Rock Hill Out to Obliterate it's Heritage - Historic Book House Threatened with "Redevelopment"

U-Gas Hill (Rock Hill) is at it again! The city that approved having it's historic namesake, Rock Hill Presbyterian reduced to a pile of rubble and shipped off to Warren County, where it has yet to be re-built, is poised to possibly eradicate another piece of it's history just down the road from the new U-Gas station.

The Book House is an independent book store that for 27 years has been located in an circa 1863 Gothic Revival style house, one of the few surviving in the St. Louis area. The Book House is located at 9719 Manchester, about a third of a mile west of the intersection of McKnight / Rock Hill Road where the U-Gas went up last year. The house faces Manchester but is located on a parcel off of Leonard Avenue and is as accessed off Manchester through another property.

The Book House is designated as a historic landmark by the City of Rock Hill, but next Tuesday, May 7th, the Board of Alderman will consider approval of a proposed redevelopment by Great Northern Land Co. of Michigan that would demolish the historic Book House and several surrounding properties and replace them with a self-storage facility.

Unfortunately the Book House does not own the historic house. Michelle Barron, owner and founder of the business said they had tried to buy the house in recent years, but with tightened lending standards they were unable to get a loan to do so. 

A supporter of the Book house started a petition on change.org to save the Book House, which is where I first learned of the issue this past weekend. Please sign the petition and share it with friends. Please email the Mayor of Rock Hill and members of the Board of Alderman asking them to preserve their heritage and to oppose demolition of this historic house. If you are able to, please attend the Board of Alderman meeting on Tuesday, May 7th at 7 pm at Rock Hill City Hall, which is located at 320 W. Thorton Avenue, east off Rock Hill Road just south of Manchester. Also, please like the Book House page on Facebook to stay updated.

UPDATE: A story on stltoday.com is now saying that Rock Hill's Planning & Zoning Committee may not see the proposal until June. Another story on examiner.com has Rock Hill's assistant city planner saying that the developer has not yet applied for re-zoning. It is never too early to email and call Rock Hill officials though to let them know your opinions.

The Book House Has Been Demolished

The circa 1863 Gothic style cottage that was home to the Book House for almost 30 years has been demolished. Michelle Barron, owner of the Book House bookstore (but not the house) sent me these photos today. I posted last April that The Book House was being forced to move because the historic house and several other small buildings on adjacent parcels were to be demolished for construction of a new self storage facility. The recent photo above shows the cottage stripped of its windows and doors just prior to demolition.


Michelle captured these shots of the last corner of the cottage being flattened.


Yet another example of Rock Hill U-Gas Hill rolling over for any new development and letting the history of their community be destroyed.


A shot looking in a window of the cottage prior to demolition. 



A photo of the Book House when it still housed the book store. There is a silver lining to this story: the Book House bookstore has found a new home in historic downtown Maplewood! The new store location is 7352 Manchester, just east of Sutton. They have spent the last few months renovating the space and are targeting February 10th to re-open the store. This is good news indeed as a dwindling number of independent bookstores fight to sustain themselves.

Rally for the Book House this Tuesday at 6:00pm

The Book House is holding a rally this Tuesday, May 7 at 6:00 pm to save the historic Gothic Revival house that has been threatened with demolition this summer. Please come show your support for this rare structure that has stood on Manchester Road since the Civil War and for the independent book store that has been housed here for over 27 years. RSVP  for the rally on Facebook here. Also, a Save the Book House Facebook group has been created.

Lecture & Signing Wednesday for New Book on Maritz & Young

This Wednesday evening at 7 pm the Missouri History Museum at Lindell & DeBaliviere will host a lecture and book signing featuring the authors of a new momograph about the architectural firm of Maritz & Young and the historic homes they designed. If you are familiar with Lindell Boulevard west of Union, Forsyth across from Washington U. or Brentmoor Park and Carrswold Drive off Wydown, you will recognize the beautiful works of architects Raymond E. Maritz and W. Ridgely Young that were constructed between 1915 and the beginning of WWII. The homes were built for St. Louis' most prominent citizens of the day in styles ranging from Tudor and Norman Revival as well as Georgian and Mediterranean Revival.

