Jackson Park Improvements in Progress

One of Old North’s great amenities is the easy access to green space, with almost every household in the neighborhood within a couple blocks of a community garden or a public park.  One of those spaces, Jackson Park, is in the midst of some much needed sprucing up, thanks to a great deal of community input and some funding secured by Alderwoman April Ford Griffin.

The original circular portion of Jackson Park is being prepared for new plantings, while a new playground is rising in the area that has been added to the park.

The new playground equipment is installed and nearly ready for neighborhood children.

The work under way right now reflects the ideas and suggestions put forth by ONSL residents at community meetings coordinated by Old North St. Louis Restoration Group in April of 2008.  The neighborhood comments and reactions were collected by architect and Old North resident John Burse who drew up a plan and submitted it to the Alderwoman and the City’s Parks Department.  To their credit, these city officials took the community input seriously and made changes to the original plans.

The revised plan, as submitted to the city after significant community discussion.

ONSL residents Tom Tschetter and Joe Sweet discuss Jackson Park at the community meeting in April of 2008.

According to the book, “From Village to Neighborhood: A History of Old North St. Louis” by Miranda Rabus Rectenwald and Andrew Hurley, “Jackson Place, dedicated as a recreational park, is the second oldest park in all of St. Louis.”

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The History & Transformation of ONSL, as seen in one building

2601 N. 14th Street, from 1875, as part of a thriving, mixed-use community (below)… to abandonment and deterioration in recent years (below)…

to its renewed lease on life, in the midst of full historic rehabilitation as part of the Crown Square redevelopment of the former 14th Street Mall (below).

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The Attraction of Historic Neighborhoods

One of the benefits of preserving historic neighborhoods is that generations of former residents and their descendants can return to the old neighborhood for visits to reminisce or re-connect with the places, flavors, and scenes of important family events that don’t quite come alive in black and white pictures. That is especially true in Old North St. Louis where busloads of visitors and tourists line up outside the doors of Crown Candy Kitchen on a daily basis.On Saturday, ONSL welcomed back a number of graduates of the old St. Michael’s Catholic School which once occupied the building that is now home to Greater Leonard Missionary Baptist Church on 11th Street. St. Michaels was a grade school, and for a portion of its history a high school, for St. Michael’s parish. Established in 1849 as an Irish parish, the original church was demolished to make way for Interstate 70 in the 1950s; after the church was torn down, the school building was converted to the parish’s worship space before the parish was closed and consolidated with another parish in 1975. Although gone for more than 30 years now, St. Michael’s School lives on in the memories of its former students who had a chance to walk the halls of their alma mater, thanks to the hospitality of staff from Greater Leonard church, including Ella Owens.

Above: Sister Maura Therese made the trip from Omaha, Nebraska, to meet with St. Michael’s graduates Tony Michalak, Idalla Koch, Bernice Siros, Anne Greco Schwartz, and Floyd Walker, who took advantage of the opportunity to sit in the desks of one of their old classrooms.

Back in the Old North St. Louis Restoration Group office, the St. Michael’s grads, who had been children in ONSL during the ’30s and ’40s, viewed exhibits at the Old North St. Louis Community History Museum and crossed paths with other former residents who had grown up in ONSL during the ’60s. The Horne sisters had lived at 1441 St. Louis Avenue and 3206 N. 19th Street and returned to the neighborhood from south city, Fredericktown, MO, and Albuquerque, when they discovered the Community History Museum. All of the visitors exchanged stories of the good old days of businesses and community activities along a vibrant 14th Street and shared the excitement about the redevelopment in progress that will bring life back to 14th Street.

Above: The “Horne Girls”: Mary Dodd, Ellen Malon, and Theresa Jumper.

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Old North on MayorSlay.com

Old North St. Louis is the subject of the most recent St. Louis Traffic video on MayorSlay.com. St. Louis Traffic is a series of videos produced by Carson Minow. Interviews include ONSLRG Executive Director Sean Thomas and neighborhood residents Michael Allen and Johnnie Owens. You can download the video directly here, or check out the rest of the videos here.

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Mall Construction Update

Boom lift ready for masonry work on Warren.

Mantle to be saved.

