A Hub is Born: UrbanSTL

With today's publication of Toby Weiss' excellent essay "Crying Over Spilt Milk: The Suburbs Happened, Get Over It!", urbanSTL now has become the web hub for St. Louis region built environment news and commentary. Okay, this guest article goes along with regular blogging by Alex Ihnen, a blog aggregate feed, a rejuvenated Urban St. Louis Forum, a local urban Wiki, videos and many other features. The weaving, not the strands, make urbanSTL a central source.

Alex is the real spark behind this effort, and his dedication is such that he ceased publishing his own excellent St. Louis Urban Workshop to provide steady content for a new hub site. Last year, Alex sent out a call to bloggers for creating a portal into the ever-expanding sea of online content on development and architecture in the region. This blogger was too time-strapped to join the cause, but Toby and others have helped Alex bring the project to life. Bravo!

Stanley Jones, Midtown Rehabber

Stanley Jones, owner of the Frederick Newton Judson House at 3733 Washington across the street from the Pulitzer, is quite a character. Currently serving as construction manager for the St. Louis Equity Fund and formerly owner of his own rehab company, Stan has worked on rehabbing buildings big and small all over the city. His own house has been his life's work for the past decade and a half, as if his day job was not enough to put him at the heart of renewing his city. Stan is a local treasure, so I was delighted to find this video on the Pulitzer's website, and wanted to share it immediately.

STAN from The Pulitzer on Vimeo.

Untitled Saint Louis Brick Film

Detail of entrance to the Mullanphy Tenement, 2118 Mullanphy Street in St. Louis Place.
Bill Streeter, the video genius behind Lo-Fi St. Louis, is working on a documentary about St. Louis brick known for now as the "Untitled Saint Louis Brick Film". The documentary is funded by the Commission for Access and Local Original Programming (CALOP), local funder of many worthwhile projects. According to the production notes blog, the crew includes Bill Streeter (Director/Producer/Editor), Jeannette Hoss (Managing Producer), Virginia Lee Hunter (Director of Photography) and Greer Lange (Assistant Editor).

Future, Past: Meet the Present

With tomorrow's aldermanic hearing on the NorthSide bills, I think back to September 23. This was the date of the Tax Increment Financing (TIF) Commission's meeting in which that body unanimously approved the TIF for the first two phases of the NorthSide project. I think of that meeting as the "Night of Dichotomy" because just a few block away at Left Bank Books' downtown store was another gathering: a panel discussion sponsored by Next American City called Urbanexus.

I missed most of the Urbanexus panel unsuccessfully trying to get a seat at the TIF Commission, but I know that the panel featured some of our town's best and brightest minds, including moderator Chris King, editorial director for the St. Louis American, Alderman Antonio French (D-21st) and Cherokee Street gadabout Galen Gondolfi. The crowd was as interesting as the panel. The store was jam-packed, with many faces that I had never seen before. Something magical is afoot when the Jeremiah, the Amish hobo of the north riverfront, is one of the most familiar faces in sight!

I don't really recall much from the panel discussion, save Antonio French's rousing call to change the city's zoning code. What I can't stop thinking about was how there was this ideas-focused, future-oriented convergence taking place at the same time and in the same radius as a public meting fraught with the predictable tensions and turmoil of the city's past sixty years. The old scene was mired in age-old divisions and rife with anger, while the new scene was full of ideas but a little disconnected from the harsh reality of civic heavy-lifting.

I was able to plug into the Urbanexus events earlier in the day. My day started with a driving tour of the city that I led with Jeff and Randy Vines. In attendance were Diana Lind and Pooja Shah of Next American City, Sarah Szurpicki of the Great Lakes Urban Exchange, Sharon Carney from the Michigan Suburbs Alliance and Payton Chung of Chicago. The tour was a mad dash starting downtown and winding through everywhere from Old North to Clayton.

Steven Smith, Pooja Shah, Diana Lind, Sharon Carney and Jeff Vines discuss St. Louis at The Royale.