The new book by Kevin Amsler and John L. Schott, AIA (who was a project architect with Ramond E. Maritz & Sons for 30 years!) is packed with over 200 mostly period photographs, floor plans, elevations and other architectural drawings as well as detailed descriptions of the residences and original owners. There is also a list of the firms works.


Looking at the caliber of these grand homes, you would never think that someone would view them as tear-downs, but that is exactly what happened at 37 Brentmoor Park. This center hall Georgian style home was constructed in 1925 for Kenneth Davis, president of a local real estate company. The home five bedroom home had an iron balcony stretching across the entire garden elevation at the second floor with french doors opening into each room. On the first floor a 3-car garage was attached to the house by an arc shaped wing containing a breakfast room, large pantry and a gallery porch facing the street. Photo above from the Brentmoor Park National Register nomination.


The St. Louis County property records list a "land only" sale for $1,250,000 in 2003, and in 2006 or 2007 (county lists 2 different dates), this sprawling somewhat modernized version of a Mediterranean style house was built where the Davis house had been demolished. 


Had the owner of the new home above been patient, they could have purchased an authentic Mediterranean style house designed by Maritz & Young on a larger lot with a pool at 16 Brentmoor, which was on the market in 2007. While they probably didn't need it, the buyers could have received Missouri Historic Tax Credits for a renovation of the home. Of 41 homes, Brentmoor Park features 9 remaining homes by Maritz & Young.


25 Brentmoor, built in 1925 for Jerome Schotten


24 Brentmoor, built in 1926 for Theodore Moreno


39 Brentmoor, built in 1923 for Louis Mahler


31 Brentmoor built for Walter Hecker in 1927

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!

No need to replace what isn’t broken: Kiener Plaza and Morton D. May Amphitheater

A commentary by Kara Clark Holland and Paul Hohmann

Recently HOK unveiled a proposed design to replace Kiener Plaza and the Morton D. May Amphitheater.  The question is though: is this really necessary?  Do we really need to completely re-design our public spaces every few decades?  Kiener Plaza which was originally bounded by 6^th, Broadway, Market and Chestnut was dedicated in 1966, the same year as the Gateway Arch, so admittedly this block is now 43 years old, but the Morton D. May Amphitheater was dedicated in 1987, a mere 22 years ago.

Morton D. May Amphitheater dedication plaque from 1987

While some might claim that the Kiener Plaza and Morton D. May Amphitheater look dated, we say lets be careful about using such subjective terms and even more cautious about replacing “dated” with the architectural pastiche of the day.  While both designs are elegant in their own way, the current design of the amphitheater and the adjoining plaza has a greater chance of enduring over time.  The architecture of the May Amphitheater was inspired by the Old Court House, which is part of the National Landmark Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. The proposed design however already looks dated to us.  It’s design is reminiscent of images that have been published in architectural periodicals over the last few years.  The desires for something new and flashy are symptomatic of the Bilbao Effect.  Just like the fashion images from the pages of Vouge, these styles will only be trendy for a few seasons, if that.  The current designs are more formal, tying into the Old Courthouse and Arch better, and are more likely to endure over time.

The formal relationship of Kiener Plaza, the Old Court House and 

the Gateway Arch are well captured by this image by Mark Abeln

From a functional standpoint, the May Amphitheater still serves many purposes well on a daily basis.  Lunch crowds from nearby Downtown office buildings gather daily to enjoy a bite to eat, catch a few rays of sunshine, read a book or simply to people watch.  At Kiener Plaza, the benches that surround The Runner are rarely empty.  This is an even better place to people watch due to the number of people who criss-cross the plaza on the way to another destination.  For sports rallies and other special occasions, the current May Amphitheater functions very well.  The proposed design does not appear to have much slope up from the stage area and would likely not have great sight lines.

Macy’s Festival of Lights – 2008.  Photo from Partnership for Downtown St. Louis website.

