St. Louis has an 1893 Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler building on the National Register, the Wainwright Building, which ranks as either the first or second (depending on whose counting) skyscraper built. Not as well known (even to my Architectural History & Theory teacher in college!) is that we have a second Sullivan & Adler building that survives to this day. On the northwest corner of 7th & Olive is the building which was designed as the Union Trust Building. Starting in 1902 it began a series of name changes: St. Louis Union Trust, Missouri Trust, Central National Bank, Lincoln Trust, and finally, to the name on its National Historic Landmark plaque, The 705 Building.
It also went through some serious remodeling, including a 1905 addition by Eames & Young on the north end of the building. But the most heinous crime was a 1924 remuddle which scrapped off the exterior of the first two floors. Here’s what it looked like from 1893 to about 1923.
Aside from the circular windows that still survive on the alley side of the building, the upper 13 stories have remained intact, including the lions shown above.
Typically, I dislike parking garages. But when the roof of a parking garage puts me this close to my beloved lions, then I really dig this parking garage, and don’t mind having had to pay $5 to use it!
To the right in the above photo is the Railway Exchange building, where I worked for Famous Barr advertising for 13.5 years. For half that time, we were on the 8th floor, and the Advertising President’s office looked down on these two lions. The the fool sat with his back to them!
When he was out, I’d sneak into his office to gaze lovingly at them; they were both inspirational and a sedative for deadline stress. They also got me in trouble when I was caught hanging out the President’s window with a camera, trying to get a shot without a dirty window between me and the lions.
And now 10 years later, a parking garage that I was forced to use on a Sunday afternoon has given me the closest, clearest access to all the lions. It was the best kind of September Sunday St. Louis Serendipity!
The news that Macy’s is closing its Northwest Plaza store marks the sound of the footsteps of a dead mall walking. The fate of both the former Famous-Barr department store and Northwest Plaza makes me ultra sad, and even before this news I was always nostalgic for the Northwest Plaza of old. It once had energy and personality, then someone decided to put a lid on it. It’s been a slow suffocation ever since.
My deep fondness for the Famous-Barr at Northwest Plaza stems from one exact moment in time, and it radiates out from there forever more.
November 1978, Olivia Newton-John releases the album Totally Hot. It was a calculated move to capitalize on her “bad Sandy” from Grease. The songs were the most rock she’d ever be, and it was matched with a look which was a modern-day continuation of the 1950s black leather look that had ended the movie my friend and I had seen 7 times in the movie theaters that summer. Some of the songs on this record were more guitar driven, the vocals randy and tough, and to a long-time Livvy fan (Nerd Alert: I belonged to her fan club years before Grease) it was revolutionary.
Just as important as the music (which still sounds just as great today, thanks to the brilliance of producer John Farrar) was the album cover art work. I had just turned 13, and had been given the go-ahead to wear make-up to school, and this is exactly how I wanted to look!
A Friday night in December 1978, I was dropped off at Northwest Plaza, and I trudged through the snow to get to the very spot shown above: the Estee Lauder counter at this Famous-Barr. Where else would a newborn teenage girl go to get that smokey-eyed Livvy look? I stared down through the glass case at all the eye liner pencils, and my heart pounded with excitement at this whole new world of possibility before me. Then a sales lady asked how she could help, and my head started pounding with fear because I had no clue what to say, what to do. I was only used to using the products in my Mother’s make-up drawer, not buying my own!
The sales lady was very kind, and after a swift transaction, I walked away with a fat Estee Lauder eye liner pencil of a deep blue-gray. It was my first make-up purchase, my first adult thing, and I still remember the smell of the winter air as I walked out of the store, and turning to look back inside at the warm glow of a cosmetics department that had accepted me as one of their own. Even then, I knew it was a milestone girl-to-woman moment.
As most teenage girls tend to do at the start, I too often left the house looking like a hussy raccoon. I abused that pencil something fierce, and still never came close to looking like Lovely Livvy. I do believe that the stub of that inaugural eye pencil still exists in one of my junk piles, holding onto it because that time resonated so deeply. And so does the place that it happened at.
I was there around 1:30, so didn’t get to see what was eventually about 300 people, as reported by NOCO StL. But Northwest Plaza is so scary dead that seeing the healthy handfuls of people already gathered at the spot where the fountain once lay was heart-warming.
Putting a roof over this outdoor plaza was a bad idea from the start; back in the day, I don’t recall a single soul agreeing that this was just what the place needed. But this is what the then-owners felt was necessary to keep up with the Retail Joneses, that shoppers want a hermetically sealed environment more than they want personality and ease of access that comes from open-air malls. With millions of dollars of renovation, they erased the low-slung, mid-century midwest ease that changed with the seasons for a clinical, soulless, Any Town U.S.A. warehouse.