The tour was a hit! Our out of town guests loved the city and its neighborhoods. One comment that came up again and again was how the city neighborhoods have strong identities and how even the most distressed areas retain street life and commercial cores. The tour-goers were very impressed by the north side, which they had read about in relation to the NorthSide project. No one saw the wasteland they had suspected might be there. In fact, the Detroit contingent was a little jealous!

Sarah Szurpicki and the Vines brothers outside of Urban Eats in Dutchtown.
After the tour, there was a lunch meeting called the Vanguard Regional Roundup. Next American City has kindly posted a recap here. That meeting was held at Urban Eats in Dutchtown, the brainchild of John Chen and Caya Aufiero. I left in a mood unwilling to deal with the TIF Commission hearing later that day. We had a great discussion about St. Louis that included not only some usual-suspects locals but people from Chicago, Philadelphia, Asheville and Detroit -- and it was refreshing, insightful, realistic and productive. Then it was back to work. However, work imbued with such deliberation and connection to the outside world felt a little more purposeful.

You know that future we are all talking about? We're building it now.

RFT Throws Spotlight on Esley Hamilton, Preservationist

Esley Hamilton discussed Greek Revival architecture in America at the Chatillon-DeMenil House on September 27.

This week's issue of the Riverfront Times carries a feature article by Aimee Levitt on the inimitable Esley Hamilton, Historian for the St. Louis County Department of Parks and Recreation. The article, entitled "To Preserve and Protect: Esley Hamilton has a boundless passion for St. Louis' architectural past", provides a good overview of Esley's career and contributions to preservation efforts in St. Louis. Esley probably would rather see a feature article on an endangered building, but he's earned the attention.

W. Philip Cotton, Jr. (1932-2009)

Today's passing of W. Philip Cotton, Jr. marks the end of an era. Phil -- born in Columbia, Missouri as William Philip Cotton, Jr. -- was one of St. Louis' early preservation pioneers. An architect by training, Phil became a tireless advocate for historic architecture out of the necessity of his times. After graduating from Princeton in 1954, Phil moved back to St. Louis in time for the urban renewal years.

In 1966, Phil wrote the National Historic Landmark nomination for the Wainwright Building. He also was active in efforts to get Lafayette Square designated as a Historic District in the National register of Historic Places. The 1969 listing of the Square helped prevent plans for a highway that would have destroyed the eastern end of the neighborhood. In this time, Phil was also an outspoken advocate for the reform of city tax laws that rewarded owner inaction in maintenance and discouraged investment.

In 1969, Phil was part of a group of architects, historians and planners that created Heritage/St. Louis. Heritage/St. Louis is one of the early advocates' greatest gifts to future preservationists: a citywide architectural survey conducted by volunteers between 1969 and 1976. Although documentation was simply a photograph, address and short assessment of buildings, the survey allowed for thousands of buildings to be documented -- many for the last time. Heritage/St. Louis' inventory of images from north St. Louis grows valuable every day. Sponsored by the Landmarks Association of St. Louis (on whose board Phil once served) and the City Plan Commission, Heritage St. Louis' daily operations were oversaw by Executive Director Cotton.

The aim of the project, a 500-page book on the city's architecture to be published in the bicentennial year, was never realized. However, the survey sheets -- now in the archives of Landmarks Association -- are a civic treasure. Alongside this work, Phil also saw that architectural drawings for many major St. Louis buildings were microfilmed. One of Phil's greatest contributions to preservation was his understanding of the value of thorough documentation.

Alongside this work in the city, Phil also was active in the county (producing the survey 100 Historic Buildings in St. Louis County in 1970) and the state of Missouri. In the mid 1970s, Phil Cotton drafted the outline of the statewide preservation organization later to become Missouri Preservation. He remain a counselor to that organization until his death.

Phil also championed the city's official landmark program, and nominated the first 35 sites, structures and buildings to receive that designation. The city landmark program granted more than symbolic value or financial aid for preservation, but legal safeguards. Knowing Phil, I am not surprised that he sought the highest protection for the landmarks he valued the most.

