urbanSTL

STLrainbow wrote:While we are talking height, something I wish we had a couple more examples of in our downtown skyline are 1920's towers like the Southwestern Bell and Union-Pacific office buildings and the Civil Courts building gracing our skyline...

I know we demo'd a lot of gorgeous buildings over the years, but I don't think any were legit towers of their height or period; according to Built St. Louis, the tallest building demolished downtown was the approx. 17 story Third National Bank, which was located on the site of the present day One Metropolitan Square:

http://www.builtstlouis.net/opos/3rdnationalbank.html

Another source I found says that was 228'

Not quite sure what to make of what seems to be a rather quiet period of tower construction compared to a lot other cities. EDIT: looking at population trends, it looks like STL already had begun to lag behind in the twenties and we even declined in the 30s... perhaps the 20's boom wasn't as big here economically, either.

I believe that one major reason for the glaring lack of art deco towers in St. Louis despite it being one of the biggest US cities during that era of construction is that the city had a height limit that prohibited buildings to rise taller than 2 1/2 times the width of the street on which it was located. I'm not sure when the ordinance was enacted or lifted or the boundaries it dictated, but that would explain the predominance of dense, squatty historic buildings and relative scarcity of taller pre-war towers that became signature features of other big cities (NYC, Philly, Detroit, Chicago), and even smaller cities (KC, Tulsa, etc). Considering how old and big St. Louis is/was during the Roaring '20s and '30s, you'd never know it when looking at the downtown skyline from typical postcard views. Without the Arch, which gives St. Louis one of the most recognizable skylines in the country (if not the world), I'm afraid we'd be left with one of the most nondescript major city skylines, dominated by unremarkable boxes from the 1960s-80s that hide the historic meat and bones that really define the cityscape. On top of that, the downtown skyline has been virtually unchanged for 20 years! I can't think of another large US city with a downtown skyline as stagnant as St. Louis's. BUT I do declare that Met Square and One City Centre are so shamelessly obnoxiously '80s, even Molly Ringwald is jealous! They may not be beautiful in the traditional sense, but they definitely have character and I appreciate them.

Despite the scarcity of historic towers downtown, St. Louis certainly has more pre-war highrises outside of its CBD than all other large Midwestern cities aside from Chicago and perhaps Detroit.

At the end of the day, St. Louis has never put much emphasis on height, so if tall sexy skyscrapers float your boat, St. Louis is most definitely not the city for you. I'm cool with that, but it's about time we add a few spikes to our clunky old Apple II E of a skyline!

St.Louis1764 wrote: ↑

Feb 22, 2017

chriss752 wrote: ↑

Feb 22, 2017

If they were to build it on the Kiener Garages, I would suggest they demolish those garages.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I couldn't agree with you more those garages are atrocious.

Horrible. Plus their destruction would make downtown smell better. No more homeless/Cardinal fan pee smell.