Matt Bivens, Historic Preservation Specialist at RHCDA, collecting trim samples and gathering other historic materials from a building on 14th St.

Historic Stairway to be saved.

Large tree trunk from behind buildings on 14th St.

Before pictures to highlight just how dramatic the transformation will be.

Interesting writings inside one of the buildings.

Private development across from some of the soon to be renovated buildings on 14th St.

Nearly Gutted

Neighbors checking out the progress.

Taking a break from the extreme heat.

One of many dumpsters being filled up with debris from the interiors.

More tree clearance

Matt Bivens removing historic moldings from a building on 14th St.

Matt Bivens and Kevin From E.M. Harris remove more historic moldings from 1414 Warren.

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Mullanphy Concert

Another concert to benefit the historic Mullanphy Emigrant Home effort will be held Friday, August 17, at 8:00 pm. The concert will feature The Bearded Babies, Red-Headed Strangers, and The Monads, and will be held at the Tin Ceiling, 3159 Cherokee (corner of Compton and Cherokee). You can get in the door for a mere $7.00, and all proceeds will go towards further stabilization and rebuilding of Mullanphy. Even if you can’t make the concert, you can learn more about the Mullanphy Emigrant Home and make a tax-deductible donation anytime at www.savemullanphy.org.

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Mullanphy Timeline

This “collage” was put together to send out with an update letter that will be going to everyone that has donated to the Mullanphy Emigrant Home stabilization effort thus far. Pictures range from the original building as it was in the 1870’s to the work that was done up to just a few days ago. If you would like to contribute, visit www.savemullanphy.org.

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Summer in Old North

Picture are back after a week of vacation. Enjoy.

Scaffolding along the Hebert streetscape.

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Summer In Old North

After a series of problems including no internet access from the office for three days, photos are back. To make up for the delay, I am going to include several from the last few days in this post. Enjoy.

View of the City Museum from Old North.

Garden area along St. Louis Ave. with a curiously placed fire hydrant.

Planting a new lawn at one of the brand new homes on North Market. Click the link to find out how you can build a new house here.

Confluence Academy’s Old North St.Louis Campus expansion quickly taking shape.

New mural on the mall recently installed by The Urban Studio.

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Farewell to a Neighborhood Institution

Day 25 of “45 Days in Old North”

Last night the St. Louis Board of Education voted to approve closing Webster Middle School at 2127 N. 11th Street. For more than a century and a half, the plot of land at 11th and Clinton has been dedicated to public education, and the school buildings that have occupied the site have served as architectural landmarks in the community. Now, the future of the building and the use of that space are unknown. The school system intends to sell the building.

The following description was prepared by the Old North St. Louis History Committee for the Old North St. Louis History Trail:

Clinton Place and Webster School
Clinton Place was established as one of the three circular spaces laid out by the founding fathers of Old North St. Louis–Major William Chambers, Thomas Wright and William Christy. This southernmost circle was set aside for a “seminary of learning,” a goal that was achieved with the construction of Webster School in 1852. Daniel Webster, the school’s namesake, was a famous statesman and orator, as well as a former visitor to the neighborhood. Fifteen years earlier, a reception in his honor had been held at William Christy’s mansion on Monroe Street.

Webster School, at 2127 N. 11 th Street, was among the first schools in the city to introduce German language instruction in the 1860s as part of an effort to increase attendance among immigrant children. The experiment in bilingual education was controversial, but it succeeded in boosting public school enrollment. Webster School, which hired two German language teachers in 1867, boasted attendance rates that were among the highest in the city. By the turn-of-the-century, enrollment figures had reached the point where a larger building was needed. In 1908, the School Board oversaw the construction of the present structure, which was designed by William Ittner, a nationally renowned architect. Standing four stories in height, the school building was enhanced by the use of textured brick in various shades of red.

When the St. Louis Board of Aldermen decided to abandon the plot’s unique design in 1932, Clinton Place became the first of neighborhood’s three circles to disappear. Now smoothed over by the modern necessity of a school parking lot, the original circular lot afforded to Clinton Place by the Old North St. Louis founders remains only in historical memory.

We’ll post the details of how and when Webster School will be sold when they become available.

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