Losing It

My goodness, I hate passing the corner of Cass and Florissant and seeing a strange mess of masonry rubble where before the Brecht Butcher Supply Company buildings stood. It's getting harder to know when I'm back home. I hate to engage in outbursts of emotion, but I feel that this problem is pretty logical: the loss of tangible landmarks erodes a living environment to the point of unfamiliarity.

Do you want to pass by daily a pile of rubble that may stay a vacant lot for years?

Do you want to look through that rubble and see intact and recognizable parts of the building?

Do you want to deal with the failure of any legal authority to protect the sanctity of place?

This was no mere run of the mill (method) building. The Brecht buildings were among the finest of the near north side's industrial buildings, and completely worth the loss of reputation I risked to defend them. Additionally, they defined the southern portal of my neighborhood, Old North St. Louis. Without them, I have a vacant lot as a grave and -- perhaps surprising -- more energy to resist the next assault on my neighborhood. I'm not angry, I'm agitated -- and that leads to action.

Destruction of the North Side Continues

The Brecht Butcher Supply Company Buildings on February 26.

Watching the Brecht Demolition

Every morning comes one of the many internal negotiations of the day: Do I pass by the Brecht Butcher Supply Company buildings on my way to work?

I have a few choices for routes to work, so passing by the buildings is not necessary. However, as wrecking work progresses, I have to deal with the innate curiosity. How much further have the wreckers progressed? What does the column on that floor of that section look like now that it's exposed? And so forth. These are questions that I consider not only for my own curiosity but because I'm bound to get a few (and I mean very few in this case, given what side of Delmar these buildings are on) questions.

Most days, I take the hard route and pass by. Sometimes, I linger for awhile. The smiling workers are busy putting bricks up on pallets, knocking wall sections down. I watch, but only once have I photographed the scene. Usually, I am compelled to take a few photographs of demolitions, because the recorded details are useful for later research. This time, I have been slow to record what has to be one of the greatest buildings to be demolished in St. Louis since the Century Building.

Perhaps my lack of urgency comes from my deep personal disgust at this senseless loss -- one I haven't felt much before. Perhaps it comes from the fact that these buildings never received the preservation battle that they deserved. (Has any building in recent years?) Most likely, both. In the face of business as usual, investment in observing great loss alone can seem pointless.

I suppose that I will take the camera with me tomorrow, though.

Brecht Butcher Supply Buildings Under Demolition; Permit Altered

Two weeks ago, the A.G. Mack Contracting Company began wrecking the Brecht Butcher Supply Company Buildings at the northeast corner of Cass and Florissant avenues in Old North St. Louis. The historic buildings, owned by Blairmont Associates LC (30% owned by developer Paul J. McKee, Jr.), have sat empty since their purchase by the current owner in 2005. On October 6, 2006, a large fire struck the buildings and caused extensive but not insurmountable damage.

On October 31, 2006, the city's Building Division issued an emergency demolition permit for the eastern two buildings of the three-building group. According to demolition inspectors, the two-story western building was to be spared while the other buildings would be wrecked with city money.

Then, suddenly, salvagers removed the cornice from the two-story section beginning January 8. Demolition started on the two-story section, and a complaint to the city led to information from Demolition Supervisor Sheila Livers stating that all three building would be wrecked.

The city's Geo St. Louis website shows that the original wrecking permit issued October 31, 2006 was replaced by a new one issued January 12, 1007.

The reason for the change is unknown. Obviously, the loss of the two larger buildings would have diminished the visual impact of the two-story building. Yet leaving some part -- a part not at all damaged by the fire -- of the historic row would have been better than nothing.

(Photograph from February 8, 2007. Most of the two-story section is demolished now.)

Brecht Butcher Supply Company Demolition Told Slant

As I watch progress on the demolition of the Brecht Butcher Supply Company buildings, I hear music in my mind:

I sit at my table and wage war on myself
It seems like it's all, it's all for nothing
I know the barricades, and
I know the mortar in the wall breaks
I recognize the weapons, I used them well

This is my mistake. Let me make it good
I raised the wall and I will be the one to knock it down
- R.E.M., "World Leader Pretend"

I think: A priceless cultural treasure falls to the folly of a mortal vision?