Of course, throughout his service to the city and state as an advocate, Phil was an active preservation architect. Among his many restoration projects are the Piper Palm House in Tower Grove Park, the Mark Twain boyhood home in Hannibal, Missouri, the Collins House in Collinsville, Illinois, the Gittemeier House in Florissant, the Saline County Courthouse in Missouri and others. Not surprising, also, that Phil Cotton was an organist and aficionado of classical music whose knowledge was revered by his friends. Phil's interest in architecture seemed to stem from a larger concern about the legacy of culture we all share and must steward.

In recent years, Phil remained as persistent as ever -- even in the face of illness. He continued his service as a trustee of the Steedman Architectural Library of the St. Louis Public Library. He was named to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects in 2002. When I first met Phil a few years ago, he was hard at work on editing a reprint of John Albury Bryan's Lafayette Square, published in 2007. Dogged and principled, opinionated and generous, articulate and fastidious, Phil Cotton left us a legacy to admire and emulate.

(A copy of Phil's 1978 essay "Architectural Space of St. Louis" is online here.)

Talking About McRee Town

Jackie Jones introduces her presentation.

Yesterday afternoon St. Louis University doctoral student Jackie Jones presented her dissertation thesis, "Picturing a Neighborhood: McRee Town in Saint Louis, Missouri," to a crowd at the Royale, 3132 S. Kingshighway. The interesting venue for Jones' presentation and resulting discussion offered a relaxed setting for what remains a controversial topic: the wholesale clearance of six blocks of an urban neighborhood by the Garden District Commision and resulting replacement by new housing. Jones disavowed any stance on the clearance, instead focusing on how images were used to justify the clearance in the press -- and how other images contradict the story told by the Commission's carefully-selected images.

Here's Jones' own description of her presentation:

In 2003, the Garden District Commission demolished more than two hundred buildings on the eastern half of the McRee Town neighborhood in Saint Louis. The Commission, a private coalition headed by officials from the nearby Missouri Botanical Garden, demolished six blocks of historic brick homes and apartment buildings that housed primarily low-income renters and homeowners, relocated hundreds of residents, erected twenty-five acres of market-rate, single-family, suburban-style housing on the cleared land, and ceremoniously renamed the area Botanical Heights. This presentation explores how visual representations of McRee Town between 1998-2003 helped legitimize this urban renewal project and the dislocations it caused in the lives of McRee Town residents. It engages viewers with the photographs of burned-out, boarded-up, weed-infested buildings that populated newspaper reports and public relations documents during these five years, and juxtaposes them with photographs taken by Genevelyn Peters, a McRee Town resident prior to the neighborhood’s destruction. These images – of family, homelife, play, and community – complicate and challenge the dominant understanding of this neighborhood and its residents as criminal and atomized by presenting images that depict a vibrant neighborhood community.

People listen to Jones' making a point.

The people present included someone involved in the decision to clear the six blocks, residents of Botanical Heights (the new housing development), the area's Neighborhood Stabilization Officer Luke Reven and others. While I had to leave before discussion was over, discussion touched on the damaging impact of I-44 construction in the early 1970s, the way in which similar images as those taken in McRee Town galvanized Lafayette Square and Soulard residents to pursue preservation instead of clearance, the deceptive nature of photographs and whether or not the term "suburban" applies to Botanical Heights.

Looking west down McRee Avenue from 39th Street.

On another note, if Royale proprietor Steven Fitzpatrick Smith is attempting to revive the tradition of the discussion salon, count me in!

Missouri Preservation Hires Bill Hart as Field Representative

From Missouri Preservation:

Missouri Preservation is proud to announce that William (Bill) Hart has been hired as its first full-time Field Representative. William brings over fifteen years of hands-on preservation experience to his role as Field Representative. William received his Bachelor of Science degree in Historic Preservation from Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau, Missouri and graduated from the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia with a Master of Arts Degree in Architectural History. William became active in neighborhood preservation issues when he moved to St. Louis in the late 1970s. Through his neighborhood association, he helped to establish a not-for-profit housing corporation to deal with vacant historic buildings. In the 1980s, he worked with Market Preservation, a group which opposed massive demolition of historic buildings in the heart of the downtown. William has restored several historic buildings on his own, and eventually started his own company as a developer and general contractor, specializing in historic buildings. While working as a developer, he received awards from the Dutchtown South Community Corporation, the Home Builders Association of Saint Louis, and the St. Louis Landmarks Association. He has a special interest in documenting vanishing roadside architecture and the preservation of barns and farm buildings in Missouri. William is a native of Perryville, Missouri and currently resides in Saint Louis in the City’s Benton Park Neighborhood.

