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Photograph by Chris Naffziger
Historic homes in JeffVanderLou.
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Photograph by Chris Naffziger
A historic home in JeffVanderLou.
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Photograph by Chris Naffziger
Historic homes in JeffVanderLou.
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Photograph by Chris Naffziger
A historic home in JeffVanderLou.
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The Near North Side, Compton and Dry.
Statistics are useful. They give us an overall idea of what is happening at any given time, perhaps how we can predict future events, and give us a way to somehow grasp huge amounts of data easily. I read about the statistics of the North Side of St. Louis, how the specter of lead poisoning hangs over its schools and homes, how murder is concentrated in just a few neighborhoods, how old the housing stock is, and how poor its residents are. But I think that occasionally, we need to come down to the local level, down below the clouds of statistics, and just look at one place, and how it is faring.
One little pocket of North St. Louis that is struggling is the southern end of the huge JeffVanderLou neighborhood, an area that I describe as the Near North Side. Triangular in shape, it is bounded by Jefferson on the east, Cass on the north, and Dr. Martin Luther King Drive (formerly Easton and Franklin Avenues). There is a surprisingly large number of historic houses left in the area, and it’s obvious that there are many proud, hardworking people fighting to keep their little corner of the city alive. But the City does not seem to be making any effort to help them, judging from the abandoned buildings, each of which could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in Benton Park or Soulard.
Dr. Martin Luther King Drive’s history as Easton Avenue goes far back into history, to at least the early 19th century, if not the late 18th. As most would know, out past the city limits it becomes St. Charles Rock Road, the main artery that stretched between the important settlements of St. Charles and St. Louis. As such, the houses and businesses date to the 1870s and slightly later; a perusal of the 1875 Compton and Dry reveal a neighborhood that is close to being completely built out. It makes sense, of course; the Grand Prairie on which much of North St. Louis is constructed is nice and flat, and the neighborhood benefited from being on the main road out to St. Charles and beyond.
Just to the south, the flourishing, and much more expensive neighborhood we now call Midtown was the site of hundreds of Italianate and Second Empire mansions; in fact, Compton and Dry reveals that William Tecumseh Sherman lived just a couple blocks south of what was Easton Avenue at the time. Famous historical names aside, and it certainly is fun to imagine General Sherman walking the very streets of which I now write, what I find most fascinating is that for the most part, the triangle of land in question was just a good, solid middle-class neighborhood, full of lovely houses judging from what is left and what can be discerned from Compton and Dry.
I have no idea who James Sweeney (No. 31) or Julius Goodhart (No. 32) did for a living, but seeing their houses, and knowing they were financially secure enough to buy a place in immortality in Compton and Dry, intrigues me. Everyone talks about the German immigration to North St. Louis, but Mr. Sweeney was probably of English or Irish extraction. Perhaps he and his family walked down the street to St. Bridget of Erin, the now-demolished Irish parish. And if one starts to look more closely, the name Frank Griesedieck appears at No. 43; it’s a three-story Second Empire townhouse complete with a Mansard roof. Already by 1875 the Griesediecks were clearly successful at the family business of brewing in St. Louis, judging by the fine house that Frank would presumably own until his death in 1879. He worked for the Lafayette Brewery.
Perhaps what I’m getting at is that not all neighborhoods in St. Louis were filled with dozens of famous luminaries. Not everyone of historical interest lived in Lafayette Square (though certainly plenty of interesting people did) during the 19th century. Despite some tourist information that claims the contrary, there is life outside of the Central Corridor. But as far as I can tell, this Near North Side neighborhood I have explored has received none of the largesse that Midtown and the Central West End garner. And this is not some isolated neighborhood; it is walking distance from downtown, and just north of the flourishing Locust Avenue in Midtown.
This neighborhood is such an obvious target for smart tax abatements due to its adjacency to the thriving Central Corridor. In fact, this triangle of land is exactly why tax abatements were invented: an economically suffering, racially segregated neighborhood with high abandonment, but one that could easily capitalize on the prosperity nearby. There is wonderful historic architecture left that can inspire tasteful infill. I sometimes wonder what just a couple of million dollars of tax abatements could do for this neighborhood, but instead the discussion never happens. Instead, our board of aldermen debate not if, but how many, tens of millions of dollars will go to our Central Corridor. I’m not asking for special treatment for this neighborhood, I’m just asking for this area, along with much of the rest of North St. Louis and increasingly large portions of South City, to receive an invitation to dine at the tax abatement table along with its wealthier neighbors.
Chris Naffziger writes about architecture at St. Louis Patina. Contact him via email at naffziger@gmail.com.
