The architecture of Memorial Day in downtown St. Louis

To the men & women who have served, or are serving, in our armed forces -  thank you!

Our Soldiers Memorial building and area was conceived to honor those who served in WWI (1914-1918):

“The initiative to construct a memorial plaza and memorial building to honor the gallant sons and daughters of Missouri, and of our city, who “made the supreme sacrifice in the World War”, began in 1923. Over the course of several years, the City of St. Louis and its citizens raised money for the project. Under the leadership of Mayor Bernard F. Dickmann, and with some funds coming from the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works (Project No. 5098), the construction of the building, development of the memorial plaza, and improvements to the parks began on October 21, 1935 and the memorial and museum officially opened on Memorial Day, May 30, 1938.”  (Source)

So the memorial was completed 20 years after the war was over, five times as long as the war itself.  St. Louis’ mayor offered these words 72 years ago:

“This magnificent edifice, erected as a perpetual reminder of the valor and sacrifice that has enabled America to live, will spur us on as a people to make America greater. We, who live, because others have died, should make of this shrine a place of love and a monument of peace.”

– Mayor Bernard F. Dickmann, May 30, 1938

Chestnut was once the street used for parades with the steps of the memorial providing a good viewing platform but at some point we moved parades to Market Street.

– Steve Patterson

Poll: your thoughts on the future of the SS Admiral

At the end of next month the President Casino on the Admiral will close, leaving the future of the art deco boat unknown.

The SS Admiral has a long history on the St. Louis riverfront:

The hull of the Admiral once belonged to a side-wheel steamboat called the SS Albatross, built in 1907. The Albatross was built in Iowa and used to haul railroad cars at Vicksburg, Mississippi. Streckfus Steamers bought the ship in 1937, and gave it a completely new appearance, new function, and a new name. The designer was Maizie Krebs, a fashion illustrator for Famous-Barr department stores. It was converted from steam to Diesel in the 1970s. In it’s heyday, the Admiral was the largest river cruise ship in the world. It could carry 4,400 passengers. (source)

When I moved to St. Louis in August 1990 I was struck by the beauty of the SS Admiral, then located south of the Eads Bridge.  I’d hate to see it go away but I don’t know if it has a place on the riverfront going forward.

Resources:

• Wikipedia
• Vintage pictures from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
• Thomas Kempland Collection (photos & history)

The poll this week tries to get at your feelings on the subject.

– Steve Patterson

Work on Dick Gregory Place Apartments well underway

The other day I was driving in and around the Ville neighborhood and I spotted work on the Dick Gregory Place Apartments:

This project was one of a handful of projects that got the go ahead with help from federal stimulus funds used by Missouri to provide gap funding:

“$7,875,000 for the Dick Gregory Place Apartments, located in the 1500 to 1900 blocks of Dick Gregory Place, the 4600 block of Aldine, and the 4600 block of Martin Luther King Drive in St. Louis. The project is being developed by two community organizations – Northside Community Housing Inc. and the Greater Ville Neighborhood Preservation Commission. The development will have a mix of 40 newly constructed and renovated units.”  (Source: Stimulus boosts eight projects for $18 million – St. Louis Business Journal)

The project includes both new construction and renovations of existing structures.  I’m thrilled to see two buildings included:

The above building on the NE corner of Dr. Martin Luther King Dr and Marcus Ave. is among my favorites in the city. The buff brick, overall massing, the arched openings onto Marcus & MLK and the 2nd floor bay window are features that make it a winner.  I’ve been following it for a while.

In the far right of the above picture you can see the other building I’m fond of.

Both of these structures have come very close to being razed, especially in the last few years.  The impact of this project will be outstanding for the area — both in utilizing vacant structures and filling in holes where other structures had been razed.

– Steve Patterson

Annie Malone helped shape St. Louis

There was a small fire in the Ville neighborhood on this day in 1941.  The fire was intentionally set, but it was not arson.  Before we get to 1941 we must start more than 20 years before.

