Home » North City » Recent Articles:

Racially Restrictive Covenants Ruled Unenforceable 75 Years Ago Today

May 3, 2023 Featured, History/Preservation, North City Comments Off on Racially Restrictive Covenants Ruled Unenforceable 75 Years Ago Today

At the beginning of the 20th century racism was thriving, though it took different forms in different places. The south had harsh ”Jim Crow” laws, lynchings, etc. Cities like St. Louis were less overt, but were still very racially segregated.

In 1916, St. Louisans voted on a “reform” ordinance that would prevent anyone from buying a home in a neighborhood more than 75 percent occupied by another race. Civic leaders opposed the initiative, but it passed with a two-thirds majority and became the first referendum in the nation to impose racial segregation on housing. After a U.S. Supreme Court decision, Buchanan v. Warley, made the ordinance illegal the following year, some St. Louisans reverted to racial covenants, asking every family on a block or in a subdivision to sign a legal document promising to never sell to an African-American. Not until 1948 were such covenants made illegal, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Shelley v. Kraemer, a case originating in St. Louis.

St. Louis Magazine
This house at 4600 Labadie was at the center of the case Shelley v Kraemer

Here’s a summary of the two cases the U.S. Supreme Court consolidated, the namesake is from St. Louis.

In 1945, an African-American family by the name of Shelley purchased a house in St. Louis, Missouri. At the time of purchase, they were unaware that a restrictive covenant had been in place on the property since 1911. The restrictive covenant prevented “people of the Negro or Mongolian Race” from occupying the property. Louis Kraemer, who lived ten blocks away, sued to prevent the Shelleys from gaining possession of the property. The Supreme Court of Missouri held that the covenant was enforceable against the purchasers because the covenant was a purely private agreement between its original parties. As such, it “ran with the land” and was enforceable against subsequent owners. Moreover, since it ran in favor of an estate rather than merely a person, it could be enforced against a third party. A similar scenario occurred in the companion case McGhee v. Sipes from Detroit, Michigan, where the McGhees purchased property that was subject to a similar restrictive covenant. In that case, the Supreme Court of Michigan also held the covenants enforceable.

Wikipedia

Interesting the state courts in both Missouri & Michigan found the covenants enforceable. The local civil court ruled against the neighbors…on a technically. Not enough property owners had signed on to enact it.

On October 9, 1945, respondents, as owners of other property subject to the terms of the restrictive covenant, brought suit in the Circuit Court of the city of St. Louis praying that petitioners Shelley be restrained from taking possession of the property and that judgment be entered divesting title out of petitioners Shelley and revesting title in the immediate grantor or in such other person as the court should direct. The trial court denied the requested relief on the ground that the restrictive agreement, upon which respondents based their action, had never become final and complete because it was the intention of the parties to that agreement that it was not to become effective until signed by all property owners in the district, and signatures of all the owners had never been obtained.

Justia

With this 1948 decision many whites decided to leave north city for north county.

— Steve
————————————————————————
St. Louis urban planning, policy, and politics @ UrbanReviewSTL since October 31, 2004. For additional content please consider following on Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, and/or Twitter.

 

St. Louis Roots: Andy Cohen

May 2, 2023 Events/Meetings, Featured, History/Preservation, North City Comments Off on St. Louis Roots: Andy Cohen

This Friday, May 5th 2023, St. Louis native Andy Cohen will get a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame:

The late-night TV talk show host and executive producer will be inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame at 5 p.m. Friday, May 5. A live ragtime band will begin performing at 4:30 p.m. 

The ceremony is free to the public and will take place in front of the Moonrise Hotel at 6177 Delmar in The Loop.

Cohen was born and raised in St. Louis and graduated from Clayton High School in 1986. He is best known as the host and executive producer of Bravo TV’s “Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen.” He was also an executive producer for “The Real Housewives” franchise and hosted numerous specials. 

KSDK

Cohen’s roots in St. Louis go back a very long time, as detailed in January 2021 on PBS’ program Finding Your Roots (Against all Odds, S7E2). NPR’s Nina Totenburg was the other guest.

