That the historic fabric of our community is shrinking is not news. It is inevitable. In the next few blog posts, I’d like to take a look back at some of the buildings we have just recently lost.
The buildings featured in this post were lost to the development along Hanley Road. Ironically the portion of Hanley Road nearest to them now didn’t exist when they were built. The Sunnen Corporation purchased the buildings on the open market over several decades. To their credit, I don’t think eminent domain was used to acquire any of the single family homes.
Looking at the photos now I am struck by the diversity of architecture in just a couple of blocks. Many of the homes and yards were charming testaments to the families who created and cared for them for many generations.
My GGgrandmother used to live at 7514 Folk in Maplewood. It’s been several years that I’ve seen it but I still hope it is standing.
It’s a real shame about the Coleman home. I believe it was a Lustron home, there aren’t many of them left.
There is still one Maplewood Lustron left. It is on the South side of Flora, a few doors East of Laclede Station.
The Colman Lustron was carefully disassembled for the parts, which, as the company went out of business in the early 50’s, are unavailable except by salvage.
As recently as 2002 there were 72 in the metro area. But they are prime targets for redevelopers.
Thank you very much for your comment. I am minimally comforted by the fact that a historic building is deconstructed and parted out. Sure some of the parts are reused but the building is lost to the community forever. Better than going to the landfill by just a little.
Much of the historic fabric of the City of St. Louis has been lost in this manner. Massive amounts of our brick and millwork have been shipped to and sold in other cities where they are prized. Hundreds of city blocks once packed with interesting buildings are now vacant because no one has found a way to save them.
I lived in the 7800 block of Caroline Ave which is where the BMW dealership is now. Used to be a lot of houses in that area. Where Hanley crosses Manchester was a hill that we would sled on and hope we stopped before going into the creek there.
Thanks for sharing your memory, Tom. What year was Hanley extended south of Manchester?
I was sad to see them torn down. They looked like very lovely homes that had been well built. I don’t think that Maplewood should give up any more housing. We’ve lost too much already.
We have indeed lost a lot. The homes in the Maplewood Commons (Walmart, Sams, etc) as well as those in the Sunnen development (Mini and more to come) were nice, clean, well kept middle class housing. I hope we have seen the end to neighborhood clearing in Maplewood..
Amen, Tom. Tom Bakersmith is a scholar and lecturer on the remarkable Lustron buildings.
Gary, I couldn’t agree more.