William will expand the vital outreach services provided by Missouri Preservation and the National Trust for Historic Preservation to communities across the state. As an Official Statewide Partner of the National Trust and Missouri’s statewide historic preservation advocacy and education organization, Missouri Preservation provides information, technical, and strategic advocacy services to empower citizens with the tools needed to preserve their historic resources. William will represent both organizations to provide guidance on a variety of subjects including preservation techniques and approaches, fundraising, organizational development, community relations and politics, community development, and the availability of preservation resources.

The Field Representative position has been funded by a $125,000 challenge grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Entitled Partners in the Field, this matching grant had the specific purpose of providing three years of dedicated funding to expand our outreach by hiring a full-time Field Representative. Missouri Preservation recently completed the fundraising for its $125,000 match. We would like to thank our generous donors for making the expansion of our mission-driven services possible: Great Southern Bank, HBD Construction, Inc., Huebert Builders, Inc., Edward Jones, William T. Kemper Foundation, McGowan Brother Development, Raming Distributions, Inc., Renaissance Development Associates, The Roberts Companies, Stark Wilson Duncan Architects, Inc., and Stupp Bros. Bridge & Iron Co. Foundation.
We are pleased to welcome William to our staff and look forward to the expansion of our field service program. If you have a question about an historic place in your community, please contact the Missouri Preservation office at 573-443-5946. Contact information for William Hart will be listed on our website at www.preservemo.org.

Missouri Preservation, known formally as Missouri Alliance for Historic Preservation, is Missouri’s only statewide non-profit organization dedicated to promoting, supporting, and coordinating historic preservation activities throughout Missouri.

Jeff Mansell is Landmarks Association's New Executive Director

Jefferson Mansell is the new Executive Director of Landmarks Association of St. Louis. Jeff replaces Carolyn Hewes Toft, retiring after 32 years leading our only regional advocacy organization devoted to historic preservation and urban planning. Read more about Jeff below:

St. Louis Beacon: Take Five: Interview with Landmarks' new director

Landmarks Association: Jeff Mansell Named Landmarks’ New Executive Director

Jeff is going to be a great boss!

St. Louis Building Arts Foundation Conservatory Tour on Saturday

Drawing (c. 1955) courtesy of Larry Giles.

The Rehabbers Club presents:

Tour of St. Louis Building Arts Foundation Conservatory

Saturday August 23, 2008
2:00 p.m.

Join us for a very special tour at the Conservatory of the St. Louis Building Arts Foundation led by founder Larry Giles. The Foundation was created in 2002 to help realize Larry's dream of opening a museum of architecture centered on his collection of nearly 300,000 architectural artifacts assembled during a 35-year career as an architectural salvage specialist.

In 2005, the Foundation purchased the former Sterling Steel Casting foundry in Sauget, Illinois. The site, called the Conservatory, will eventually serve as an off-site facility for the architectural museum. Till then it will serve as interim interpretive center and library.

The 15-acre site includes 13 historic foundry buildings built between 1923 and 1959 that the Foundation is rehabbing as the home for Larry's collection, previously stored in four different locations. Larry has already completed an impressive amount of work at the complex and moved over half of the collection there.

Don't miss this rare chance to come inside and see both a marvelous collection of architectural artifacts as well as a one-of-a-kind historic rehabilitation project!

Note: Due to ongoing work, public access is limited and there are no bathroom facilities.

If you'd like to carpool or caravan, meet at 1:30 in the Quiznos parking lot at 1535 South 7th Street in Soulard. Or you can meet us there promptly at 2:00 p.m.

