Wash U Med Contemplates Demolition of Shriners Hospital and Central Institute Buildings

1929 Photo of CID from the Bernard Becker Medical Library site

Shriners Hospital Building

Alderman Joe Roddy has introduced Board Bill #443 which if approved would adopt a new "Community Unit Plan" for the Washington University Medical Center. A Community Unit Plan is a zoning overlay plan that allows development flexibility that otherwise would not be possible under the current single use zoning districts. The bill was first read on January 11th, and will be heard at a meeting of the Housing, Urban Development and Zoning Committee on Wednesday January 30th at 10:00 am. The agenda has nine board bills to be heard in the one hour meeting.

The new plan outlines development of the medical center over the next 10 year from new construction, demolition, to an overall parking plan. Among a long list of items is the proposed possible demolition of both the Central Institute for the Deaf building at the southeast corner of Euclid and Clayton Avenues, and the Shriners Hospital building at the northeast corner of the same intersection.

screen shot of the bill's attachment map
buildings marked for demolition are shown on in red

The plan shows demolition of over a dozen buildings. Arguably the most architecturally significant of these are the Shriners and CID buildings. The Shriner's Hospital for Crippled Children was built in 1922, and the Central Institute for the Deaf in 1929. Both were designed by architect William B. Ittner and executed in variations of the Mediterranean revival style that was popular at that time for institutional buildings. While both buildings may be in need of some renovation, both are clearly in great condition and have been well maintained over the years. Demolition of such buildings of this merit would be inexcusable.

The plan describes dozens of changes contemplated across the medical campus. For Shriners it states "Planning is under way to either demolish or renovate the old Shriner's Hospital at the corner of Euclid and Clayton Avenues" and for CID "Plans to renovate the 818 S. Euclid building are being reviewed at this time to determine the most efficient use for the building, or its demolition".

More photos of the Shriners building can be seen here on my Flickr page, and Doug Duckworth also has photos of both buildings here. I will do a another post in the future covering some of the other buildings included in the plan for demolition.

Being a Slumlord is Hard Work

It's hard work to be a slumlord, so why bother. Tenants are messy and often want you to keep the buildings they live in from falling apart. Most tenants would complain if you bought the building they lived in and the windows and doors mysteriously disappeared. They would also probably get a little aggravated if they came home from work one day to find that the back of the building where they live was gone!
When you buy a building it's much easier to just evict everyone... but then what? It costs a lot of money to have the building demolished yourself. It would be much easier to get the City to condemn your building and order up an "emergency" demolition. For this to happen your building has to be in fairly bad shape, so you may want to enlist some "help" to get the building in the right condition to have the City step in and "take care of it" for you... such as having someone strip off the rear of the building brick by brick!
While its difficult to prove he connection here, the fact stands that there have been many buildings in certain north St. Louis neighborhoods that have fallen victim to what is known as brick rustling, in other words stealing brick, entire walls of brick (or in some cases the entire exterior) from standing buildings. For an alarming look at brick rustling take a look at this entry from Built St. Louis. Like a high percentage of buildings that are being ravaged by brick rustling, these buildings at St. Louis and Glasgow Avenues are owned by a certain developer from St. Charles County, best known for the sprawling, want-to-be a place with an ounce of character, known as Hellhaven. The Serial Building Killer owns literally hundreds of buildings and vacant lots in North St. Louis that he is compiling for some kind of massive new development... maybe "North Hellhaven"?... or maybe a giant industrial park like the one that his company is building east of Lambert Field? For the whole story about this one-man systematic quest to destroy North St. Louis, check out the The World of Blairmont section at Ecology of Absence.
This grouping of buildings, all of which have been ordered demolished by the City, lies at the southeast corner of the intersection. The ensemble consists of a three story multi-unit rowhouse building, a corner store with two stories of apartments above, and an alley house along Glasgow that gives urban form to what would ordinarily have been the side view of a back yard. It is a text-book example of the ubiquitous urbanism that St. Louis is losing at an alarming rate.


The sad irony in the loss of this group of buildings is that this very urban typology we are losing is now being emulated in some new outlying developments. Despite its marketing which might lead you otherwise, Hellhaven is a wormy mess of cul-de-sacs with many instances of homes backing, yes backing to the main roads of the development. However not far from Hellhaven a development called New Town at St. Charles is doing things a bit differently. Its planning and building forms emulate the way communities were built prior a century ago, before the automobile was made the sole center of the universe around which all planning rotates. The Aerial photo below is of Glasgow and St. Louis Avenues. Below is photo of a corner at New Town showing almost the same building arrangement with a pair of townhomes facing the main street and an alley house that is a separate residential unit fronting the side street. Parking access for all units is off the alley.


As for the current condition of the buildings, one could say that they are too badly damaged to save, right? I would say however that they are still able to be rehabilitated, based on examples of buildings in similar or worse condition. The corner building has sustained almost no damage, although the alley house admittedly is pretty bad. The photo below is of the rear of a pair of townhomes on Chouteau near Mississippi taken several years ago. The pair has since been fully re-built and restored.

