At the Preservation Board Today

The agenda for today's St. Louis Preservation Board meeting contains some interesting items. Under the item "4104-54 DeTonty" we find that McBride and Son is pushing its Botanical Heights scheme southward, and has actually learned a lesson or two -- McBride wants to retain some of the existing buildings on the block. Still, McBride wants to level two great Craftsman-style four-flats that, while derelict, are structurally stable enough for rehab (and vastly superior in materials and detail to any new houses I've seen in the city). Under "4008 N. 25th Street" -- one of two Hyde Park items on the agenda -- the Cultural Resources staff is urging preservation of a sound, small fachwerk (part brick, part timber) building that Alderman Freeman Bosley wants demolished.