So so so sad and frustrating. I've been trying to document the old buildings along the north riverfront off and on since 2006. This was definitely one of my favorites. I have many photos on my Flickr site http://www.flickr.com/mec_stl. Please reach out if you'd like to use any in subsequent articles, I'd be glad to help.
Your photos are exquisite (and having a photographer dad, I feel confident in saying that!). Thanks for the offer - and if I have any articles now or in the future you wish to contribute photos to, just let me know and I would be happy to credit you. And if there's ever a commercial/industrial building you're particularly interested in, let me know - th.ere could be a good story in it (and it would be nice to write about buildings that aren't burning down once in a while!).
OK, here's one of my favorites: the Biedermann Warehouse along 2nd Street, between Chambers and Madison.
I absolutely love this industrial area within these few city blocks. This building is a priceless gem, with all of its mullioned windows and curved brick. Here are a couple of my favorite photos of this one:
I was heartened a couple of years (?) ago when I saw stories online that Blackwood Construction was going to take on rehabbing this one and one just a couple of blocks down Broadway (the American Brake Bldg) for a couple of different projects.
Alas, it appears that both of those projects have collapsed, and both the Biedermann and American Brake now appear to be well on their way to their ultimate demise.
Thanks for all your interest and support! It's great to connect with like-minded people.
I just had a thought - I run a local history meetup and maybe in the spring we can get a bunch of people out to photograph some of these old buildings and talk about history and preservation efforts.
That's pretty awesome! I need to go out this week to do some photos for an upcoming talk on the Mullanphys and I will try to swing by there. I'll also add it to the list of things to dig into. Thanks!
Another photographer you should follow, if you don't already, is Errol Sandler. He has a couple of Leica cameras and his work is absolutely amazing. He's here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/123874603@N04/
A sad story. This has happened here in Winnipeg with some of our historic buildings, though most of them have happily been repurposed for new ventures. This building easily could have been as well.
It happens here all too often. St. Louis has a large number of beautiful older buildings, mostly brick, that have been allowed to remain vacant, and many of the owners do little to nothing to protect the buildings' integrity, with some perfectly content for the structures to fall down or go up in flames, often either due to people living in the buildings or perhaps because the owners are tired of being told by the city to maintain the properties and pay taxes. I don't have any idea what the cause of this blaze was, but I can think of at least one in recent memory that was dear to many people and not only went up in flames but was razed to the ground within 48 hours, obliterating any evidence of what may have caused the fire. Let's see what happens with this one.
Wish I could help! I don’t know anything the hardware itself. My best suggestion would be to look for old catalogs, but offhand I’m not sure where to find them.
I have a norvell-shapleigh hardware diamond co. Blowtorch from the early 1990's I've contacted the blowtorch collectors association about it and they stated that my torch is the only one that's known to exist. I know there are plenty of torches with Shapleigh hardware on them but apparently mine is different. Just trying to find any and all information I can about it.
Thank you for putting this together. My husband is a direct descendant of the St. Louis Shapleighs (his grandfather's first name was even Shapleigh,) and I've just started digging into the history of the family during that time. I guess I was just a little late to see these in person.
Such a shame, it looked to be a beautiful building and it was on the historic list. From the exterior it looked fundamentally sound. I'm in Philadelphia and a building like this would've been bought & repositioned into multifamily or artist studios however St. Louis has been in decline for decades with no rebound in sight hence why this wasn't scooped up by developers.
Thanks for your comment. It's always difficult to see another piece of our history go up in flames. However, I think it may be overstating things to say St. Louis is in decline with no rebound in sight. There are pockets of the city where that certainly applies, notably north city, and downtown could use an influx of funds to rehab some of our large buildings (which is also true for a number of other urban areas, especially post-pandemic), but overall I would not characterize the city and metro area as being in decline.
Hi Jackie, I'm sure you're right. I'm states away here in Philadelphia. There probably are pockets & neighborhoods seeing developments & renovations and even population increase however my comment was based on statistics for St. Louis as a whole. What are some of the neighborhoods & areas in St. Louis that are being developed now?
As always with STL it's a north-south issue, and racism is unfortunately still a driving force. But south city, generally speaking, is doing well, and property values, on the whole, are skyrocketing (good luck finding a house for less than 300K unless it needs significant rehabbing or under 900 sq ft). And most of the county, especially to the south and west and in St. Charles Co., is thriving.
Thank you for the insight Jackie! The neighborhood where this warehouse burnt up looked to be mostly industrial? The broker was marketing it as a possible reposition to multifamily. Do you think people would want to live in that section without amenities close by? How is the Old North St. Louis neighborhood?
Yes, it was industrial. There were a number of warehouses in this area as well as the Laclede and Ashley power plants.
These buildings could have been great apartments, but the problem is, there’s nothing around them to encourage or sustain residential development. So it’s a chicken and egg problem – nobody wants to live in an area where there’s no shops, entertainment, or other amenities, and no one wants to put in those amenities if no one lives there.
Some pictures from Saturday afternoon https://www.threads.net/@stevestruemph/post/C25f5M6PSC6/?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
thank you for the link and especially for the link over there to the documentation. That was really great to see.
Thank you for writing this
Norvell wrote an outstanding memoir:
https://archive.org/details/forty-years-of-hardware
That’s a bit out of my league, but it might be of interest to one of the speakers this month for our history talks, Eric LaVelle. Thanks!