DRIVING DIRECTIONS [for map graphic, approximate address, 2300 Falling Springs Road,
62206]:

1. Take eastbound I-55/I-64 traveling across the Poplar Street Bridge
2. Exit onto southbound Illinois Route 3
3. LEFT turn at Monsanto Avenue
4. RIGHT turn onto Falling Springs Road
5. LEFT turn into parking area at St. Louis Steel Castings foundry

TO RETURN:

1. RIGHT turn onto Falling Springs Road from parking lot
2. LEFT turn onto Monsanto Avenue
3. Right turn onto Illinois Route 3
4. Look for westbound I-55/I-64 [left lane], enter ramp to Poplar Street Bridge

Richard Nickel's Chicago: A Review

This article first appeared in the Winter 2007 issue of the NewsLetter of the Society of Architectural Historians, St. Louis Chapter.

David Norris, friend of photographer, salvager and historian Richard Nickel, once said that "I think what Richard had to teach was that if you find some way to express your deepest convictions, you should exercise that talent to the very utmost of your ability. . .even if it leads somehow to your destruction." Nickel died in 1972 while rescuing interior ornament from Louis Sullivan’s Chicago Stock Exchange building, then under demolition. The attitude toward life’s work that Norris summarizes is readily apparent in the vivid, arresting images in Richard Nickel’s Chicago: Photographs of a Lost City, published at the end of 2006. The book amasses many of Nickel’s images of condemned Louis Sullivan buildings, as well as his glimpses into other long-gone parts of Chicago: Chicagoans enjoying the carnival at Riverview Park; a Loop landscape prior to the Congress Expressway; downtown offices with stenciled lettering on frosted glass doors; youth making a strong show of protest at Grant Park in 1968; other hallmarks of a vibrant urban culture in which the built environment is both backdrop for human action and a pivotal character.

Richard Nickel’s body of work is the result of chance. After serving in the Army immediately after World War II, Nickel was seeking a mission in life and use of the free tuition the GI Bill offered. Newly-divorced, the young man happened upon photography classes at the Institute of Design, founded and directed by Bauhaus transplant László Moholy-Nagy. There his primary instructors were noted photographers Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind. Siskind taught a class in which he assigned his students to photograph the surviving buildings of Louis Sullivan. Because he was draft-exempt, Nickel was put in charge of the students’ efforts and an exhibition held at the Institute in 1954. No matter; the young photographer had enthusiastically taken up his assignment, and took steps that made the study of Sullivan’s architecture his life’s work. Under Siskind’s direction, Nickel embarked upon a still-incomplete book entitled The Complete Architecture of Adler and Sullivan. After completing his courses, Nickel continued the book project but began to get sidetracked. Chicago seemed to be disappearing around him, and Nickel responded by documenting doomed buildings (Sullivan’s and others’) through drawing floor plans and taking photographs and then, when demolition was certain, salvaging ornament.

Most of the images in Richard Nickel’s Chicago were never printed in Nickel’s lifetime, making the book a remarkable document. Nickel took some 11,000 photographs in his life, but mostly made contact sheets unless a client was willing to pay for development. Even more remarkable than the book is the way in which Nickel was able to capture so carefully each scene without ever seeing a large print. Somehow Nickel was able to deftly find the drama in the still life of many architectural scenes, and carefully transmit the sorrowful scenes he witnessed directly. Those images are his best known, although most in the book are new to even his admirers. Less known are Nickel’s gentle shots of people at festivals, expressing the glee, anger or longing in what seem to be private moments between subject and photographer. Those images show a breadth to Nickel’s body of work previously unknown.

The architectural images convey both respect and resignation – a painful combination. The parade of lost masterpieces is staggering – Adler and Sullivan’s Schiller Theatre, Meyer Building, Rothschild Building, Babson Residence and Stock Exchange; Burnham and Root’s Church of the Covenant and First Infantry Armory; Holabird and Roche’s Republic and Cable building. Even the photographs of surviving landmarks like the Rookery and the Auditorium Building have a weary gaze, as if the photographer has doubts of their permanence at the hands of his society. Nickel conveys the glory of these buildings while making statements about Chicago’s arrogant disregard for them; he poses wry scenes that are statements of protest in which the beauty of the building makes the loudest statement.