I have a sharp, instinctual sense of direction, but once they put the roof over Northwest Plaza, I got lost (as in “will this be an anxiety attack?” lost) every time. I’d try to use the anchor stores as place reminders of the old layout, but it was all so tall and bland and disconcerting, that I’d get discombobulated. The jagged contrast between what it used to be and what it had become was so depressing that I haven’t stepped foot in the place for well over 10 years. It had nothing to do with crime or location or the types of stores within. It was about being creeped out about walking over the burial grounds of a once-beloved place. Oh, how I long to see even the blurriest photo of those lighted deers that graced the Plaza at Christmas time… Northwest Plaza exists only in memories. This mall that has its name is just a tombstone.
I am so ecstatic to see a passionate group of people wanting to save this place that I can taste it, but there’s also a bitter aftertaste. There is very little original fiber left to Northwest Plaza, so only a sense of the place we once loved can be revitalized. Even if future plans do include removing the roof, it still won’t be the Northwest Plaza being honored today, it will just be a new “lifestyle center” hoping to coast off nostalgic momentum.
Today also poked at the mental scab I have about the demolition of Northland Shopping Center, another beloved North St. Louis County place that could instantly transport you back to the golden days of yesteryear because it was still in its original state. And because of the era in which it was built, Northland was more architecturally significant than Northwest Plaza. But back in 2002-2003, when news of Northland’s demise was first reported, there was not yet Facebook groups to make people aware of what was happening and spur them into action. And trust that people feel just as passioantely about Northland as they do Northwest; even all these many years on, I still regularly get e-mails from people sharing their Northland memories after they’ve found my cyber memorial. The St. Louisan sense of place is very strong, and we should be proud of that.
But back in the pre-social network year of 2003, it was just me and a couple of other mourners who documented Northland’s last days. Even then, I knew trying to save it was a losing game; acceptance and love of mid-century modern architecture was barely stirring, and the idea of trying to save retail is a brand new concept brought about by the deaths of enclosed malls.
What was particularly galling was that as the last walls of Northland were being toppled, retail trends were swinging to (or actually, back to) open air plazas. Wow, and they just killed a great opportunity for a retro open air plaza, which could have been the mack daddy of St. Louis lifestyle shopping destinations. It was also right around this time that the first rumors of removing the roof swirled around Northwest Plaza. This double dose of irony was more than I could withstand and I learned to just let go of any efforts or thoughts of preserving retail because it’s just about following the money which is about following the trends, and obviously, no one cares about retail buildings anyway.
Until now.
These hundreds of people who signed up cyberally and then, today, showed up in person are stirring hope in my heart. Are we ready to embrace sense of place, and ready to expect people-friendly and attractive built environments? Are we realizing how wasteful it is to keep destroying the places of our past for a future with a short shelf life? Regardless of what becomes of Northwest Plaza, I’m just relieved to hear others joining this conversation, and am so proud of St. Louis for taking this stand. You guys rock!
St. Louis was extensively covered in the November 1965 issue of National Geographic. The Arch was almost complete, the new Busch Stadium was under construction, and wiping out old ugliness for new (federally funded) progress had many optimistic for the resurgence of the city that was just around the corner.
Much thanks to Jonathan Swegle and Jeff Vines for putting this issue in my hands.
Click on each individual spread and it will pop into a new window so you can read it. Within the following pages, many projects are mentioned. Please help me keep track of the following:
Which buildings are now gone?
Which remain?
Which projects panned out as expected?
Which ones didn’t?
Is there anything to be learned from this snapshot of the past?
Inside the September issue of Vanity Fair (whose cover asks “Carla Bruni: The New Jackie O?” to the sound of a million eyes rolling) is a special advertising section called St. Louis Luxury Living. Within this section is an ad for Ivey-Selkirk Auctioneers, featuring the photo shown above.
Gorgeous photo (wish there was a photo credit) of a gorgeous building that started life as the first Famous-Barr in St. Louis County, from 1948 to 1991. It’s heartening to see a good building continually appreciated by being continually occupied and loved by its occupants.
I worked in the downtown Famous-Barr advertising department from 1988 to 2001. The building and its history always enchanted me, from grade-school adventures to see the Christmas windows to my tenure inside as an employee. Famous-Barr sold to Macy’s and then Macy’s shut down the advertising department (along with the headquarters a few floors up), with the last advertising troopers turning off the lights as they left at the beginning of July 2008.
It saddens me to think of that advertising department – which was there since the 1920s – gone for good. But at least the building is still there.
This week, the Suburban Journals ran a piece recounting the day the Southtown Famous-Barr opened in 1951. Jim Merkel’s “This Week in South Side History” is a regular feature, and he deserves a large round of applause for his consistent coverage of the South Side built environment.