I found this interesting as my grandfather worked for both Simmons and Shapleigh hardware
When he worked for Simmons he helped build the NY to the North Pole ride on the Pike at the worlds fair.
That’s really cool!
So so so sad and frustrating. I've been trying to document the old buildings along the north riverfront off and on since 2006. This was definitely one of my favorites. I have many photos on my Flickr site http://www.flickr.com/mec_stl. Please reach out if you'd like to use any in subsequent articles, I'd be glad to help.
Your photos are exquisite (and having a photographer dad, I feel confident in saying that!). Thanks for the offer - and if I have any articles now or in the future you wish to contribute photos to, just let me know and I would be happy to credit you. And if there's ever a commercial/industrial building you're particularly interested in, let me know - th.ere could be a good story in it (and it would be nice to write about buildings that aren't burning down once in a while!).
Why, thank you!
OK, here's one of my favorites: the Biedermann Warehouse along 2nd Street, between Chambers and Madison.
I absolutely love this industrial area within these few city blocks. This building is a priceless gem, with all of its mullioned windows and curved brick. Here are a couple of my favorite photos of this one:
https://flic.kr/p/2nQmgBA
https://flic.kr/p/Jfd5wo
I was heartened a couple of years (?) ago when I saw stories online that Blackwood Construction was going to take on rehabbing this one and one just a couple of blocks down Broadway (the American Brake Bldg) for a couple of different projects.
Alas, it appears that both of those projects have collapsed, and both the Biedermann and American Brake now appear to be well on their way to their ultimate demise.
Thanks for all your interest and support! It's great to connect with like-minded people.
I just had a thought - I run a local history meetup and maybe in the spring we can get a bunch of people out to photograph some of these old buildings and talk about history and preservation efforts.
Right up my alley, so to speak! I've signed on to your meetups, but unfortunately haven't been able to make any of them work. But yeah, let's do that!
Well, whenever you do, be sure to introduce yourself and remind me who you are (context being everything)!
I definitely will!
That's pretty awesome! I need to go out this week to do some photos for an upcoming talk on the Mullanphys and I will try to swing by there. I'll also add it to the list of things to dig into. Thanks!
Another photographer you should follow, if you don't already, is Errol Sandler. He has a couple of Leica cameras and his work is absolutely amazing. He's here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/123874603@N04/
A sad story. This has happened here in Winnipeg with some of our historic buildings, though most of them have happily been repurposed for new ventures. This building easily could have been as well.
It happens here all too often. St. Louis has a large number of beautiful older buildings, mostly brick, that have been allowed to remain vacant, and many of the owners do little to nothing to protect the buildings' integrity, with some perfectly content for the structures to fall down or go up in flames, often either due to people living in the buildings or perhaps because the owners are tired of being told by the city to maintain the properties and pay taxes. I don't have any idea what the cause of this blaze was, but I can think of at least one in recent memory that was dear to many people and not only went up in flames but was razed to the ground within 48 hours, obliterating any evidence of what may have caused the fire. Let's see what happens with this one.
Wish I could help! I don’t know anything the hardware itself. My best suggestion would be to look for old catalogs, but offhand I’m not sure where to find them.
I have a norvell-shapleigh hardware diamond co. Blowtorch from the early 1990's I've contacted the blowtorch collectors association about it and they stated that my torch is the only one that's known to exist. I know there are plenty of torches with Shapleigh hardware on them but apparently mine is different. Just trying to find any and all information I can about it.
Thank you for putting this together. My husband is a direct descendant of the St. Louis Shapleighs (his grandfather's first name was even Shapleigh,) and I've just started digging into the history of the family during that time. I guess I was just a little late to see these in person.
Such a shame, it looked to be a beautiful building and it was on the historic list. From the exterior it looked fundamentally sound. I'm in Philadelphia and a building like this would've been bought & repositioned into multifamily or artist studios however St. Louis has been in decline for decades with no rebound in sight hence why this wasn't scooped up by developers.
Thanks for your comment. It's always difficult to see another piece of our history go up in flames. However, I think it may be overstating things to say St. Louis is in decline with no rebound in sight. There are pockets of the city where that certainly applies, notably north city, and downtown could use an influx of funds to rehab some of our large buildings (which is also true for a number of other urban areas, especially post-pandemic), but overall I would not characterize the city and metro area as being in decline.
Hi Jackie, I'm sure you're right. I'm states away here in Philadelphia. There probably are pockets & neighborhoods seeing developments & renovations and even population increase however my comment was based on statistics for St. Louis as a whole. What are some of the neighborhoods & areas in St. Louis that are being developed now?
As always with STL it's a north-south issue, and racism is unfortunately still a driving force. But south city, generally speaking, is doing well, and property values, on the whole, are skyrocketing (good luck finding a house for less than 300K unless it needs significant rehabbing or under 900 sq ft). And most of the county, especially to the south and west and in St. Charles Co., is thriving.
Thank you for the insight Jackie! The neighborhood where this warehouse burnt up looked to be mostly industrial? The broker was marketing it as a possible reposition to multifamily. Do you think people would want to live in that section without amenities close by? How is the Old North St. Louis neighborhood?
Yes, it was industrial. There were a number of warehouses in this area as well as the Laclede and Ashley power plants.
These buildings could have been great apartments, but the problem is, there’s nothing around them to encourage or sustain residential development. So it’s a chicken and egg problem – nobody wants to live in an area where there’s no shops, entertainment, or other amenities, and no one wants to put in those amenities if no one lives there.
.