The current design of the two blocks offers both intimacy and a large open space for events.  The proposed design has a grand feel with an open expanse, but lacks intimacy. This is good for planned events, but it would require those large crowds to feel inviting.  In the present Kiener Plaza and May Amphitheater, a person can feel comfortable even if they are the only one there.  The current design offers multiple options for shelter, and better connectivity to all sides and corners of the surrounding blocks. The new design doesn't offer much shelter (and very few trees) and only seems to offer good connections along a NW-SE axis.

The present and proposed designs of the two blocks.

Then of course there is the cost.  The budget for Old Post Office Plaza was $8.8 million for the 30,000 square foot area, or about $160.00 per square foot.  Construction cost for nearby City Garden was $30 million for the 2.9 acres on two City blocks, or about $174.00 per square foot.  City Garden is about the same size as the Kiener Plaza – May Amphitheater blocks..  Should we spend $30 million to completely replace what we have?  No.  Spend this on some of the blocks farther west that could really use some attention.

Do the existing spaces need some re-furbishing and enhancements?  Yes.  At the May Amphitheater, the asphalt perimeter paths, likely a last minute value engineering decision, should be replaced with a more appropriate paving, new access paths should be installed where landscaping gets regularly trampled, and new shade tolerant ground cover should be planted under the existing tree canopy.  At the floor of the amphitheater and terraces to the south, adding movable umbrella tables would provide an additional shaded seating.  The information center building should be re-designed to be more open with largely glass exterior walls.  A companion building could be built to the south to house the nearby hot dog and concessions stand.

Asphalt paths and lawn areas around the amphitheater need to be addressed. The trees though, which provide pleasant shade and an intimate setting should remain.  

At Kiener Plaza, concrete paving should be patched or replaced with matching where necessary, more benches should be added around the fountain, cobblestone edging and the cobblestone ring around the fountain need refurbishment.  The lawn areas east of the fountain do seem to lack definition and could use something to add interest and encourage more use of the spaces.  Something as simple as adding large topiaries could break up the lawns into more intimate spaces that are more likely to be used.

Cobblestones around The Runner should be re-worked.

People enjoying the intimate lawn spaces in front of the Naturhistorisches Museum in Vienna

One of the worst things about these two blocks is the view of the Kiener garages to the north with all the garage entrances along the street.  Neither design is at fault for this drawback. At the May Amphitheater, at least the current design shields the majority of the view of with a row of trees.  At Kiener Plaza, where more of the east garage is visible, simply stretching a metal mesh with an integral LED array could turn the garage facade into a giant video screen which could be programmed with regularly scheduled movie screenings and video art displays.

A few examples of LED mesh video arrays used on building facades 

By spending a few million dollars on needed renovations and selective enhancements, Kiener Plaza and the Morton D. May Amphitheater could live up to their premier location.  Throwing away everything in these two blocks for wholesale replacement would be extremely wasteful. The only advantages we can see with the proposed new design is that it's new and shiny, bold and flashy. These qualities wear off quickly.

Does the NGA Really Need 99 Acres?

I'll start this post by saying that I support keeping the NGA within the City of St. Louis. Not only does the City need the 1% tax revenue from the 3,100 jobs, but there are the secondary and non-monetary benefits of keeping 3,100 people employed in the center or the City. 

As you may have already seen, the NGA recently released the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DIES) which is an evaluation of the social and environmental impacts and benefits of constructing the new NGA campus at each of the four locations that are in the running for the development. 

Besides supporting a location within the City of St. Louis, my comments revolve around preservation of historic and cultural features that are located within the current City site boundary. The City of St. Louis established the site boundary and with a wave of the planners hand, assumes automatic destruction of everything within the roughly rectangular area set bound by Jefferson Avenue, Cass Avenue, 22nd Street and the alley south of St. Louis Avenue. 

This practice of clear-cut demolition of everything in a 24 block 99 acre areas of the City reeks of 1950's and 60's "urban removal" planning that permanently scarred cities across the US including many areas of St. Louis. The big difference here is that most of the land under consideration is already vacant, but that should not condemn everything that is left to destruction if the opportunity exists for strategic preservation.

