Lame Area with Zero Activity).  The plaza was above the sidewalk level like so many of the time.  It was also too large and too boring.  Today it serves as a vantage point for viewing the memorial.

The building itself occupied less than half the block, the remain part of the block held the plaza which still exists.  The memorial is very well done.

Almost done well enough to accept the closing of 5th Street.  Almost.

But while I didn’t like the building the bombing was not at all how I imagined it going away.

For more info on the memorial check out the official site and a few more of my pics on Flickr.

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The Urban Cemetery

The urban cemetery is quite different than the rural one.  Urban cemeteries are often squeezed by surrounding development whereas the rural cemetery is lost in the corn fields.

My maternal grandparents are interred in just such a cemetery.  The county roads to reach the cemetery are gravel.  The only structure seen from the cemetery is a long abandoned farm house.

In the St. Louis area many of our oldest cemeteries started out rural and saw development come toward them. A good many were started as a way of moving bodies from cemeteries closer in locations.

Looking at many of the cemeteries on a map it is clear many of them were located on the outer edge of the city limits or beyond the city.

This land, far away from the core, would have been cheaper than vacant land closer in.  Having already moved early 19th Century cemeteries, new ones from the late 19th Century probably wanted to be far enough away to avoid being moved. The wealthy had country estates to the west of the city.  Ladue was incorporated in 1936.   With land to the West taken by estates it follows that new cemeteries would be located along major farm routes out of the city, to the NW & SW.

Yesterday I visited one such cemetery, Gatewood Gardens Cemetery on Gravios near Hampton (map).  Gatewood is in a cemetery row with St. Matthew & the Old St. Marcus cemeteries to the East, Saints Peter & Paul across Gravois and the New St. Marcus Cemetery to the West, just across the River Des Peres.

Gatewood, located on both sides of Gravois, has an interesting history:

Gatewood Gardens Cemetery began with a small congregation of Germans in 1832. They organized the German Evangelical Church and held services in a small schoolroom on Fourth Street, just south of Washington Avenue in 1834. Two years later a gentleman named George Wendelin Wall arrived in St. Louis and became the pastor of the now named German Independent Protestant Evangelical Church of The Holy Ghost. In four years Pastor Wall was able to raise enough money to purchase the First German Church on August 9, 1840. He remained the pastor for three years before a new pastor took over the congregation.

Frederick Picker began his ministry in October of 1843, and by the time he retired in January of 1855 he had accomplished many things. He averaged 420 baptisms and 225 weddings a year, and was instrumental in purchasing ground for a cemetery located on a 20-acre lot. The cemetery was located in the Kansas-Wyoming-Louisiana-Arsenal area in South St. Louis. It opened in 1845 and was called the Holy Ghost Evangelical and Reformed Cemetery. Many victims of the great cholera epidemic of 1849 were interred there and the last recorded burial in this cemetery was in 1901. The cemetery acquired the nickname, “Picker’s Cemetery,” and was commonly called such by the people of the congregation as well as the surrounding areas.

In 1862 the German Protestant Church bought a new cemetery, and called it the Independent Evangelical Protestant Cemetery. It is located at Gravios and Hampton and like the old German cemetery took the name of pastor Picker. IT became known as New Picker’s Cemetery. This cemetery truly became Picker’s new cemetery, when all the burials at the original cemetery were moved to this location by 1916.

An additional plot of land was purchased across the street (Gravios) and New Picker’s Cemetery became Old Picker’s, while the new plot became New Picker’s. The Cemetery remained in the hands of the congregation for many years before eventually being purchased by another church in 1978. This began the downward steps of the cemetery. In 1981 the cemetery would begins its trip through different individual ownership, and the cemetery’s next 15 years would be in continual decline. At this time the cemetery’s name was also changed to Memorial Gardens, and later it would be changed to its current name. When the City of St. Louis seized Gatewood Gardens Cemetery in 1996, the owners owed back taxes totaling more than $234,000. In the past six years there have been many improvements on the land and the records of the cemetery.  (source)

Yes, the City of St. Louis took control of the cemetery in 1996.

The only new interrments allowed are in family plots.  For the most part the city appears to be a good steward.  But you have to wonder if this is a good use of precious tax dollars.  Could a non-profit be formed to buy & maintain the cemetery?  Clearly, a cemetery with no plots to sell has no profit potential.

Neighbors in Fountain Park Neighborhood Continue Organizing

Few neighborhoods symbolize St. Louis as well as Fountain Park (map). The once densely filled neighborhood retains much of the feel it would have in the 19th Century.

The namesake park is beautifully scaled.  The gently curving street pleasantly deviates from the street grid.

