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Built St. Louis
819 Locust Street
By the time I arrived on the scene, only one building was left on what was once a complete commercial block. Deprived of its
context and battered by neglect, the sole survivor was a sad sight. The wonderfully bold 1950s Modernist facade that once stood on the corner makes
me weep for its loss. Such blocks -- blocks of small-scale buildings, the kind that house smaller, more idiosyncratic businesses -- are
increasingly rare downtown.
The building's demolition presented a grand opportunity for downtown, leaving half a block of open land in a prime location
free for redevelopment, at a low architectural cost. 819 Locust was a small, plain building, not meant to survive in such isolation, and vacant for several years.
Only a fragmental portion of its cornice remained from what little ornamentation it had in the first place.
The building was torn down in 2002, leaving the entire half-block north of the Old
Post Office free to be redeveloped.
Instead, however, that opportunity will be squandered on an unneeded "urban plaza".
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1 - Image from the Historic American Buildings Survey, from the background of an image of the Victoria Building. |
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