Other upcoming events: Meetings with MODOT (Jan. 21) and Habitat for Humanity (Jan. 26)

Now that you’ve got a new calendar for the new year, you can start filling it up with events in Old North, including the following:

Next Thursday, January 21, ONSLRG will host a community meeting with representatives from the Missouri Dept. of Transportation, who will be on-hand to explain plans for the replacement of the Madison Street overpass.  This meeting will start at 7 p.m. and take place in ONSLRG’s Crown Village Gallery, 2700 N. 14th Street.

Then, on Tuesday, January 26, ONSLRG will host a community meeting with Habitat for Humanity.  Staff from Habitat will be present to discuss the plans for the 17 new, homes they’ll be building this year on Dodier, Sullivan, and Hebert.  This meeting also will begin at 7 p.m. in the ONSLRG gallery. 

Feel free to make copies of this flyer for your friends and neighbors and help spread the word.

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Bank of America & United Way to Hold Financial Education Sessions at ONSLRG’s Gallery Jan. 18

On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, next Monday, January 18, Bank of America and United Way of Greater St. Louis will conduct two financial education sessions in Old North St. Louis Restoration Group’s Crown Village Gallery at 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.  See below for a flyer with the details.

This event will be open to the public, so please feel free to spread the word.

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Open House & Reception at ONSLRG’s New Office -Thurs, Jan. 7, 4-8 p.m.

Click on the link below to download this flyer as a PDF.

onslrg-open-house-jan07-2010

Our December newsletter didn’t get out in the mail, but the cover story still works as an invitation to the Old North St. Louis Restoration Group’s Open House on Thursday, January 7.  Come on out and join us in celebrating the opening of ONSLRG’s new office, the Crown Village Gallery, the Old North Community History Museum, and the neighborhood information center for current and prospective residents.  We’ve been working out of the new office since November, but the open house will be our first opportunity to show off the space for all of our members, friends, supporters and neighborhood residents.  So, please join us on Thursday, Jan. 7 from 4 to 8 p.m. and help us in spreading the word about this cool, new space at Crown Square in the heart of Old North.

With just one day left in 2009, you can still make a tax-deductible contribution to Old North St. Louis Restoration Group to support the preservation of Mullanphy or any of our other work to revitalize the physical and social dimensions of Old North St. Louis in a manner that respects the community’s historic, cultural and urban character.  To make an online donation, just CLICK HERE.  

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Scenes from the Preservation Fundraiser at the Coolest New Venue in Town

Last night the new Gallery at the Old North St. Louis Restoration Group’s office played host to a fundraiser for the historic preservation group, Friends of the San Luis.  As the following photos show, the event attracted a good crowd of visitors, many of whom enjoyed their first glimpse of the revitalization under way at Crown Square, in the heart of Old North.

When the street and sidewalk are finished, this will be the front door to the gallery.

The gallery space will be available for rent for other events.  Call the ONSLRG office (314-241-5031) or send an email to info@onsl.org for details.

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One Day’s Activities Reflect Vibrant Community in Old North

Saturday may not have been a typical day in Old North, but it sure reflected the positive energy fueling the neighborhood’s revitalization and demonstrated how active the community is.  As noted in yesterday’s post here, the Old North St. Louis Restoration Group is in the midst of moving our offices and community space down the street, to the heart of the Crown Square redevelopment.   While a Saturday ordinarily would be an ideal day to mobilize our dependable army of volunteers to help with the move, many of these individuals were deployed to various other community projects throughout the neighborhood, including:

• The Metropolis St. Louis tour of Old North;
• A vacant building board-up initiative, coordinated by the “Macho Action Group”, a division of ONSLRG’s Real Estate Committee;
• An event focused on the dynamics of community development, held at the Urban Studio Cafe with the Brown School of Social Work; and
• Construction of a wheelchair ramp by neighborhood volunteers for a long-time resident who experienced complications after hip-replacement surgery.

All of this played out against the backdrop of a beautiful November day, which brought out throngs of visitors to the neighborhood, many of whom chose to wait in the long line out the door at ONSL’s favorite ice cream parlor / lunch spot, Crown Candy Kitchen.  See below for a sampling of photos from this extraordinary slice of community life in Old North St. Louis.

Metropolis visitors toured Crown Square, including ONSLRG's new space (in the background)

Graham Lane showed off the creative adaptation of warehouse space as a cool, loft-style home.

Nico Leone (in the white t-shirt) led a tour through the home he is rehabbing on Wright Street and pointed out that the stairs were constructed from timbers salvaged from a nearby warehouse.

Macho Action Group volunteers cutting plywood and gathering materials for securing vacant buildings.

Boarding up a building on Palm Street, to keep it protected from the elements and vandals, so that it can survive long enough for a future rehab. Hey, isn't that Graham Lane, again?

ONSLRG's practicum student, Meghan Baer (in the purple shirt), helping set up at the Urban Studio Cafe for the program with her fellow students from Washington University's Brown School of Social Work.

The line at Crown Candy stretched out the door.

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New Space for Old North St. Louis Restoration Group!

As of today, the big move has begun - and the first commercial tenant at Crown Square is ready to open for business.  This coming Wednesday, November 11, Old North St. Louis Restoration Group will switch phone service over from the corner of St. Louis Avenue and N. 14th Street to historically rehabbed space at 2700 N. 14th Street.  Although we’re only moving 1 block away, it’s a huge leap for the organization, which, for the first time in its 28-year history, will be operating out of space that reflects the historic rehab we promote and support.

