Artifact from old Laclede Gas Buidling

Update below

Larry Giles is the kind of person you learn about when you read a 20,000 word piece by John McPhee in The New Yorker — and when you’re finished you stand back and marvel at his monumental enterprise.

Fruits of Giles’ singular work were stolen over the past week by common thieves who broke into a Soulard warehouse.

Specifically, about 1,500 pounds of antique bronze and brass hardware were taken.

The list of items seems pedestrian: door knobs, door plates, door locks, elevator directional lights, revolving door hardware, sliding door pulls and the like — neatly packed in more than a dozen gray plastic totes.

But in reality (as the photos of items similar to those stolen reveal) they are elegant salvage and rare evidence of St. Louis’ and the nation’s great manufacturing age.

The items at large likely are being peddled to antique dealers and scrap yards.

Giles has offered a $2,000 reward for information leading to their recovery. Detective Carl Dulay of the South Patrol Division is on the case (444-0148/cpdulay@slmpd.org).

But I wonder whether the old coalition that so nobly and creatively fought demolition of The Century Building can be resurrected to help reverse this theft of history — posting wanted signs, canvassing potential fences, real and unwitting, notifying collectors, police agencies, and other interested parties nationally.

It’s fair to wonder, Why should we care?

Consider this:

Giles, a St. Louisan (he grew up in the Central West End), has accumulated hundreds of thousands of historic architectural artifacts — high industrial art forged from steel, carved from stone, formed from glass, bronze, brass and clay, remnants of great buildings and manufacturing palaces rescued by him from oblivion, piece by piece, meticulously kept in hand made, custom cases he constructed, filling a campus of ancient, East Side warehouses, floor to ceiling, in the shadow of Downtown.

These are supplemented by over 40,000 pieces of literature detailing the history, methods of manufacture, fabrication and use of such materials.

Bob Cassilly’s magnificent City Museum has the best known local collection architectural artifacts. But it is microscopic in scale compared to Giles’ Herculean curation and catalogue.

Giles leads the St. Louis Building Arts Foundation, which has fantastic dreams for building a national repository of building artifacts and learning center (including a degree program) for building preservation.

In Quixotic terms, Giles has accomplished the hard part. He’s slain  (or, better yet, saved) the Windmill. For now he’s keeping the spoils on ice, as he searches for an angel.

Larry Giles, in other words, has earned the right to ask for an assist in getting the stolen stuff back.

Update: Mr. Giles emailed me that he received word from the police last night that one of the burglars is in custody. Watch for further updates.