Strong storms this past weekend have dealt a major setback to the efforts to preserve the historic Mullanphy Emigrant Home in the Old North St. Louis neighborhood.
What began last year as an emergency project to save one of the city's most historic buildings, became a fate uncertain now with the structural integrity of the Mullanphy severely weakened.
The Historic Mullanphy Alliance, an ad hoc coaliton of city organizations, formed this year to work together across neighborhood boundaries to preserve the building. The effort was gaining momentum just as this latest setback occurred.
The immediate future of the building is unknown. There will certainly be an updated assessment of its structural condition. After the initial damage in 2006, the building was nearly demolished for public safety purposes. Facing a huge challenge, the Old North St. Louis Restoration Group intervened, taking on the responsibility of the building and its preservation.
The effort to preserve the Mullanphy has significance beyond one building. The larger challenge we face is how to elevate the cause of historic preservation beyond ad hoc initiatives to one with sustainable funding and a physical development strategy.
Maybe there is greater potential for the Historic Mullanphy Alliance than we first believed?
(photograph courtesy of Michael Allen, Ecology of Absence)
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