‘Sunday Morning’ Showcased Century/Old Post Office Issue
This mornings CBS News ‘Sunday Morning’ showcased preservation battles in three cities, New York, a Chicago suburb and here in St. Louis.
I like that CBS showed the National Trust for Historic Preservation advertisement about trying to save a school from being torn down for a parking garage. The same National Trust has done a 180 and now finds it acceptable to sacrifice one historic building for another. They need to change their name to the National Trust for Every Other Historic Preservation.
Among the many points that couldn’t be made in such a segment is parking could have been built on the vacant lot on the North side of the Old Post Office. Yes, three sides of the Old Post Office had spectacular original buildings while the fourth side had already lost its historic structure and now serves as a surface parking lot.
Another key point is the historic Century could have been modified to to serve as a parking garage. Thats right, if parking was so critical to the success of the Old Post Office why not place it in an existing building? The simple answer is the developers would have made less money from development fees and other development incentives!
Part of the picture is that for decades we’ve been alterting our downtown, city and region in the name of progress — read: the car. Streets have been widened. Buildings razed for parking. Lots of buildings gone for lots of parking. Leaders in other cities have learned from their similar mistakes and begun the process of mending. But not in St. Louis. Our “leaders” are decidedly old-school.
Parking is still king in downtown St. Louis. The city still bends over to take whatever the suburban monied set wants to do downtown. Oh they’ll brag about all the new downtown loft residents, of which there are many, but when it comes to setting a vision for an urban and walkable downtown the residents take a back seat. We need change at city hall — top to bottom. Elected, appointed and staff. We need to start over.
– Steve
Steve,
You said they couldn’t address parking on the lot north of the OPO in the segment, but I think it was the logical response to their uninformed theme: demo of the Century saved the OPO and several other buildings. All that was saved was a surface lot. Parking could have gone there, but it was decided by the developers and everyone else involved that the vacant lot was more important than the Century.
The show’s script (thanks to Ecology of Absence link) is what I’d expect in our culture lacking attention span, with the media focusing on quick-quote one-liners, catchy lead-ins and sensational images.
The only thing I learned was that a groundbreaking Standard Oil case was heard at the OPO in its federal courthouse days, leading to the break-up of this classic monopoly.
Kind of ironic history then, given how Steve Stogel and Mark Schnuck didn’t need to compete as Francis Slay’s friends and donors to redevelop the OPO. But then again, no Request for Proposals would be needed if you have backdoor access to Room 200.