If you missed this episode, or want to watch it again, it will be shown again tonight on Finding Your Roots, 9.1 7pm CST in St. Louis.

In the above clip Cohen reads about a paternal great great grandfather, Russian peddler Simon Kruvant, injured in a horse/carriage accident in 1889 at South Broadway & Koeln Avenue. We also learned Kruvant and his wife lived at 1122 N. 7th Street.

1122 North 7th Street was a one story non-residential building, seen here in a 1909 Sanborn Fire Insurance map. Either the newspaper article gave the wrong address, or this immigrant couple were living in a commercial space.

Given that Kruvant was a peddler a commercial space with room for goods, cart, and horse makes sense. This wasn’t in the Post-Dispatch archives so it must’ve been another newspaper.

The red arrow center toward the bottom shows where 1122 N 7th was. Pink is masonry, yellow is wood frame. Neighbors include industrial, tenements, and Father Dempsey’s Men’s Hotel.

To see this map page in detail click here.

Today 1122 North 7th Street is part numerous vacant blocks just north of the dome.

This area was known as Near North for a long time, but officially it is part of Columbus Square. Before Neighborhoods Gardens and Cochran Gardens were built the neighborhood contained the highest concentration of tenements in the city.

This neighborhood welcomed the poorest immigrants, including: Irish, Jewish, Italian, and blacks escaping the Jim Crow south.

See Andy Cohen tonight on Finding Your Roots and receiving his star Friday in front of the Moonrise Hotel.

— Steve
————————————————————————
St. Louis urban planning, policy, and politics @ UrbanReviewSTL since October 31, 2004. For additional content please consider following on Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, and/or Twitter.

 

19th Annual Look at the State of St. Louis’ Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive Pt 2: Kingshighway to City Limits

January 16, 2023 Featured, MLK Jr. Drive, North City Comments Off on 19th Annual Look at the State of St. Louis’ Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive Pt 2: Kingshighway to City Limits

This post continues looking at Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in St. Louis, west of Kingshighsway. For east of Kingshighway see Part 1.

The MLK corridor is underserved by financial institutions, so it’s nice to see a bank on the NW corner of MLK & Belt Ave., within the huge Friendly Temple Church complex.
Unfortunately like so much this too is auto-centric, set back behind auto storage. There are no provisions for a pedestrian ADA accessible route — pedestrians must use automobile driveways to reach the accessible building entrance. Pedestrians are likely prohibited from using the drive thru lane on the east side. An accessible parking space is provided, but it doesn’t have the required high sign at the front of the space.
A favorite building of mine, located on the SW corner of MLK & Blackstone Ave, continues to fall apart. The load-bearing side wall is starting to crumble.
Just to the west, on the SW corner of MLK & Goodfellow Ave, is another great building slowly decaying.
Looking west on MLK at Goodfellow Ave. we see the previous building on the left, a handsome but newer old building on the NW corner,
Both street sides of this building have campaign billboards for Jeffrey Boyd — he and two others resigned in 2022 in a pay-to-play scandal. All 3 were found guilty, headed to prison.
A little further west, up a slight grade, is another building I like that’s crumbling.
Another view
At 5879 MLK is the 22nd Ward Headquarters, the one-time office of Jeffrey Boyd.
At 5930 MLK is a former J. C. Penny department store. Gorgeous International Modern design. Would love to see this renovated and occupied.
IDEA: a hydroponic with a storefront market.
West of Euclid the iconic Wellston Loop streetcar building…continues to deteriorate. A couple of years ago it was covered and protected, but those efforts appear to have stopped. In the 90s the vacant lot you see held a nice 5+ story building.
As seen from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive at the city limits.

From east to west MLK Dr passes through the following wards: 14, 11, and 12. It’s a boundary for the 10th ward.

North St. Louis is the least populated part of the city, so each ward is physically larger than other wards. The bad news is this means lots of problems, poverty, etc. On the plus side the solutions that should be implemented are largely big picture, not micro neighborhood by neighborhood. The latter is how we end up with nice urban infill around a renovated historic building…across the street from a gas station/convenience store (see Arlington Grove vs Mobile in Street View.