The front of the building soon to be home of ONSLRG and the Crown Village Gallery.

The old Thomas Furniture building as it looked in 2006.

The former Thomas Furniture building, which was previously a Worth’s Department Store, and prior to that, a Kroger grocery store, is one of the 27 buildings that have been fully rehabbed as part of the Crown Square redevelopment of the former 14th Street Pedestrian Mall.  Although the street work is still yet to be completed, 2700 N. 14th can be occupied now that water and sewer service have been connected. 

Workers were still making final touch-ups over the past few days, including at the front reception desk, which has been constructed with timbers from the former floor system of the building at 2612 N. 14th, & a stained & polished concrete counter top.

ONSLRG's new space will include the Crown Village Gallery, which will serve as a venue for community events, art exhibits, various meetings, and educational programming.

Among the cool features are sliding doors, made from salvaged maple floorboards, and repurposed windows saved from other buildings along 14th Street.

Come on by to see us, and grab a box or file cabinet from the old office and walk on down the sidewalk to our back door.  Until the street and front sidewalk work is finished, the entrance to our new space will be the back door, off the parking lot just east of 14th Street.

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Youth Leadership St. Louis Visits Old North

Yesterday a group of about 35 high school students participating in the Youth Leadership St. Louis program came by to learn about the work of Old North St. Louis Restoration Group.  After a presentation in the ONSLRG office on the history of the neighborhood and the achievements of an active and determined community with a vision, the students headed out to see the transformation in person.

The Youth Leadership group outside the soon-to-be "old" ONSLRG office.

One of the highlights was a tour of the "Crown Village Gallery" which is nearing completion, adjacent to the "new" ONSLRG office (coming soon!).

The group braved the chilly weather to walk down 13th Street to see the 13th Street Community Garden and the future site of the Old North Grocery Co-op.

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Scenes from the Old North House & Community Tour

The 2009 House & Community Tour is history - and it turned out to be one of the best in terms of the attendance, the weather, and variety of sites to see.  The following is just a sampling of photos from the big day.

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Old North House & Community Tour - Just 4 Days Away!

With 4 days to go until the Old North St. Louis House & Community Tour (THIS Saturday, May 9 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.), it’s not too late to buy tickets - whether for yourself, your mother (as a nice, early Mother’s Day treat!), your favorite Crown Candy fan, or even the contractor who worked miracles with your latest home repair or improvement project.  And with weather forecasts calling for pleasant temperatures and sunny skies, what better way to spend a nice spring Saturday. 

The forecast for Saturday, courtesy of Weather.com

If you’d like to help us get the word out to people who could benefit from seeing the revitalization of a cool, historic and dynamic community, please send them a link to this site (www.ONSL.org/blog), a link to the YouTube video promoting the tour, or stop by the ONSLRG office at 14th & St. Louis Avenue to pick up a pile of postcards to deliver to the restaurants, coffee houses, libraries, or other public places you’ll be visiting in the next few days.

The postcard above is in the mail - with many more still in the ONSLRG office

It’s also not too late to help out on the day of the tour as a volunteer.  We still have openings for house greeters, registration area workers, balloon inflaters and distributors, and many more exciting positions.  All volunteers receive complimentary lunch, a free ticket to the tour, and an invitation to the after-party.  Call the ONSLRG office at 314-241-5031 or send an email to jane@onsl.org if you can join us for a few hours on the day of the tour.  And if you just want to purchase a ticket (or a dozen), you can do so right here - without having to get up from your computer.

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Art Lovers, Rehabbers, Clean-up Volunteers, & Crown Candy Fans Converge on Old North

Just another busy week in Old North St. Louis, with crowds of visitors and friends of the neighborhood gathering at various spots throughout Old North to celebrate the many ways the community is experiencing a comprehensive revitalization.

On Friday evening, Old North St. Louis Restoration Group hosted an Art Exhibit and Artist Reception at the former Parks Drug Store Building, as a preview of what is soon to come to the Crown Village Gallery, which will be located within ONSLRG’s new space at 2700 N. 14th Street.

Quilt artist Edna Patterson-Petty discusses the stories behind her quilts.

Carmelita Nunez and Daniel Shown answer questions about their work featured at the exhibit.

Rehabbers Club Tour of ONSL, earlier today:

Graham (on the stairs) and V. Lane (leaning against the white post) discuss the progress in converting the former Ford Charcoal warehouse on North Market to live/work space.

Heidi Sever greets visitors to the home she and her husband Ben are rehabbing on N. 19th Street

Ben Sever shows off the back part of the house, including the new wall.

Starting with the ONSL Neighborhood Clean-up Day on Saturday, March 14th, residents took to the streets, vacant lots, and community gardens to clear debris, weeds, and trash that had accumulated over the winter.  On Saturday and throughout the week, this work was supplemented by volunteer support from high school and college students on spring break, under the direction of New City Fellowship.

Volunteers at the Hebert Community Garden

And the usual spring / pre-Easter season lines out the door at Crown Candy Kitchen all week long:

Crown Candy continues to attract new and returning visitors from far and wide for their world-famous ice cream, candy, BLT sandwiches, malts, and much more.

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