Vultures Picking the Brecht Butcher Supply Company Buildings

For the past three days, workers have been removing the terra cotta parapet of the western building at the Brecht Butcher Supply Company buildings. The same workers also may have been involved with the removal last week of many sections of ornate paneling from the ground floor of the eastern, original building. These workers are not part of the Z & L Wrecking crew that will be working on the rest of the buildings.

There is not a demolition permit for the western building. A friend of mine actually called the police on these workers two days ago, and they apparently supplied a permit to the police. However, the Geo St. Louis website lists no such permit for this address -- only a permit to wreck the other two buildings.

What folly that these vultures are picking parts of a building not even being wrecked. I hesitate to use the word "salvagers" to describe these guys because salvage is the art of recovering items threatened by loss. True salvage is honest work, and true salvagers -- such as our town's admirable Larry Giles and Chicago's late Richard Nickel -- are preservationists doing work they'd rather not have to do.

This has been written before, but here it is again: what sort of city would let its cultural wealth be systematically decimated? The work of the Brecht's raiders is but one instance in a total assault on large sections of metropolitan St. Louis. The Brecht buildings are an interesting crossroads of the forces within this assault: it's a vacant building on the near northside owned by Paul McKee's company Blairmont Associates LC, damaged by fire and condemned by the city's Building Division, targeted for years for demolition by the Missouri Department of Transportation for the Mississippi River Bridge project and left to die by city planners.