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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5 Houses For-Sale in ONSL Will Be Open Friday Evening

In yet another demonstration of ONSL’s diverse range of housing options, you can take a look at 5 homes that are for sale in different parts of the neighborhood on Friday evening from 5:30-7:30 p.m. Three realtors with listings in ONSL - Circa Properties, McAvoy Realty and ReMax Results - have joined forces to host an evening of open houses.

As their promotional materials put it, the event is designed “to offer an opportunity to experience what the Old North St. Louis neighborhood is all about: diverse living options in an inspirational, redeveloping neighborhood on St. Louis’ near north side! With downtown visible from many homes’ doorsteps, the ONSL neighborhood is the place to be, and now is the time to learn more and select your new home before the secret’s out of the bag! the Old North St. Louis neighborhood is all about: diverse living options in an inspirational, redeveloping neighborhood on St. Louis’ near north side! With downtown visible from many homes’ doorsteps, the ONSL neighborhood is the place to be, and now is the time to learn more and select your new home before the secret’s out of the bag!”

Houses open Friday evening include two recently completed homes at North Market Place, 1319 and 1331 North Market, and three historically rehabbed homes at 1208 Hebert, 1412 Hebert, and 2833 N. 14th.

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Crown Square Project Update

The winter weather continues to slow exterior work, but interior work is progressing quickly on the Crown Square project. Four units on the 1300 block of Warren are very close to occupancy (the units open Saturday, detailed in the above post), with many more making quick progress. Masons, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, tapers, and more can be found all over the Crown Square site.

As always, many more pictures are available on the Old North St. Louis Flickr Page in the Crown Square Set.

View of the Arch from 14th St. just north of Warren.

View of the arch and 14th St. from the 2800 block of 14th St.

Looking north on 14th St from the middle of the 2600 block.

Work along the 1400 block of Montgomery.

Historic stairway in 1310 Warren.

Rear side of 1308 Montgomery. Windows are in place and mason is working on east side.

Kitchen inside 1310 Montgomery.

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Crown Square Construction Update

While the weather continues to be cold and stormy, progress on Crown Square has pushed on. Interior demo has progressed to more buildings, and the carpentry, masonry, and mechanicals crews have quickly moved in. Some of the units on Warren are nearly completed, needing only finishing touches.

You can see a bunch more photos from Tuesday and the entire project on our Flickr page in the Crown Square Set.

Renovation Progress on the former mall.

View down the 2800 block of N. 14th toward the north end of the former mall.

View of one of the kitchens on Warren.

Tuckpointing progress at St. Louis and Blair.

Framing inside the Peter’s Dry Goods building (& former JCPenney’s).

Buildings on Warren getting closer to completion.

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Crown Square Construction Update

A bit of snow and some bitterly cold whether has not stopped progress on the Crown Square Project. Concrete work, framing, demo, and trim work among other tasks have gone ahead full steam. The buildings on Warren are receiving final details such as historic trim, while buildings on the mall are well underway in demo and rebuilding. As you can see below, the Worths in the terrazzo at the entrance to the new ONSLRG office has been salvaged to be a part of the community history museum.

More pictures are available in the Crown Square set on our Flickr Page.

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Great Ideas, Energy, & Dialogue at Crown Square Charrette

Despite frigid temperatures and a last-minute change of location, a strong contingent of about 60 ONSL residents, stakeholders, outside friends, and partners of Old North showed up on Saturday at the North Market Apartments Community Room for the public spaces planning charrette. Our new ONSLRG office camera captured some video of the team presentations, so stay tuned for a later post with a link to some of the highlights. In the meantime, the photos below show glimpses of the healthy exchange of ideas that took place among the participants.

The program began with a welcome from 5th Ward Alderwoman April Ford Griffin who commended ONSLRG for its determination and vision, as evidenced by the preservation in progress at the Mullanphy Emigrant Home, despite great hurdles and doubts from outside skeptics. After introductory comments, the participants were divided into 5 teams, each with a mix of neighborhood residents and design or planning professionals. By early afternoon, the teams had come up with long lists of suggestions, ideas, and drawings of what could be done to promote sustainability while connecting the former pedestrian mall to the broader neighborhood in a way that can be attractive, safe, and dynamic. At the conclusion of the team presentations, each individual placed colorful sticky dots next to the ideas that appealed to them the most.

We’ll post more later on the many great ideas recommended by participants, but some of the most popular concepts (based on preliminary tabulation of sticky-dot votes) included proposals to:

-bring more of the activities of the buildings outside through use of French balconies on the buildings and rooftop patios;

-promote building density by building on empty lots or even through “temporary liner buildings”;

-use public art and/or water features in a way that is interactive (with the example of the “Jumping Waters” at Missouri Botanical Garden);

- knit the former mall into the original street grid of the neighborhood by extending development beyond the 2600 and 2700 blocks of N. 14th, from North Market on the south up to Wright Street on the north;

-establish a bike-focused park and ride section in the parking lot with bike racks and bicycle rentals (or even free “rentals”) to promote bicycle usage and connectivity to bike lanes and other nearby bike-friendly amenities, such as the Riverfront Trail and the planned redevelopment of the Iron Horse Trestle elevated trail;

-build “soft curbs” along 14th Street to allow for flexibility in uses, from parking lanes to street festivals and farmers markets during times when the street could be closed off.

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Mullanphy Wall Rising

Last week finally provided a break in the weather for the masons to work on the south wall of the Mullanphy Emigrant Home. Concrete block has now been laid up to the second floor. While this is great progress, there is still a long way to go before the Mullanphy Building is safe.

If you would like to help out with the effort to rebuild the Mullanphy Emigrant Home, please visit SaveMullanphy.org. There you can find out how you can donate to the effort, as well as check out the amazing progress that has already been made. Any contribution you can make to the effort is greatly appreciated, no matter how small, or large. You can also see images of the progress on our Flickr page under the Mullanphy Tab.

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Crown Square Construction Update

We took a break from Crown Square updates over the holiday’s, but the construction workers have not. Plenty of work has happened since December. Interior demo is evident throughout the mall. Framing and brickwork is underway on many buildings. Mechanicals are being installed on some buildings. Windows are finally in the buildings on Warren. Kitchen cabinets and historic trim have been installed. Sidewalks have been poured.

Don’t forget about the Charette for public space planning for the mall. It’s this Saturday, starting at 9:00 am at Confluence Academy. More information, including how to RSVP can be found here.

You can see many more pictures on our Flickr page under the Crown Square Tab.

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Crown Square Construction Update

Work on the transformation of the 14th St. Mall into Crown Square is now in full swing with demolition on both ends of the mall. Elsewhere on the site, buildings continue to span the spectrum. Some on Warren are just waiting for windows, others are still in the masonry and carpentry stage. Rough ins continue on several buildings as well as insulation and drywall. The weather lately has slowed progress a little, but things are still moving right along.

As always, more photos are available on our Flickr page in the Crown Square set. Newest pictures are first.

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Scaffolding at Mullanphy

Yes, that really is scaffolding you see on the south end of the Mullanphy Emigrant Home. The Masonry Contractors Association will now be going up in the air closing up the openings with concrete block. This will hopefully take away the immediate threat to the building. However, there is still a long way to go on this project. All this work is doing is laying concrete block. Face brick and plenty more work is needed. To learn more about how you can help or just learn more about the Mullanphy Emigrant Home, head over to SaveMullanphy.org. The resources donated so far have been depleted to accomplish this work, so the preservation effort is very much in need of your help. Tell your friends and neighbors.

Check out more photos from yesterday as well as the last year and a half on our Flickr Page in the Mullanphy Set.

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