Ever faithful to his subjects, Nickel avoids taking photographs that are easily digested or ignored. Nickel prefers wide views and the occasional vivid close-up to iconic images. At first glance, the photographs can seem carefully workmanlike. Then, a detail jumps out – the postures of men standing in the foreground of a demolition scene, words on a church wall next to a gaping hole made by wreckers, the appearance of a church steeple in a photograph of a roof. As one studies the photographs, the intentional nature of the details becomes apparent. Nickel thought through his capturing of the details of every building he shot, just as the architects who designed them conceived of the intricate parts. Every foreground, background and shadow was chosen. The genius of Nickel emerges; he has taken photographs that reward a multitude of viewings and whose technique emulates the subjects’ complexity as much as any documentation can. Nickel’s photographs teach us the values of patience and observation, and of the power of making careful choices. These were the values that led Nickel to study and defend the works of Sullivan and other Chicago masters. These were the values that could have kept the buildings around as long as the photographs.


Cahan, Richard and Michael Williams, editors. Richard Nickel’s Chicago. Chicago: CityFiles Press, 2006. ISBN: 0-9785450-2-8.

Chuck Berry House Headed for National Register

Photograph by Lindsey Derrington.
This modest flat-roofed, one-story brick house at 3137 Whittier Street in The Ville is where rock 'n' roll was invented. Well, if not outright invented, definitely made into something it had never been before. Chuck Berry bought this house in 1950 and lived there during his most productive early songwriting period. When he sold the house in 1958, Berry had recorded "Maybelline," "Johnny B. Goode" and "Roll Over Beethoven."

My colleague Lindsey Derrington, Researcher for Landmarks Association, identified this house last year as a landmark worthy of listing in the National Register of Historic Places. Rather than wait for someone else to take action, Lindsey wrote a nomination that received approval from the city's Preservation Board last week and will be considered by the Missouri Advisory Council on Historic Preservation this Friday. After that point, the nomination is likely to face a tough time undergoing review by the National Park Service, which generally does not list in the Register properties associated with persons still living. This rule comes from fear of making hasty historical judgment. Lindsey's nomination makes the case that Chuck Berry's importance already has a permanent spot in the history books, even if he is alive and very well.

Today, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch covered the nomination of the house with a front page article; read that here.

Feasting Fox Hosted SAH Chapter Gathering

Marty Luepker recounts the rehabilitation of the Feasting Fox.

On Sunday February 10, our local Missouri Valley Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians convened their annual gathering at the Feasting Fox restaurant in south St. Louis. Many people attended the gathering -- and joined the chapter -- for the first time. NiNi Harris opened the gathering with an account of the long battle to preserve the Feasting Fox, a historic tavern and restaurant built in 1913 and designed by Klipstein and Rathmann for Anheuser-Busch. Owners Marty and Sue Luepker then led a tour of the restaurant before attendees returned to the Gretchen's Inn building next door for dinner and the annual slide show.

Attendees enjoyed fine food and drink, including scrumptious chocolate cake, before the customary slide show by chapter members. The slide show always features a wide variety of architectural topics and locations. This year's was no exception, including presentations on endangered buildings in Gary, Indiana, a Greek Revival farm house in Missouri, Theodore Link's Monticello Female Seminary campus in Godfrey, Illinois, frame homes in Tower Grove South, the Cathedral of Trash in Austin, Texas and others. In fact, the show went longer than allotted time and will be continued next year!

The chapter is a very welcoming group and publishes a splendid newsletter filled with members' research and timely event listings; for membership details, contact Esley Hamilton at EHamilton@stlouisco.com.

