Let's Save This Landmark! (Click on the image for a larger view)
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STL Rising is a blog dedicated to the renaissance of the City of St. Louis. It's a place to discuss issues and possibilities, all in the spirit of promoting the continuing progress of this great metropolis of the Mississippi Valley.
8 comments:
Rick:
I certainly do applaud your interest - and the interest of others - in raising money to try to save the Mullanphy Emigrant Home. When I moved to my inner-city neighborhood many years ago, there was a demolition problem. After fighting demolitions - with considerable expenditure of energy and time - a conclusion was reached: it would be more efficient to find caretakers for neighborhood buildings by creating demand for these buildings. So we developed a marketing program to sell the neighborhood (and its irreplaceable buildings). Lafayette Square and Soulard had effective marketing programs that were started in the 1970's and which contributed in the early years in attracting caring (and contributing) residents and property owners. Unfortunately, Old North St. Louis never seemed interested in marketing its assets. This is unfortunate, since the time to save the Mallanphy Emigrant Home was 20 to 30 years ago. Old North St. Louis is not alone in missing the boat. The lesson is lost on other neighborhoods even today. There are still many problems facing River City neighborhoods. Many of these problems could best be addressed by having an aggressive program to attact residents who care about neighborhood assets, architectural or otherwise, and who are willing to contribute. Otherwise, demolition and redevelopment prevails. Too late (and from too few) come protests about abuse of imminent domain and demolition. Good luck with the fundraiser, and I hope something useful and contributing can be done with the building.
Dear Anonymous-
The ONLS is doing neighborhood marketing. They have a house tour coming up soon (they've been doing these for years with ever-growing turnouts), and they are attracting residents who are making major contributions and rehabbing old buildings.
They also have about $50,000,000 in historic rehab and new construction of both homeownership and affordable rental housing under development. The 14th Street Mall is readying for a total renovation.
The buzz is there, with writeups in popular St. Louis magazines frequently citing ONSL as one of the region's up and coming neighborhoods.
They have tons of neighborhood involvement. They're working on both the physical and social dimensions of the neighborhood.
And they have a strong community-based development organization in the Old North St. Louis Restoration Group.
In many ways, they are repeating the model established in Soulard and Lafayette Square.
The Mullanphy effort is a huge challenge. If you're read this far, please be sure to send them a contribution of whatever amount you can afford. It's 501(c)3 tax deductible.
Can someone tell me why its at the bottleworks in Maplewood and not the Taproom? It would seem to make more sense to me.
Do you think the organizers would raise more money if they held the event at the Tap Room? That's all this is about.
The beers are the same in both places, and the Bottleworks is closer to more of the city's and the region's population than the Tap Room.
Why are we debating this anyway? It's about the Mullanphy's preservation, not whether a check is originated in the city or the county.
The Taproom was the first thought as far as I know, but I would assume the Bottleworks was chosen for the larger space. And does it really matter? I don't think so.
Rick, ONSL has "buzz" but what about numbers? How many new residents moved in last year?
That's all that really matters.
After all, Hyde Park had plenty of "buzz" in the late 1970's...
It's hard to accurately document population growth in a neighborhood in years between censes (is that a word?)...
However, as neighborhood resident Barbara Manzara points out, there is virtually zero vacancy in occupiable buildings in ONSL.
Further, with lots of new apartments and homes coming on line in the North Market Place Homes and the CONECT St. Louis/North Market Place Apartments developments, along with a number of other projects, it's likely that the population is in fact growing.
Since Samuel asked: Can someone tell me why its at the bottleworks in Maplewood and not the Taproom?
The answer is simple: this fundraiser has come together very quickly (over the past 8 days) in response to an urgent need for funds to stabilize the storm-damaged building. The Tap Room was not available for this coming Saturday and the kind people at Schlafly offered free use of the space at the Bottleworks. We were more than happy to accept their generosity.
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