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Photograph by Megan Betts
Residents of St. Louis Place.
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Photograph by Chris Naffziger
St. Louis Place neighborhood
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CIA site, Virginia
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NGA site, Virginia
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NSA site, Maryland
What do you say to someone who’s going to lose their home? A home that’s been in the family for 50 years? Where their family grew up, watching the neighborhood drift away, while they held on proudly, not willing to give up on their house?
These questions ran through my head as I drove north up Jefferson Avenue, past the recently demolished St. Bridget of Erin, past the thick undergrowth of the old Pruitt-Igoe site, with its first dapples of green starting to appear. I turned onto Mullanphy Street, where a picnic organized by opponents of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) was just getting underway. I get annoyed at the description of the site as “North St. Louis.” Yes, it is north of Delmar, but North St. Louis is a huge area of dozens of square miles and an equal number of distinct neighborhoods. This is the St. Louis Place neighborhood, one of the oldest and culturally rich areas of the city.
Ignorance of the places and people affected by eminent domain remains the most galling aspect of this whole discussion to me. It is fine to support the St. Louis Place location for the NGA, but please first know what you’re talking about. First of all, crime in the neighborhood is actually very low—a quick perusal of the Metropolitan Police Department’s crime map reveals that there were zero reported crimes in the footprint of the NGA in the last month. Likewise, the St. Louis Place neighborhood ranks in the middle of the pack in terms of crime overall—much safer than several South City neighborhoods, in fact.
Much of the discussion seems bogged down in what my old high school teacher, Joe Regenbogen, used to call a “BS Session,” where people sit around and make up supposed facts and statistics that match their preconceived beliefs and prejudices. This last couple of years has been a glorious BS Session. The supposed benefits of the NGA in St. Louis Place sound strikingly familiar to all of the other failed projects in the past 50 years: remember when Pruitt Igoe was going to revitalize the city? Or the clearing of Mill Creek? Or the building of Busch Stadium? Or the Edward Jones Dome? St. Louis Centre? Union Station? Besides the real proven benefits of providing thousands of construction jobs, there seems to be no real scientific data that shows the NGA will “transform” North St. Louis. And of course, those construction jobs were coming regardless of where the NGA was relocating in the region.
Thinking back to my time living in Washington, DC, where there are dozens of such facilities, I wondered what the effect other government campuses requiring tight security have had on their surroundings. Looking at the NGA East, there is a large swath of vacant land around Fort Belvoir—not much development going on around there. The situation is similar with the CIA and NSA headquarters—both are dominated by acres of surface parking lots or wide open barriers. If anything, there is little evidence either way that such secure facilities do much for their neighborhoods. In fact, they seem to exist independent of their surroundings. Is there any evidence that the NGA in St. Louis Place would be any different? And really, none of the abandoned industrial zones scattered across the city could be used for the new site? I support keeping the NGA in St. Louis, but at a better location than the one chosen.
These thoughts crossed my mind as the picnic began. The Rendon family had been barbecuing up a storm in the backyard of their family’s house, and the smells of hot dogs and chicken wafted over the vacant lot that was once St. Leo’s Catholic Church. Sheila Rendon’s husband, Gustavo, and St. Louis Place resident Larry Chapman, had been camping on the site, fasting in protest of the plan to take the Rendons’ home. Despite the emotional impact of having just received news the night before that the government had targeted their house for demolition, the Rendons were their usual gracious, welcoming selves. I’ve come up here and visited several times over the last couple of months, and talked about their neighborhood, their hopes, and their experience living under the constant threat of losing their home. Sheila Rendon’s older siblings were there as well, clustered around the barbecue, laughing and joking with all of the new visitors. Would you be so welcoming of outsiders in a similar situation?
What has always struck me when talking to the residents of St. Louis Place, whether they’re in the footprint of the NGA or just outside, is how reasonable they are. They never burst into wild government conspiracies, never exude bitterness towards society in general, and never seek anyone’s pity. It’s been a decade since Paul McKee began meddling in this area, buying up properties, letting them rot, and refusing to properly maintain buildings. Many people claim that most people voluntarily want to sell out to the government. Residents say that is not true—most of them would like to stay, but feel under duress to sell. Can anyone honestly say that a person living next to a negligently maintained property owned by McKee is selling out voluntarily?
The 2300 block of Mullanphy, where the Rendons live, can speak to that. McKee bought the old St. Leo’s site, and proceeded to do nothing with it. Residents on the block maintained it, planted trees and flowers. Why? Because they care. The block might not look like it did 50 years ago, but the remaining residents are proud, dignified, and care about their homes. This whole discussion of the NGA has greatly disturbed me due to the severe lack of compassion from the general public towards the people who will lose their homes. They are real people, not abstractions. We are not playing Sim City. All I ask of supporters of eminent domain is to look the residents of the St. Louis Place neighborhood in their eyes and say this to their face:
“I support the government taking and destroying your home.”
I can’t. Can you?
For more on St. Louis architecture, visit Chris Naffziger’s blog, stlouispatina.com. Contact him via email at naffziger@gmail.com.
