‘Landmarks’ at 50 has become landmark in it own right
Paint being from the brick facade of a house in the 1800 block of Pestalozzi Street in Benton Park in 2003. (Andrew Cutraro/Post-Dispatch
Landmarks Association of St. Louis — one of the premier historic preservation and advocacy groups in the nation — will celebrate its 50th anniversary later this month.
Festivities began with gala dinner Saturday night and it wasn’t just a party. It showcased Palladium St. Louis, a part of the fabulous restoration of City Hospital — another in the long list of historic St. Louis properties put back to productive use in part because of the organization’s support.
Landmarks has been at the center of every high-profile preservation battle in St. Louis for half a century. Some were won, others were lost. Collectively, the legacy of those battles now makes the community mindful and fiercely protective of its architectural heritage.
The result has been historic preservation as economic development, with hundreds of millions of dollars put toward revitalizing housing and commercial districts that would be the envy of any great American city.
Contentious preservation battles, however crucial they may have been, obscure what may be Landmarks’ most enduring contribution: the tedious work that transforms preservation beyond good intentions and lofty ideals.
Take the Benton Park neighborhood on St. Louis’ near south side. In the early 1980s, Landmarks developed the 363-page application by which the entire neighborhood — 4,630 acres and 1,668 structures — won designation as a National Historic District. The process involved meticulous study and description of the Greek Revival, Italianate, mansard and craftsman buildings that make up the district.
Benton Park’s designation as a historic district — and the vision to do so — led to the revival of a magnificent, intact and vibrant historic city neighborhood, today home to a diverse community of thousands of people and scores of businesses.
We asked Kevin Kelleher, a longtime Benton Park resident, to identify the neighborhood’s historic and architectural “jewels.” He begged off, said there are “plenty of favorites.” The jewel, he said, is “the collection that makes up the whole.”
Benton Park, like the other buildings and neighborhoods that have been saved, are landmarks, not museum pieces. Preservation has become second nature, thanks to the high ambitions and quiet good work of Landmarks Association of St. Louis.
By far. the greatest preservation victory in downtown St.Louis in our
lifetime was saving Kiel Opera House from half a dozen or more ‘gutting;
attempts. Power and money-in big ‘doses’-were assigned to this in 1998. Kiel was to be disposed of once and for all, to protect the Fox Theater-always to ‘protect’ the Fox.
Landmarks and the Post editorial board remain in ‘grand center’s pocket, while downtown slides off into the muddy river.
The convention hotel is the latest victim (never had a chance) in a city deprived of a downtown performing arts center for nearly 2 decades.
Preserve, protect and promote -Kiel Opera House for 12 years.
And..she is still here. Celebrate.
Mazel tov! Keep up the good work!
(any chance we could get Obama and Congress to roll back Reagan’s 1986 restrictions on the national historic tax credit?)
“golterman” is obsessed with “a performing arts center” downtown, so much so that he [she?] even posted on a baseball board on this site, his [her?] obsession is so unfocused.
Midtown has been slouis’s traditional entertainment/theatre area, and was a glorious one, once upon a time. It still has a natural street/topography advantage to make it a center once again. Sadly, several of the fine theatre venues were stupidly destroyed over the years, like other slouis landmarks [The Arena, Busch Stadium, destroying 2/3 of Kiel and appending a tumor to it, now the attempted rape of the Arch grounds - none of which were saved by this landmarks association]. But Midtown is in somewhat of a comeback phase, and that’s good for the city. Dunno what “golterman”’s personal investment is in a downtown performing arts center, but it’s tilting windmills.