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Photograph by Chris Naffziger
St. Bridget of Erin Church.
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Photograph by Chris Naffziger
St. Bridget.
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Photograph by Chris Naffziger
St. Bridget.
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Photograph by Chris Naffziger
St. Bridget.
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Photograph by Chris Naffziger
St. Bridget.
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The James Clemens Mansion.
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The James Clemens Mansion.
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James Clemens Mansion.
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The James Clemens Mansion.
Before Dogtown, there was Kerry Patch. As featured a few years ago in St. Louis Magazine, the city has long boasted a strong Irish population, dating back to the early 19th century. Foreign-born Irish Americans made upwards of 14 percent of St. Louis’s residents. They had left behind starvation and persecution in Ireland, and sadly found themselves reviled in their new country. But on those streets northwest of downtown that made up Kerry Patch, they eked out an existence and created a community. While the houses they built in desperation may have been crude, on Sundays they attended Mass in some of the most beautiful churches in 19th century St. Louis.
Two of those churches in Kerry Patch, St. Lawrence O’Toole and St. Patrick’s, met the wrecking ball. O’Toole sat at the corner of 14th and O’Fallon, and was demolished in 1948, the year the parish closed. St. Patrick’s was located at 6th and Biddle, and hung on until the 1970s before it was destroyed. But, one should not neglect a couple of other Irish parishes that sat outside of the “official” boundaries of Kerry Patch. Sacred Heart and St. Leo were located just to the north in St. Louis Place, which was where Irish immigrants who had climbed into the middle class moved in the 19th century. Sacred Heart burned, and was demolished by the Archdiocese. St. Leo, which even had its own Temperance Hall that encouraged congregants to have fun in ways that did not involve drinking, was wrecked for a still-extant vacant lot in 1978. Its cornerstone remains at Mullanphy and 23rd Streets, sitting forlornly in the weeds; owned by Paul McKee, the property has now become the site of an eminent domain protest against the relocation of the NGA.
The only survivor, St. Bridget of Erin, was organized in 1853, with official groundbreaking in 1859. In the mid-to-late 20th century, the church found itself in the position of absorbing the dwindling congregations that closed around it. Finally, in 2003, the parish closed, and the property is now owned by a charter school operated by De La Salle, Inc. A demolition permit has been pulled, citing costs close to $250,000 to presumably demolish the church and leave the later school building.
Examining the church building last weekend, the church still remains intact, and shows no sign of deterioration. Strangely, all of the windows have been opened on the church. Is there some sort of gremlin that goes around and opens the windows of all of the abandoned buildings in St. Louis? Or is this another fine example of demolition by neglect, where an owner does everything in his power to destroy a building before demolition, so that only naïve and hopelessly idealistic “building huggers” would support sparing the church? Certainly plaster is falling from the ceiling of the sanctuary now; that’s what happens when a building’s owner leaves the windows open in the dead of winter. Thankfully, rumors of the crypt still containing bodies are unfounded; the Archdiocese confirmed that all burials were removed to Calvary Cemetery in 1980.
That said, it’s shameful and wrong that this last remnant of Irish heritage is so callously being discarded. Yes, won’t someone please think of the children? In fact, there is a large vacant lot to the east of the church that can easily be used for a new wing for expansion. As Andrew Weil of Landmarks Association of St. Louis also pointed out, there are huge swaths of inexpensive land located across the street from the church as well. If saving money is the goal, surely building a brand-new building without paying for an expensive demolition is more fiscally responsible. And it teaches the children an important lesson: that history should not be disposable or beholden to politics and the whims of disinterested owners. As Michael Allen states: “We need more incentives to bring resources to bear on a situation like [the future of St. Bridget’s]. If the demolition looks like the only recourse, it is what will be chosen. Creative reuse is completely possible here.”
Imagine if one could go back in time, and see the faces of the Irish immigrants, weighed down by the memories of suffering, starvation and persecution in their homeland, proudly standing along Jefferson Avenue, watching as their church rise in front of them, brick by brick. In a way, it is no longer just a church, but a memorial to how millions of people were forced to flee their country to live free from persecution. When this author looks at the church, he sees both the suffering and hope of the people who built it written on its walls. Weil points out that the school has also had an historic role in teaching children from poverty. Demolishing this church throws away the memory of all of those people who walked through its doors. Why is history so expendable nowadays?
Meanwhile, another monument with roots back to the early 19th century is crumbling just north of the old Kerry Patch. The James Clemens Mansion, which only a decade ago was perfectly intact, continues to suffer under the ownership of Paul McKee. Interestingly, Clemens’s wife Elizabeth was a member of the Mullanphy family, a wealthy Irish-American family in St. Louis founded by her father John. In fact, the land on which the Kerry Patch was built was at the largesse of the family, seeking to improve the lot of their countrymen. The Mullanphy Emigrant Home and the Mullanphy Tenement Building were other charitable gifts given by the family to the Irish community fleeing poverty in Europe.
Which makes it ever more disappointing to see the historic mansion move inexorably towards becoming a pile of rubble. It is stoutly built, but even the strongest buildings cannot survive continual abuse and neglect. And most importantly, it seems to be drifting out of the collective consciousness of the city. This Valentine’s Day, however, Carlie Trosclair and Michael Allen issued a statement to this author concerning the demolition by neglect by its current owner:
"History is not a commodity. No individual owns cultural heritage. We have a civic responsibility to uphold and care for the historical lineage of our city. We assert the public claim when an owner is negligent both legally and culturally. McKee's treatment of the Clemens House insults us all."
A large, pink heart has appeared on the front door (or I should say, the piece of weathered plywood that vainly attempts to keep vandals and explorers from walking through the front door) bearing the likeness of the city’s most hapless developer, superimposed on the body of one of the angels from Raphael’s Sistine Madonna. Perhaps this Valentine’s Day week, these long-suffering buildings will finally find someone with both the vision and financial means to love them properly. The survival of the last tangible elements of the earliest years of Irish St. Louis hang in the balance.
Chris Naffziger writes about architecture at St. Louis Patina. Contact him via email at naffziger@gmail.com.