The urban Arlington Grove Apts as seen from the auto-centric gas station across the street, 2013

Hopefully new aldermen will be more open to urbanist planning rather than continuing the failed suburbanization of the city. I’m not optimistic.

— Steve
————————————————————————
St. Louis urban planning, policy, and politics @ UrbanReviewSTL since October 31, 2004. For additional content please consider following on Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, and/or Twitter.

 

Former St. Liborius Church Complex Fits Beautifully in the Street Grid

October 21, 2022 Featured, History/Preservation, North City Comments Off on Former St. Liborius Church Complex Fits Beautifully in the Street Grid

A major reason why I decided to make St. Louis my home back in August 1990 was the complex street grid and the buildings that neatly fit into it. One of the finest examples of fitting into our decidedly non-orthogonal street grid is the former St. Liborius Church complex, bounded by Hogan, North Market & 18th streets. This is where two different grids collided (View in Google Maps).  When two grids of different orientations met the result was often awkward — this created very interesting buildings on non-rectangular sites. The views looking down streets as they bend into another grid alignment can be spectacular.

Looking east on North Market in September 2011. The former convent is in the center, the church on the right.

St. Liborius was a catholic parish founded by German immigrants on October 21, 1856 – 166 years ago today. In the 1850 census St. Louis had a population of 77,860 — that was a 372.8% increase over the 1840 census. By 1880 the population was 350,5218.

In March 1888 work on the foundation was underway, their existing church & school were a few blocks to the west. In June of that year it was reported the cost was $100,000 and “much of it was on hand.” In 2022 money that’s like $3.124 million!

“The church was completed in 1889. The rectory was built the following year and the convent was built in 1905. The School Sisters of Notre Dame taught in the parish school from 1859 to 1969. The parish buildings were declared a City Landmark in 1975 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.” (Wikipedia)

The year after the church opened the 1890 census showed the St. Louis population had grown to 451,770.

Let’s take a look at the church and surroundings in 1909.

The October 1909 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map shows the church, convent, and rectory –plus a school & other structures on the site. Only the 3 circled in green remain, everything else in this view is gone. Click image to view full page of the 1909 map. Pink is masonry, yellow is wood frame.

The 1910 population was 687,029. By this point the parish was more than half a century old, the sanctuary more than two decades. In late August I finally got up close to the buildings, and saw inside the sanctuary.

Getting closer we can see the front relationship between the convent and church
Around the north we see a brick wall where the school had been.
Inside the wall we see the large space between the sanctuary and convent.
The rectory faces 18th Street. With the grade change the 2nd floor of the rectory connects to the main floor of the back of the sanctuary. Great use of topography.
Back around near the front corner of the church we see the back of the rectory. Additional buildings were to the right in 1909.

In my 32+ years in St. Louis I’ve seen too many great 19th century buildings fall apart due to neglect & abandonment. I’ve feared the loss of these. But the former convent is owned by Karen House, a catholic worker house. The sanctuary & rectory are owned by SK8 Liborius — a skate park.

The interior of the church was stripped after closing in 1992. It’s great seeing indoor ramps in the space. Photo by David Frank.

The other use for an old sanctuary I’d like to see would be as a vertical hydroponics farm.

— Steve Patterson

 

I’m Now More Optimistic (Less Pesemistic?) About The Next NGA West Campus

October 18, 2022 Featured, Neighborhoods, North City, Planning & Design Comments Off on I’m Now More Optimistic (Less Pesemistic?) About The Next NGA West Campus

A decade ago the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), located near Anheuser-Busch brewery, announced it intended to build a new campus. If you’re not familiar with the NGA here’s how they describe themselves:

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) delivers world-class geospatial intelligence that provides a decisive advantage to policymakers, military service members, intelligence professionals and first responders. 