The beautiful turreted corner building below is at the northeast corner of the intersection is known by some area residents as the "flatiron". It's more like a Flatiron in reverse, since it is wide at the front facing St. Louis Avenue, and tapers to almost nothing at the rear. Unlike the buildings to the south, this one has so far not been a victim of brick rustling. While there are signs of neglect, the only major damage to this building seems to be a small portion of the west wall around a window that is falling apart. This would only require some minor masonry re-building, yet the building and the group accross the street are being demolished this week!

A little good news for the holiday

Recently one of my readers commented about how negative most blog posts regarding the built environment are here in the Lou, and that sometimes its nice to see something positive. I have been told by more than one reader that Vanishing STL is the most depressing blog. I actually take that as a compliment, because seeing St. Louis' architectural heritage squandered and destroyed as often as it occurs around here angers me and sometimes depresses the hell out of me... so I make it a point to post about these acts of insanity to inform others of what is occurring, or as is the case with some posts, what occurred many years ago.

I agree though that sometimes its good to point out the positive things that are occurring in St. Louis even if they are small things, so I have decided that I will occasionally try to do so. So here goes...


This beautiful bridal dress shop opened just last week in the former Ludwig Aeolian Building at 1004 Olive. One of the buildings that been lingering for a while, the Ludwig Lofts has now almost been completed by LoftWorks. When I first entered the building about seven years ago, the roof was collapsing around one of the original skylights. To deal with the breach, the buildings former owner rigged up quite a contraption of a drainage system involving a blue tarp held up by some old desks and other odds and ends laying around and funneling into a piece of 4" PVC that was piped out a back window. This contraption actually did a pretty decent job of keeping the building dry.


This scene of several Christmas trees and lights in the windows of the Vangard Lofts caught my eye on the way back to the Globe Building garage a few days ago and made me think of how far we have come in the last several years. With that I leave you until next year... Happy Holidays!

This Month in Grand Center

Demolition of the Central Apartments at 3727 Olive began late November / early December. For the first (and last) time in several years, the storefronts at the first floor of the building were revealed from behind the plywood barricade that had been erected to block the sidewalk so that pedestrians don't get hit by falling brick. Apparently when the entire building comes crashing down on the sidewalk during demolition, no protection is needed.

The un-adorned entrance to the Central Apartments

By mid-December most of the front wing of the T-shaped building is gone except for building entrance and west storefront, and only the west half of the main portion of the building remains.
From this angle it is easy to see that the concrete frame, floors and roof slab of the building was in fine structural condition. Only the exterior brick skin of the building, which was peeling away in several places was in need of serious repair, meaning that the building as a whole was definitely rehab-able.
Demolition revealed that the upper floor contained a large attic space above the plaster ceiling that increased in height toward the front of the building due to the roof slope, which could have provided very loft like spaces for units on this floor.
Like most apartments built in the early 20th century, these included built-in cabinets that were still intact as the building came down.
On the east end of Grand Center, where SLU recently cleared several buildings including the Locust Livery Stable, the two new block-wide slabs of asphalt stretching from Locust north to Samuel Shepherd are now marked by large new lighted signs. They appear to be poorly designed knock offs of the attractive neon signs by Kiku Obata that have marked several surface parking lots in Grand Center for about a decade. The originals add a nice bit of kitsch to the still emerging arts district, but these additions by SLU are simply ugly.

Gaslight Square - Part Two

2001 was the beginning of the end for Gaslight Square when a three story building at 4312 Olive was demolished and replaced with a semi-suburban looking office building and fenced parking lot for the Daughters of Charity.

In 2003 Citirama at Gaslight Square was announced, which would bring nine homebuilders to build an entire block of showcase homes open for public tour based on the popular Homarama events that had been held in St. Louis and St. Charles Counties. The project brought the demise of the remaining Gaslight Square buildings which were concentrated mostly on the south side of Olive.





Like the buildings demolished alomst a decade earlier across the street, most had been abandoned by the mid 1970's. Many were owned for some time by a subsidiary of McCormack Baron, whose successful Westminster Place development took form just one block south. By 2003 they were a textbook case of demolition by neglect with widespread collapse of roofs and floors.



For Citirama, these crumbling buildings would have go, and so would a few that were occupied and were in excellent structural condition. According to an interview with a vice president from the Home Builder's Association, "The concept won't allow for infill, so the site needed to provide the developers control from the ground up. It's a very expensive proposition. It cost one and half million dollars just to clear the area."

One of the occupied buildings that was needlessly taken and demolished

The one exception was the building that formerly housed Selkirk's on the southeast corner of Olive and Whittier. The building was renovated for use as a restaurant or retail with loft apartments on the second floor. Citirama was an extremely successful project, and I'm thrilled that several home builders new to the City were attracted to build. The density is also pretty decent, when compared to many other "new home" developments in the City, with over 50 units per block. I just wish that Citirama would have allowed for creative re-use of more of the remaining buildings.