The only thing missing from the article is photos of the Southtown Famous. So I dug out some photos I took on Christmas Day 1994, during the demolition of the building (shown above and below). That massive lot sat vacant for so long that I lost sense memory of the building, but the photos brought it all back. It really gave the Kingshighway/Chippewa intersection a “here’s where it’s all happening” feeling one only experiences in densely packed and deeply loved urban neighborhoods.
One interesting thing in the Journal article is the sickening sense of deja vu.
“I believe this beautiful structure signifies the confidence held by business leaders throughout the nation in the people of St. Louis. Here we have an outstanding example of the company’s recognition of the economic possibilities to be developed in St. Louis.”
– Mayor Joseph Darst
These quotes are from 1951, a year after a peak population of 856,796 in St. Louis City. Yet it still reeks of the exact same low-self esteem statements made by our current Mayor & Co. to this very day. Meaning, even when this city was top of the heap it felt bottom of the barrel?
From where and why does this city have such chronic low self-esteem issues? It works like negative manifesting and is, frankly, unattractive and undeserved. Is there a clandestine and long-standing political plan to keep this city in a meek and groveling state of mind? Is it a certain generational mindset passed on down? Is it an unforeseen backfiring of St. Louis humility and gentility?
If anyone has any plausible theories on St. Louis Self Esteem origins, I’d love to hear them.
This cartoon appears in today’s print issue of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. I completely overlooked the gist of it because of the line of buildings depicted on the right side of the drawing.
The buildings shown in the left side foreground are long gone, replaced by a parking garage.
I got all excited about the above, and then got around to the humorous, editorial point of it all. Which proves, conclusively, what a building geek I am.
DOWNTOWN FAMOUS BARR WILL REMAIN OPEN WITH MORE VISIONARY NAME
SOUTH COUNTY-Downtown St. Louis’ historic Famous-Barr store will remain open, say officials at Federated. Federated, a large conglomerate, recently purchased the May Company, a local conglomerate that owned Famous-Barr.
As part of a national campaign, the name of Famous-Barr will be changed. Sources at Federated have said that early on, the plan was to change the name to Richard M. Daley’s Chicago Marshall Fields. They cited the fact that Chicago’s history is more important than St. Louis’, as evidenced by the fact that Chicago is bigger, contains more money, has taller cheaply built buildings, and is larger than St. Louis.
However, the plan to change Famous-Barr to Richard M Daley’s Chicago Marshall Fields has been scrapped, citing that the new name still contained some historical merit of some sort, and that historical merit is bad for profits. Federated Spokesman Bort Stunt stressed that, “Nothing has ever happened before now, except for baseball and plastic columns on houses. There were also ice cream and cars, which happened in the 1950s, and trucker hats, which happened in the 1970s, but that’s it. Nothing is going to happen after tomorrow, either.”
In that progressive line of thinking, Federated has drafted a new name for the Downtown St. Louis store: Francis Slay. “We wanted to name it after the insightful, door-closing dealmaker that made it possible for us to keep our Downtown location open, despite incredible odds,” said Stunt at a press conference Monday. “We want to express to everyone in St. Louis City that we are doing them a gigantic favor by not cruelly and pointlessly shuttering their store, and no single person has understood that better than Mayor Francis Slay, except possibly his pet newt Richard.”
The renamed Francis Slay store will feature different products than what Famous-Barr currently sells. Federated plans to completely axe the children’s department, in accordance with local budgeting policies, which will have all children moved out of the city as early as fall 2006. The section will be replaced with an extensive selection of taupe, off white, and bone colored polo shirts, in a bold, visionary move that is intended to predict the rapidly changing demographics of Downtown and of the city itself. “We want to be on the cutting edge,” announced Stunt, “and we do mean cutting.”
But even more than interior changes to the new Francis Slay store, St. Louisans will notice the extensive exterior changes. Federated plans to increase parking near the store, citing that Famous-Barr’s parking garage “is sometimes as much as 40% occupied” and that the extra spaces soon to be available in the Century Building Memorial Parking Garage under construction on 9th Street are “simply too far away to walk, at a whopping two blocks’ distance.”
In order to make shopping Downtown convenient and pleasant for its customers, the Francis Slay store will feature an unprecedented 49 square blocks of parking. The lot will stretch from the former Lucas Park, across the former art galleries on 10th and Locust Streets, over to the former Richard Serra sculpture on the Gateway Mall, and up to the front door of Francis Slay. It will feature up to eight trees, although the Federated Planning Department has yet to finalize the number of actual trees to be planted. The lot may preserve as much as four percent of the existing street grid, though that number is also still on the drawing boards.