Anyone who sails a U.S. ship, flies a U.S. aircraft, makes national policy decisions, fights wars, locates targets, responds to natural disasters, or even navigates with a cellphone relies on NGA. (NGA)

b

b

The NGA site is a big chunk of the St. Louis Place neighborhood. The latest documents call it 97 acres, not 99 on this image used in a prior post.

b

I just couldn’t see how building a large high security military facility was going to be a positive for the immediate area — people would drive in for work, maybe drive out for lunch, then drive home at night. Having seen the secure entrance to their current facility numerous times it’s not welcoming, nor pedestrian oriented.

Current NGA entrance, 2015

This February 2016 concept was prior to the final decision of the St. Louis Place site in April 2016

In the concept above we see structures in the center of the site, not edges — for security. In the very center is 7 separate buildings, with a parking garage to the north & south (left & right). If you’ve been watching the construction taking place you know NGA’s actual design is different than St. Louis’ concept rendering. Again, the concept above was part of the successful St. Louis effort to have the site at Jefferson & Cass selected.

Construction of a parking garage in September 2021, as seen from the #04 Metrobus

Last month us residents participating in the process to create new plans for the 6 neighborhoods around NGA (St. Louis Place, Old North, Hyde Park, JeffVanderLou, Carr Square, and Columbus Square) were invited on site for an open house.

The open house was at Gate 3, off of Cass Ave. There was a presentation in the parking area, then we got to go up into the viewing tower on the right for a better view. Yes, I slowly walked up the flight of steps.

Photography & video were not allowed, but we were given a site plan for the actual design. To my knowledge this is the first site plan the public has seen of this project.

Site plan distributed last month, click image to see a larger version.

Finally seeing what the NGA is actually building gives my some hope that it can potentially have a positive impact on the trajectory of North St. Louis. My concern had been this becoming a big barrier, especially once the intact street grid was erased. Well, it’s still a barrier but the employees within the grounds will have opportunities to come & go relatively easily as pedestrians. Hopefully this will translate to businesses east, south, and west of the site.

I was also concerned about a line of cars on Jefferson Ave to enter the site.

There will be two “Access control points” for those driving to work — one in the NW & SE corners of the site. Each has a curved drive to give cars room to queue up without blocking through traffic on Parnell or 22nd. This design also means vehicles can’t get a good straight run at trying to crash through the gate.  All cars entering the facility are examined, especially for explosives.

The inspection facility in the NW corner will allow trucks with deliveries to unload and leave out the alley on the north. Items will be inspected before being loaded onto a secure truck for delivery to the main building.

You can see a sidewalk out to Jefferson. The SW corner of the site is the intersection of Jefferson & Cass avenues. The security fencing will be set way back from Cass to allow a corner park/plaza space and visitor parking. A park that’s not behind a security fence? They’ll allow visitors?

A visitor’s center will be adjacent to the visitor parking. This center is where guests will go through security. Apparently the main building is compartmentalized such that visitors can be allowed in part without risking security in the remainder. It will have an outdoor courtyard in the center of the building.

The SE corner of the site (22nd & Cass) is the other access control point — accessed via 22nd Street, not Cass Ave. Along 22nd Street is where I hope to see businesses in the existing buildings, or maybe urban new construction. Perhaps places workers see driving in/out so they decide to walk to them at lunch.

I think 22nd & Cass will likely become a signalized intersection, possibly another at the other access point.  I use the #32 bus along Cass Ave at times so I’m curious about the nearest bus stop to Jefferson — right now the westbound bus stop is before 22nd Street, so a long distance from Jefferson. No bus stops are shown on the site plan. Across Cass Ave to the south is the mostly vacant former Pruitt-Igoe site. How this gets developed will determine the long-term success of the area. I hope we don’t get a free-standing Starbucks with or without a drive-thru.  A coffeehouse on the ground floor of a multi-story building on the SE corner of Cass & Jefferson would be great.

Knowing NGA employees can get in/out of the site pretty easy as a pedestrian is encouraging.  The construction will be finished in 2025, the NGA expects to relocate to this new facility in 2026.

— Steve Patterson

 

Advertisement



[custom-facebook-feed]

Archives

Categories

Advertisement


Subscribe