The renovated Selkirk's building, re-branded as "Motorworks" by Saaman

So what could the old Gaslight Square have become? With the popularity today of the Loop and Soulard, the emergence of the Grove, a plethora of chain bar/restaurants soon to be built at Ballpark Village, and nearby Grand Center slowly trying to build a nucleus, would St. Louis need another night life district in the form of a revitalized Gaslight Square? Certainly not.

What then to do with the old buildings? What is shaping up to become a perfect example of the potential lost at with the demolition of the Gaslight Square is actually under construction, (ok, make that re-construction) right now, the re-generation of the old 14th Street Mall on Old North St. Louis into Crown Square. The new Crown Square will be a mix of commercial spaces with traditional and loft style apartments above as well as live-work units opening directly onto the street.

Rendering from Crown Square's website - or what Gaslight Square
could have looked like (without the arch view)

Crown Square site plan - red is first floor commercial with residential
above (in multi-story buildings), blue is live-work or residential spaces

The buildings of Crown Square are similarly scaled and ironically have been abandoned for about the same period of time as those of Gaslight Square prior to its clearance. Many of the buildings are at the point where most developers would simply give up and start over. At Old North, though, the exact opposite is occurring. At Crown Square, there is no demolition occurring. Every existing building, even a little "fixer-upper" that is literally collapsing at both the front and back, is being rehabbed.

The "fixer-upper" - click here to see this building in 1875
as well as other photos of building in next photo & other amazing re-building efforts

All of this is being done not a block away from the million dollar mini-mansions of Fullerton's Westminster Place (where Gaslight Square was located) but in the middle of a neighborhood surrounded by almost complete devestaton in all directions. The new townhomes where Gaslight Square was located are regularly selling for $400,000 and up, so if the Old North Restoration Group can make the economics of preservation work, there is no question that the same could have been done at Gaslight Square.

Another 3 story building in Old North that was literally 4 walls and a roof

Back on Olive just west of the new Gaslight Square, completed just this year, is another example of what could have occured as part of the larger re-development. An empty two story storefront building at 4374-76 Olive has been converted into two 2,700 s.f. townhomes that are currently on the market by Prudential Real Estate for $354,900 each.

While it is clear that there was little hope of ever bringing nightlife back to the Square, preserving the buildings with a mix of commercial, residential, and live/work spaces would have at least offered the opportunity for some day-time life, as well as a glimpse of what had happened there in the past, but ultimatly, with the almost clean slate "urban renewal" style demolition that occured and the subsequent new construction, Gaslight Square is doomed to live its next several decades as nothing more than a sleepy row of town houses with little memory of its former life.

Gaslight Square - Part One

The signs asking for volunteers & sponsors and the pleas for help spray painted on the board-ups could not save Gaslight Square from ultimate destruction. Even the fresh coat of paint applied to the buildings by Patrick Schneider of the Gaslight Square Preservation Society could not bring back the fabled block of Olive centering on Boyle Avenue.
The destruction of Gaslight Square can only be described as one of the greatest losses of St. Louis' cultural history and one of the biggest missed opportunities in the last few decades. I will not attempt to summarize the history of the Square here, as there would be too much to say. Instead, you can follow the links below or read Thomas Crone's: Gaslight Square an Oral History
I have divided this post into two parts to focus of the two major waves of demolition that occurred in recent memory. By 1993 when I took this set of photos of the remaining buildings of the north side of the street, many others in each direction had already disappeared over the years. This included the Musical Arts Building that burned in 1969 after surviving two tornados and another fire in 1962. In 1994 this entire row of buildings met their doom, leaving no trace of the former district on the north side of the street. The buildings on the sough side would last yet another decade (following post).
It seems that most of the buildings in Gaslight Square were simply abandoned after the restaurants and music spots shut their doors in the early 1970's (one lone survivor, the Prestige Lounge stayed open almost to 1990). This row of buildings was owned by the City's biggest slum lord and most notorious applicant of demolition permits, the LRA. As you can see from the photos, the exterior of these buildings appeared to be in good condition, although 20 years of abandonment had surely taken their toll on the roof and interiors. Still though, the buildings were not at all beyond saving for rehabilitation (I will focus more on that concept in the next post), but were demolished anyway.
One of the most photographed spots on the Square, the free-standing columns at the former Smokey Joe's Greecian Terrace in 1993, and 30 years earlier, in 1963 (photo from the Western Historical Manuscript Collection at UMSL). You can see the rest of my 1993 photos of Gaslight on Flickr.

For more information about Gaslight Square see: The Legend of Gaslight Square and two documentary previews on YouTube
To see over 50 photos of Gaslight Square in it's heyday, check out the Western Historical Manuscript Collection Photo Database and simply type: Gaslight Square.
Also, read a fascinating article from Time Magazine, Friday, May 18, 1962: No Squares on the Square and one from the RFT published exactly 37 years and one day later: Lights Out