In 1919 Annie Malone (at age 50) donated the first $10,000 to build a new building for the St. Louis Colored Orphans’ Home.  In 1922 the cornerstone was set in place.  Annie Malone’s Poro College opened in 1917, selling beauty products to black women, had made her wealthy by any standard at the time.

Poro College was a major cultural and employment center in the Ville neighborhood.

“In 1930, the first full year of the Depression, as Annie Malone entered her sixties and moved her headquarters to Chicago, she was financially devastated by a divorce (her second) and, soon thereafter, by two civil lawsuits. The lawsuits (for liability to an employee and a St. Louis newspaper) partially crippled her ability to conduct business, which, a few years later, in 1943, during the middle of World War II, was further ravaged by a lien to the Internal Revenue Service. After fighting the lawsuits for eight years, she lost Poro to the government and other creditors who took control of her business.”

The above gets ahead a bit.  When the mortgage on the orphans’ home was was paid in 1941 a ceremony was held to celebrate the occasion.   Annie Malone, in her early 70s and having the issues described above, came back to St. Louis from Chicago to light the paid note.

Malone was the president of the board of the home for decades.  Five years after the note was paid the board renamed the home after her.

“This home began as the St. Louis Colored Orphans Home in 1888 at 1427 North Twelfth Street. Its site had been purchased for a home for black soldiers after the Civil War. In 1905 it relocated on Natural Bridge Avenue until moving to the present location. An important annual event in the black community is the Annie Malone May Day Parade, a fund raising activity for the Home.” (source)

Here is a short KETC (PBS) video on Annie Malone:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVOOjnbJ-EU

Additional reading on Annie Minerva Turnbo Pope Malone (1869-1957):

• Annie Malone Home (official website)
• http://www.answers.com/topic/annie-malone
• Wikipedia
• Western Historical Manuscript Collection Photo Database
• African American Registry
• Poro College – photo of Administration Building (Chicago)
• Chicago’s new Negroes: modernity, the great migration, & Black urban life
  By Davarian L. Baldwin, p67 for description of the Poro College campus in Chicago.

I’m very impressed with her accomplishments.  Few women born in 1869 became millionaires or lived so long.  Her business was an important element in the segregated city, providing jobs to the neighborhood.  I can’t help but wonder why she moved Poro College to Chicago in 1930.  She had been in St. Louis for 28 years at this point and with a public divorce and fight for control of the business she might have been embarrassed to stay.  But I wonder if the business had outgrown it’s impressive building in the Ville neighborhood?  By 1930 much of the city and the Ville neighborhoods where blacks could live were fully built out.  Finding land to construct a larger building may have been impossible for her.  The description of her Chicago campus and the photo of the administration building (see list above) lead me to believe that although she had strong ties to St. Louis, she realized greater personal opportunities in Chicago.

– Steve Patterson

Hey U.S. Bank, your parking garage is an eyesore!

The St. Louis Centre skybridge across Washington Ave.,   more than a block from the entrance to the convention center, will be gone in a few weeks.  For so long officials have focused on the bridge as a eyesore:

Kitty Ratcliffe, president of the St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission, has long advocated for the removal of the skybridge, which is located a block away from the entrance to the city’s convention facility, America’s Center.

“The bridge over Washington Avenue makes people think our city is dirty, that it is unsafe and that we don’t really care about our city,” she said. “This is going to change that dramatically. It’s going to make a very different impression.”

Read more: Downtown St. Louis’ biggest eyesore to come down -  St. Louis Business Journal

Yet visible from the convention center is an atrocity that is never mentioned — the 1975 parking garage for U.S. Bank:

Hmm, what does this garage say about our city?  When built  it was then then Mercantile Bank and the convention center was two years from opening and when it did it stopped a block to the north.  In the mid-1990s  the Cervantes Center was renamed and expanded a block to the south and given a prominent entrance aligned with 8th Street.

When visitors leave the convention center they see two buildings across the street — the ugly U.S. Bank garage and the Renaissance Grand hotel.

The hotel is obviously fine but the garage is so out of place.  It needs to go away and be replaced with a structure of similar massing but with say doors and windows.

– Steve Patterson