Does the NGA need all 99 acres being proposed? According to the DIES, NO.

The DIES states that the NGA vetted 186 potential sites prior to narrowing down to the current four in contention. One of the filters listed was that the site had to be at least 50 acres, not 100 acres. This is a big difference in site size. While the other sites under consideration are 101 acres, 167 acres and 182 acres, the fact remains that 99 acres is not a requirement according to the DIES.


The graphic above from the DIES shows a proposed security fence that cuts into the site at the northwest and southeast corners, which correspond to the 2500 block of Montgomery, which is located within the St. Louis Place National Register Historic District and to the Rhema Baptist Church, which was at one time carved out of the NGA site boundary.



The modified site plan at the top of this post and the modified aerial rendering above represent what is possible with targeted preservation of historic and cultural resources. It should be noted that the site layout and buildings shown in the base images are a theoretical plan produced by the St. Louis Development Corporation and packaged in a site briefing book meant to sell the NGA on this site.

 
Starting near the intersection of Cass & Jefferson is the former Buster Brown Blue Ribbon Shoe Factory, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places This historic 4-story brick structure is occupied and in-use by St. Louis Sales & Manufacturing, a cabinet and countertop outlet.


While it doesn't front on the intersection, the rear of former Buster Brown factory still presents a strong urban presence at Cass & Jefferson.


A block north of the shoe factory is a stately two story structure that was an addition to the Homeopathic Medical College of Missouri. Under current requirements for National Register listing, because the original college building located on the corner was long ago demolished, the addition lacks "integrity" and is technically ineligible for listing on the National Register. As a result, the building is ineligible for protection under Section 106 which reviews impacts of federally funded projects on historic resources. 


As Michael Allen points out in his article "Is the National Register of Historic Places Helping or Hindering Legacy City Preservation?", maybe it is time for a change to the hard and fast rules that often result in the demolition of buildings worthy of preserving. I strongly agree.


A few blocks north off Parnell the 2500 block of Montgomery, which is within the proposed NGA and part of the St. Louis Place National Register Historic District (photo from the districts nomination). With 15 homes tightly spaced in a row, this is by far is the most intact block within the proposed NGA site. As mentioned above, this block lies outside the potential security NGA fence line.


The Rhema Baptist Church at the corner of 23rd & Cass, while not historic or architecturally significant, could certainly be considered a cultural asset worthy of consideration.


As you have probably have heard, the St. Louis Board of Alderman have approved the use of eminent domain to acquire property to assemble the site for the NGA. As of last week 66 property owners have already agreed to buy-outs including an offer to a longtime homeowner Charlesetta Taylor to move there three story circa 1894 house on North Market pictured above to a lot off-site. Taylor also happened to be a longtime opponent of the City effort to lure the NGA to North St. Louis.

The agreement to move this beautiful residence is very welcome news, but many other home owners live in beautiful structures that could be demolished. Another homeowner, Joyce Cooks, who has lived in a three story 15 room home for 40 years is rightly concerned with how she would replace such a house. The right thing to do is to offer every owner of these irreplaceable solid brick homes the same opportunity to move their homes to existing vacant lots outside of the NGA site area. This could actually strengthen the area around St. Louis Place Park by moving stable owners and their well cared for homes to the neighborhood around the park. 

Below are several examples of structures that had they been built a few blocks east would be contributing properties in one of two National Register Historic Districts, but because of "loss of integrity" the homes (and owners) are considered disposable. 
                 
2236 Warren Street - built in 1893


2243 Benton Street - built in 1886


2318 Madison Street - a rare flounder house built in 1892


2321-23 and 2325-27 built in 1887 and 1889


2220 Warren Street - built in 1891

While moving these houses may be more expensive in the short run than buy-out and demolition, the long term benefit to the larger neighborhood is worth it and the money saved not buying out the Buster Brown Shoe Factory and Rhema Baptist Church would more than cover these added development costs, and would result in a more intact neighborhood instead of the appearance of a giant spaceship like building landing on wasteland in the middle of the City.