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The Ashley Street Power Station. Photograph by Chris Naffziger
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The Ashley Street Power Station. Photograph by Chris Naffziger
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The Ashley Street Power Station, facade detail. Photograph by Chris Naffziger
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The Ashley Street Power Station, facade detail. Photograph by Chris Naffziger
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Laclede Power Building. Photograph by Chris Naffziger
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Laclede Power Building. Photograph by Chris Naffziger
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St. Louis Refrigeration and Cold Storage Company Building. Photograph by Chris Naffziger
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St. Louis Refrigeration and Cold Storage Company Building. Photograph by Chris Naffziger
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Site of the former shot tower. Photograph by Chris Naffziger
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Historic buildings on the Near North Riverfront. Photograph by Chris Naffziger
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View of the new Musial Bridge from the Near North Riverfront. Photograph by Chris Naffziger
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The Near North Riverfront at sunset. Photograph by Chris Naffziger
I hate the term “wasteland.” It’s a word used to convey a judgment, usually a judgmental appraisal of a place’s worth, based on an arbitrary assumption of what is valuable to the person making the decisions. I think of that when I walked the streets of the Near North Riverfront again this weekend for Artica, which holds its festivities every year under the towering power transmission lines that stretch across the Mississippi River. I think everyone assumes that it’s extremely dangerous down on the riverfront, away from the bright lights of Laclede’s Landing, but I’ve never felt unsafe down there during Artica, even as the festivities stretch late into the night. In fact, I’ve never heard of any real problems ever over the years, and my car wasn’t up on cinder blocks when I came back to it last Saturday.
Why then, does the perception seem to matter so much more than reality? The Near North Riverfront, defined for the purposes of this article as the riverfront north of the casino, has become the new poster child for the failure of St. Louis. If you're making a cursory scan of Google Maps and Street View from the detached aloofness and safety of home, the Near North Riverfront looks like the cliché, suburbanite definition of urban decay. But down on the ground, the reality feels much different. First of all, the vacant lots seem to dissolve away, as the buildings that are left still manage to give a sense of place along the streetscape. But they’re fighting preconceptions; over the last couple of years, I’ve noticed a huge number of “no parking” signs going up where I know for a fact I used to park on the North Riverfront. The message is clear: get casino patrons into the parking garages; we don’t want anyone actually walking the streets of the riverfront.
But walking the streets is exactly what I encourage everyone to do at least once. The streets are narrow; some still are paved with stone blocks. Walking down Lewis Street, an ensemble of three power plants sits between the street and the levee wall. The first one, the Ashley Street Power Station, is a titan of Beaux-Arts style built by Union Electric. It’s filthy, covered in what is probably dust from dirty Illinois coal. But the dust has the ability to accentuate the lavish detail, bringing out artificial “shadows” in the stonework and terra cotta. Old fire insurance maps list upwards of 34 boilers in the power plant; one can only imagine the intense Vulcan inferno produced within its walls. The plant is still relevant, generating steam that loops its way around downtown to the city’s office buildings.
Just north of the Ashley Street is the old Laclede Power Station, which along Lewis Street takes on the form of a massive Italian Renaissance loggia, complete with giant, arched portals. But instead of being filled with famous sculpture like the Loggia dei Lancei in Florence, this building housed rows of boilers, now long gone. The power plant, made of red brick and terracotta, also sported five iron smokestacks. On the river side, a giant white glazed brick sign advertises the power plant’s name. Tucked behind the plant is Rootwad Park.
The final power plant served the St. Louis Refrigeration and Cold Storage Company, whose warehouses still stand to the west of Lewis. Curiously, this plant still sports a fragment of its octagonal smokestack. At one point in St. Louis’s history, this section of the riverfront was crowded with rail lines and warehouses. Many of the vacant lots were not actually demolished buildings, but former railyards. There is a lot more building integrity down here than it appears at first glance.
Past the power plants is an open field; at one time, it was the site of a shot tower that produced bullets by dripping molten lead from the top, forming spheres in zero gravity. Hardened in their free fall, they would finally land with a solidified plunk. But now, there is a row of stone arches, filled in with rubble. Traipsing through this overgrown lot, in the shadow of the Cotton Belt Depot are the people who live along the river. Every year, they seem to approach Artica with a mixture of indifference and curiosity. It would be wrong to speculate what their stories are, but certainly they are people who live on the edge of society—both literally and figuratively. I wonder if they know plans are afoot for their wasteland to be swept away.
Chris Naffziger writes about architecture at St. Louis Patina. Contact him via e-mail at naffziger@gmail.com.