What folly...

Why do I shed a tear? Why do I take offense? Why do I dare publish an opinion on a matter ignored by most every upright citizen?

Let me put it this way: Imagine that you live in a world with limited resources. There can only be so many beautiful things, so many bricks made, so many walls built. The beautiful buildings have aged and show imperfection, but are still lovely and give you great joy. Then, all of a sudden, one of the buildings disappears. You miss it as you pass by its site, but you quickly look at the other great buildings. Later in the week, another building falls. Then another, and another until your walks through your own neighborhood begin to seem like intrusions into a forbidden world of darkness. The world is newly strange, and a bit terrifying. When the remaining buildings begin to breathe life again, and find new owners, you catch a goog look at hope that this dark world will be transformed.

Then, all of a sudden, an intruder arrives. Although the old cycle of destruction is over, this person doesn't seem to care. He takes the remaining buildings -- the ones eyed by your friends as future homes -- and he evicts their occupants, allows their ornament to be stripped, lets them fall over. Strange fires happen, and uncertainty returns to a reborn landscape. You cry out, but no one pays you heed as they navigate their comfortable landscapes. The intruder wears a mask and laughs at your plight. The worst part about all of this is that this is the finite world. When the last beautiful building falls, so goes the beauty in this world.

What terror...

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.

Hope for the Brecht Butcher Supply Company Buildings

We have added more information about the Brecht Butcher Supply Company Buildings. There's good news based on inspection -- the buildings can be saved.

Check out our reports:

Post-Fire Structural Assessment by Michael R. Allen

Post-Fire Photographic Evidence

Examples of Buildings Stabilized After Collapse

And, should the buildings fall, here's a fitting tribute:

Eulogy for the Brecht by Barbara Manzara

Our City

Such architectural beauty and refined historic masonry as found in St. Louis is not easy to find in other American cities. We who dwell here in the city are surrounded by wonderful sights free for the intake. On a walk to work, or a drive to the grocery store, we pass hundreds of buildings that uplift our aesthetic sensibilities. Unlike new, glamorous architecture, which unfortunately is segregated in the wealthier parts of St. Louis, the historic architecture abounds everywhere people live.

Such a cultural resource needs to good stewardship, and often we fail to provide that. As we conclude one year and start another, we hould reflect upon what we all can do to steward one of the world's most important architectural collections: the city of St. Louis.

Photo: Brecht Butcher Supply Company Buildings, 1201 Cass Avenue.

Demolition Permit Issued for Brecht Butcher Supply Buildings

On October 31, the city issued an emergency demolition permit for the burned part of the Brecht Butcher Supply Company Buildings. The contract supposedly has been let to Bellon Wrecking. Oddly enough, the burned section has been left unsecured since the devastating fire last month. There has been no fence around the building, and the permit didn't come until three weeks after the fire.

While I am upset to see the building go, I am also upset that the Building Division did not see fit to order the owners to erect a fence or board up a building that was condemned on October 10 and was in terrible, dangerous condition inside. The building is directly across Cass Avenue from the Greyhound Station, too, making its post-fire appearance a rather sour introduction to this city.

When a building this large has such a terrible fire, safety precautions should be taken until renovation or demolition can begin. It's an insult to residents of the near northside than neither the Building Division nor Blairmont Associates LC -- which can afford to finance millions of dollars in property purchases -- did not see fit to secure the burned buildings.

Hopefully, the demolition site will be secure although I doubt it. I also hope that the wreckers only demolish the fire-damaged center section, and leave the flanking buildings standing. Even though the remaining buildings will look strange severed from the connector, there is no need to lose all of them. Cass Avenue needs some architectural stability, and given how little historic fabric remains it is very reasonable to preserve what is left.

Terra Cotta on the Move

According to a neighbor, a missing piece of the terra cotta cornice of the Brecht Butcher Supply Company buildings now resides in front of the firehouse at the northwest corner of Blair and Salisbury in Hyde Park. The buildings burned last Friday.