urbanSTL

stlgasm wrote: ↑

7:13 PM - Mar 09

Chris- can you post these pics on the Albion thread on skyscraperpage.com?  It's due for an update on the progress:
ST. LOUIS | Albion West End | 335 FT | 30 FLOORS

quincunx wrote: ↑

7:07 PM - Mar 12

It was the Buckingham Hotel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckingham_Hotel

fdayt wrote: ↑

Apr 30, 2022

Several posters have commented on the mystery of why this most desirable of parcels was never developed.  So for those of you who are urban planning buffs - a bit of history - much of which comes from a historian neighbor.

Peter Lindell owned a large tract of land west of the city.  The area was platted in the late 1800's.  A dirt road (actually a bridal path) was pushed through his property to link downtown and what is now Forest Park.  The road followed  an early 1800's path which led from downtown to a spring at what is now Maryland and Euclid.  The spring was part of the extensive underground water system which centuries later surprised the builder of One Hundred and resulted in extensive and expensive changes to Jeanne Gang's initial engineering design; and which the Albion architect is very wary of.

 In anticipation of the 1904 World's Fair the road and Kingshighway were paved in 1903.  Claude Vrooman, a Wash U. grad, a lawyer, and early real estate developer saw potential and grabbed up a number of parcels all over what is now the CWE - including the south side properties between Kingshighway and Euclid.  He built  a number of apartment buildings in the area culminating in the St Regis in 1908, and he moved in.

Vrooman, a world traveler was entranced by the 'Place de la Concorde' in Paris.  He became literally obsessed with replicating it in St Louis - fountains, statuary, a central obelisk - the works.  This parcel, part of the park, and the still empty parcel on the NW corner of the intersection were to be used.

Vrooman was also a friend of the owner of the Buckingham Hotel (built in 1904 - the site of todays One Hundred), who supported the idea.  So, while they lobbied and waited Claude agreed not to build anything on the parcel so as to not block the view from the Buckinghams north facing fancy dining room.  He made it into a quite nice little park, open to the public. Decades of lobbying the city proved fruitless, but Vrooman never gave up on the idea.  Although at some point in the 1920's he did install a number of above ground garages on the parcel for St Regis tenants.

Vrooman died in 1955, his dream unrealized except for a gigantic three-tiered ornate lamp standard which he had installed (in 1923) just a bit south of the current intersection.  This standard, which some of us old-timers in the neighborhood remember, was knocked down by a car in 1958, and never re-erected.  Much smaller replicas of the lamp are now sprinkled around the CWE.

Vroomans wife lived on at the St Regis until her death in the early 70's, having sold the parcel to Sam Koplar in 1964, who converted it into a much needed parking lot for activities at the Chase ballrooms.  Then, of course, the decline of the CWE in the late 60's - 70's.  The shuttering of the Chase for ten years in the eighties, and the subsequent decades of turgid activity in the city as a whole.  And, you are up to date.