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Photo by SoulNoir.
This exhibit is already open; you can go see it today over your lunch hour. I would urge people to make the pilgrimage if they can find the time. I'd argue it's just as important as the Saarinen exhibit for those deeply concerned with St. Louis history and architecture.
Hosted by Architecture St. Louis and the Landmarks Association of St. Louis, "Point of View: Lewis Place Historic Preservation Inc.," is a photography exhibit showcasing Lewis Place, a three-block National Register Historic District on the city's northside. Its lovely homes are reminiscent of those in the Central West End; built between 1890 and 1928, they were designed by the firm of Barnett and Haynes. But this area is also historically significant for its status as St. Louis' first private African-American street. One of this city's deepest wounds (and one that we have yet to fully bring to consciousness or heal) is our history with redlining, blockbusting and generally using real estate as a tool for de facto segregation. Though it is now technically illegal to engage in these practices, I'd be naive to say that variations on them don't still occur; the fact that St. Louis voted down the Metro tax, a choice that is going to impact the entire region in an array of negative ways (The New York Times laid it all out for us today), is a clue that we are still struggling to banish outmoded, xenophobic ways of looking at the world.
But Lewis Place is a beautiful reminder that these things can be overcome. And that St. Louis can not only better itself in this realm, but lead the whole country to a better place, too.
From the Lewis Place neighborhood site:
"Lewis Place, like many other neighborhoods in St. Louis during the periods between 1910 to 1945, barred African-Americans from certain streets with the use of restrictive covenants. The covenants were agreements between White homeowners to exclude the sale of their homes to Black perspective buyers.
In the 1940s, a group of determined African-Americans led by Attorney Robert Witherspoon, husband of the famed social activist Dr. Fredda Witherspoon, decided to fight the Lewis Place restrictive covenant. They persuaded fair-skinned Blacks, who were able to pass for White, to purchase several homes in Lewis Place. Once the purchases were completed, they then transferred the deeds to the actual of the properties, who voted down the restrictive covenant governing the sales of the housing in Lewis Place. This movement led to the legal thrust that catapulted the St. Louis landmark case of Shelly vs. Kraemer into the Supreme Court. This landmark case struck down restrictive covenants across the entire United States of America, thus opening the doors to a new set of fair housing regulations on the federal, state, and local levels. Following the Shelly Vs. Kraemer case, African-Americans slowly began to gain the right to purchase homes in any neighborhood of their choice."
The exhibit is sponsored by UM-St. Louis' Public Policy Research Center, whose Photography Project is based on the work of pioneering documentary photographer Wendy Ewald. What makes Ewald unique is her generous, collaborative approach: she goes into communities and teaches people how to take photographs of the place where they live. This not only respects their dignity and point of view, but engages them more deeply in their own communities. PRC has been doing several similar projects here in the metro area, focusing on residents of specific city neighborhoods, grassroots activists and refugees who have survived torture or war trauma.
As we saw during this election cycle, this country is in the midst of a vast cultural shift in terms of race, class and American identity. This exhibit, at least it seems to me, is not just a cool look at a really beautiful and interesting St. Louis neighborhood, but a great way to contemplate our past, both positive and negative, in order to map our way to a future where the city is stronger because we realize that we're all in this together. --Stefene Russell
The exhibit is free and open to the public. See it at the Carolyn Hewes Toft Gallery at Architecture St. Louis, 911 Washington, Ste. 170 through March 1. Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday; the opening reception is 6 to 8 p.m. on February 12, with remarks by Pamela Tally, president of Lewis Place Preservation Inc., at 7 p.m.