Bettis In, Stanley Out

The Cultural Resources Office of the City of St. Louis hired Robert J. Bettis to the newly-created Preservation Planner position. Most recently working for the Commercial Development Department of the St. Louis Development Corporation, Bob worked for several years as the Certified Local Government Coordinator for the Kansas State Historic Preservation Office. I'm gratified to see Bob's experience and talent matched with CRO. Bob joins an office of experienced -- and overworked -- professionals comprised of Director Kathleen Shea, Preservation Administrator Jan Cameron, Preservation Planner Andrea Gagen and Administrative Assistant Adonna Buford. CRO once had additional full-time positions, but lost them during downsizing in 2002. It's great to have CRO regain its capacity.

Meanwhile at 1015 Locust, Planning and Urban Design Director Rollin Stanley celebrated his last day on January 31. Stanley is off to head planning operations for Montgomery County, Maryland. No word yet on when Planning and Urban Design will begin the search for Rollin's replacement. The agency actively seeks a Community Development Research Analyst, though.

Another Chance to Help Make the Marti Frumhoff Memorial Garden Reality

Christian Herman, author of the delightful St. Louis Brick blog, is the visible shepherd of the plan to build the Marti Frumhoff Memorial Garden. Christian continues to raise funds and awareness for this important memorial to Marti Frumhoff, one of the city's biggest champions who unexpectedly passed away last May.

Christian's latest effort is an online auction of books to benefit the garden project; check it out here. Right now, there are some cool cookbooks and even some cooking accessories up for grabs. Bid now, and keep checking back for new books to be added. Out-of-print art and gardening books will be auctioned in the next few weeks.

Rollin Stanley Departing St. Louis

Rollin Stanley, Director of Planning and Urban Design for St. Louis, is leaving after six years on the job. More at MayorSlay.com and at Urban St. Louis. Apparently, Rollin is headed to a planning job in suburban Montgomery County, Maryland. Somehow, he kept the rumor mills quiet before breaking this news; there was no chatter preceding this announcement.

Saller Working for Missouri Coalition for Historic Preservation and Economic Development

The Missouri Coalition for Historic Preservation and Economic Development recently hired Christian Saller. Christian is a veteran of the St. Louis Development Corporation and was a candidate for alderman in the Sixth Ward earlier this year. Anyone who knows Christian knows his passion for historic preservation, extensive knowledge of the politics of development, sharp memory and kindness. I am glad to see his holding a job where his talent and passion are both put to use.

Meanwhile, the Coalition is gearing up for 2008, the tenth anniversary of the enactment of our state's historic rehabilitation tax credit. Already there are rumblings from Republican State Senator Brad Lager, who is apparently going to introduce a bill to cap the tax credit in the forthcoming legislative session. Christian and others have hard work ahead.

Kick Ass Awards on Monday Will Honor Marti Frumhoff

The fine folks behind 52nd City have chosen to posthumously honor Marti Frumhoff with one of their annual Kick Ass Awards, to be presented on Monday. I can't think of a more worthy recipient; in fact, I'm a bit embarrassed that I received the award two years ago ahead of Marti due to work empowered by the encouragement and inspiration provided by Marti and others she had inspired.

The awards are at Duff's Restaurant, 392 N. Euclid, from 6:30 - 9:00 p.m., Monday, November 26. Details here.

Past the Margins of Chicago

Rob Powers (creator of Built St. Louis) has launched A Chicago Sojourn to chronicle the non-iconic corners of his new home. In his first post, Rob writes that "I've always gravitated to the forgotten: in St. Louis, in Milwaukee, everywhere I go. And so it shall be here."

Beautifully-designed Forgotten Chicago features photo essays on those traces of Chicago's past few celebrate, let alone investigate. Recent topics the Schoenhofen Brewery, pre-1909 street numbering system and Chicago's largest vacant lot, the site of US Steel's South Works. Jacob Kaplan and photographer Serhii Chrucky are the editors.

MayorSlay.com Posts Video on Old North

Carson Minow's latest video for St. Louis Traffic is about Old North St. Louis. Check it out here.

Thus continues the continued interest in Old North by the editors of MayorSlay.com. Hopefully that is an indication that our current mayor understands a thing or two about the urban character of the near north side.