There will be one other prominent new feature to the exterior of the Francis Slay store. In an effort to draw more attention to the store, a new sign will be located on each of its four sides. The four signs will be identical. Instead of touting the store’s name, they will simply and elegantly consist of an image of Mayor Francis Slay’s head. Stunt said, “We wanted to pick something that symbolizes power, profit, and prestige, and could think of no other symbol more evocative. We almost chose a picture of one of Francis’s dogs, but decided to save that for the new dog day spa and salon that will replace Harris Stowe University.” The four heads will feature glowing eyes which change color according to the number of buildings being demolished that day on the North Side, to let shoppers and Downtown drivers alike know approximately how much progress is happening in the city that day. Designer Sally Patronage wrote in her press release that the changing eyes will give passerby “the opportunity to feel the heartbeat of the city at any given moment. …as we all know, Francis Slay is the lifeblood of this city. We would be nothing if he did not heroically keep all of our businesses open, like they should be anyway.” To help portray the idea of keeping a beat, the signs will rotate and whistle every hour, on the hour.
On the upper level looking north (above, left) & south (above, right) onto what was and what’s left of Famous-Barr.
(Above, left) I’m standing “inside” the FB now, about the level of the roof of the sub-basement and looking up at the “Blow Out Sale” store front. Standing in the same spot, I look up to my left and the escalator still strains to take me to the second floor (above, right). I look down to my left and study the massive pile of building debris tumbling into the bottomless dark basements waaay below ground. I swear I see pieces of what I covet dearly: the stainless steel that made up the “Northland” sign. As I start to climb down the pile to investigate further, I realize I’m breaking the very first rule of Demolition Spelunking:
Do Not Do It Alone!
There must be someone else around to at least know you disappeared in the building and alert the authorities.
I’m by myself, crap! But my chances of getting one of those mangled letters is right before me – 70/30% chance of success.
A few more steps down the shifting pile, and I get a vision of the suffocating horror of the 30%, and stop.
Crap! But a letter is right there, I swear it!
I’m supposed to be at my Pop’s Father’s Day BBQ in Brighton, IL in 40 minutes, and I’m not supposed to be getting these clothes dirty (too late), and I probably should also arrive in one piece… I had to let it go.
It still hurts. So does watching this.
Even as the place whittles away, it’s still an architectural love affair. I can’t get over something so modern, sleek and strong (above left) being torn down. And I see the old, whimsical wiring get up (above right), and marvel that the place hasn’t half burnt to the ground.
(Above) Against what’s left of the upper level wall, staring down to the lower level.
WHERE IT STOOD ON 6.27.05
Letters and stars are history (above right), as the rest of the building now looks like a picked-over Thanksgiving turkey. Upper level at the former Kresge’s/McCrory’s (above right), demolition workers pulled all remaining interior trash out to the curb, which then sprouted an absurdist lawn mower blooming atop the greenery.
Most all of the lights still burn at night, which gives the place a submarine feel, an underwater eeriness. On the north side of the lower level, I get to see interiors that I could only half make out during daylight (above left, former Worth’s/Studio 150). And the promenade towards what was Famous-Barr (above right) features perfectly lit destruction.
(Above left) Lower level south side, looking at the rounded bank and a (long-blocked) stairwell up to the top level. It was an aresting sight, especially the light on inside the utility area to the left of the stairs, which felt oddly warm and inviting.
(Above right) Man, I so want this in my backyard!
WHERE IT STOOD 7.04.05
(Above right) The Northland Bowl sign reappears!
The (now-vacated) Ambassador took down one of their signs, and unearthed both the original name and function of the building that was attached to Northland’s lower level north side in 1967.
(Above left) Upper level north next to what was the FB, the former Baker’s Shoes/Kingsbury’s Shoes literally stands at the edge of the abyss.
(Above right), standing in the FB pit and looking up at the same store.
Even though I’m painfully sad over this loss, it’s been fascinating and absorbing to see the physical bones of the place, construction details, how damn solid it is…was. I wonder if any of the men who helped build the place 49-50 years ago have come out to watch it be taken apart?
(Above left) Lower level of the former Kresge’s, and I never run into anyone inside these buildings while I’m there during the day. They must only come out at night. But no one cares about this site, so they could very well spray paint freely while the crews are at lunch…
And it’s getting hard to travel Northland by car because they have closed off most all of the entrances and roads (above right) around this massive place. Also note the big, beautiful 50-year old tree. Sorry, goodbye.
Here’s some thoughts from other people about Northland. I’ve also received some wonderful notes from folks who grew up in the area, and are now watching it leave via my photos and/or their special Goodbye Treks to the place. Thanks for sharing how much you loved the place, too.
More to come.
705 Olive Street