But for the last half century the neighborhood has had some of the same issues faced by others: fewer residents, fewer businesses, a concentration of lower income residents and nuisance crimes.  Stately homes with owners unable to afford increasing maintenance costs.

Despite its issues, the neighborhood remains appealing.  Efforts continue to reverse its fortunes.

http://www.urbanreviewstl.com/?p=4501

Neighbors plan to meet with city officials this Saturday (4/18/09) at Centenial Church (4950 Fountain), 10am.  This is a neighborhood worth fighing for.

Downtown Gets Yet Another Plaza

Today (4/3/09) at 4pm Mayor Slay will officially open The Old Post Office Plaza. This is more open space in a downtown with too much open space but not enough quality urban public space.  And though it may look like it, this plaza is not public.

This 3/4-acre plaza is owned, not by the city, but Downtown Now/The Partnership for Downtown St. Louis.  The plaza is to the North of the Old Post Office, across Locust between 8th & 9th (map).

Don’t confuse this new private plaza with the private plaza one block East, that unused plaza will soon become another parking garage.

The plaza is considered a key piece of the emerging Old Post Office Square, which includes the renovated Old Post Office building across the street at 815 Olive St. and Roberts Brothers Properties’ planned $70 million, 24-story residential tower adjacent to the Roberts-owned Mayfair Hotel at Locust and Eighth streets. (source, August 2007)

The plaza’s designers, BSN Architects of Toronto, describe the project:

The winner of an invited architectural competition, this new public Plaza celebrates the adjacent historic Old Post Office of St. Louis and actively engages the surrounding urban form.  A dramatic three dimensional armature is proposed to provide substantive user amenity and involve the public in the unfolding urban drama of the revitalized downtown. Its morphology incorporates surrounding built features into a dynamic stage for public life inspired by an operatic interpretation of the myth of Daedalus and Icarus.

Yes, some architects actually talk like that.

A year ago the project hit a snag which delayed completion:

In August 2008 construction was well underway:

A couple of days ago it now looked like:

As you can see it is mostly a hard surface plaza.  This, I believe, is appropriate for an urban context.  Except for the fact we already have the Arch grounds, Kiener Plaza, Gateway Mall, Baer Plaza, etc…  We need less open space to help create more urban space.  This block, like all the others, used to be filled with buildings.

When it came time to renovate the Old Post Office a 2nd time, the need for immediately adjacent parking was cited by potential tenants.  So although this site existed to the North of the Old Post Office, we instead raze the marble-clad Century Building which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  Some said a garage could not be built on this site.  I say BS.

Hardscape plazas can be interesting.  No doubt Dundas Square (Wikipedia, map) in Toronto was an inspiration:

Dundas Square is a wonderful urban space – very dynamic.  When I visited Toronto in July 2006 my hotel was just a couple of blocks away.  I saw the space on normal days as well as packed for a large annual event.

I haven’t been in the Old Post Office Plaza yet because it has been fenced off as construction was being completed.  I’m looking forward to experiencing the space this afternoon.  I did roll by along the sidewalk on the South edge:

It is shiny & new.  It is more interesting than the old collection of surface parking lots.  But from the outside looking in I could see (not see?) one glaring omission: bike parking.  Holding large events in a vibrant urban area naturally draws crowds on bikes.  Well designed spaces make sure cyclists have a place to secure their bikes.  Such was the case at Dundas Square:

Yet this new $8 million + facility doesn’t have a single bike rack that I could see.  I guess everyone is expected to drive to the plaza to help justify the garage that replaced the historic Century Building?

The ribbon cutting is 4pm today with activities this weekend.

Bill Before Missouri Legislature Could Stall Revitalization Efforts in St. Louis

Tax credits can be an effective tool to accomplish certain goals. For example, the federal mortgage deduction is meant to encourage home ownership.  But in truth the fed is subsidizing home ownership.  Tax credits are a trade off — a credit in exchange for something of value.

But an amendment tacked on to Missouri’s jobs bill (SB45) could severely limit the state’s Historic Preservation Tax Credit that has helped St. Louis, Kansas City and towns throughout Missouri since taking effect on January 1, 1998.  The landscape in Jefferson City is changing daily so I know I don’t have the latest.  But know that the very tax credits which have been a key player in renovation projects downtown and throughout the city, may get limited.  We need this tax credit to continue the redevelopment of historic buildings in St. Louis and in communities across the entire state.

Further reading:

• Missouri Coalition for Historic Preservation and Economic Development
• Ecology of Absence post
• St Louis Post-Dispatch Editorial
  
• Culprits are Sen. Brad Lager (R-12) & Sen. Jason Crowell (R-27)

Tax incentives that produce results (jobs, reinvestment in established areas, etc) should be expanded – cut capped.