County of building: Independent City of St. Louis
Location: 2929 S. Jefferson Ave., St. Louis
Built: 1915
Today: IUOE 148 Health & Welfare Office
Phone:(314) 865-1300
COMMERCIAL/INDUSTRIAL PROPERTY TYPES
There are 304 contributing Commercial/Industrial resources in the District. They are composed of the following Commercial/Industrial building functional property types and sub-types as outlined in Sections E and F of the Multiple Property Submission "South St. Louis Historic Working- and Middle-Class Streetcar Suburbs."
ARTISTIC FRONT
The Artistic Front commercial property sub-type is described in Section F of the Multiple Property Submission "South St. Louis Historic Working- and Middle-Class Streetcar Suburbs." This property subtype is exhibited in late nineteenth and early twentieth century architectural styles as documented in the
associated historic theme "Architectural Patterns of South St. Louis Streetcar Suburbs: 1880-1940."
4344.
2929 S. Jefferson Ave. Date of Construction: c. 1915 Integrity: Good to Fair
Property Type: Artistic Front
Style:
No. of stories: 2
Foundation: Stone
Walls: Brick
Roof shape: Flat
Porch: Stoop
Architect/Builder: Unknown" ~ NRHP Nomination Form
"One characteristic of the city's first suburban streetcar neighborhoods was a recognizable, more uniform appearance due to more homogenous architecture and land uses than was found in the older central city. Most of these neighborhoods were exclusively residential, reflecting conscious efforts to separate business and industry from residential streets and to allocate them within their own defined areas. The most significant defining elements of the architectural character of these neighborhoods were the building plans, forms, and materials of their residences. The vast majority of these buildings were variations on recurring architectural themes. Almost all are brick and, with the exception of the one-story "shot-gun" folk house forms, the majority of the area's residences are two-story buildings with two- or three-bay
facades. The height of the buildings reflects the fact that before the creation of zoning ordinances after World War I, there was a height limitation of two floors for residential structures. The use of brick dates to the 1850s, when a fire destroyed blocks of buildings and caused millions of dollars in damage. After
that, the city required masonry construction of its buildings. Houses and apartments were often built a block or more at a time and reflected the economic conditions of the era as well as highly specialized building trades and the presence of real estate professionals. Together they produced marketable properties in a tidy, quiet environment free from the noise and soot of Downtown. At the edges of such developments, busy streets like Gravois, Carondelet, and Jefferson provided commercial corridors and
streetcar access to job sites.
Commercial Buildings
Commercial buildings and the streetscapes they created define both the functional and visual character of the South St. Louis streetcar commercial neighborhoods. Most were simple structures of one or two stories and were smaller in scale than those found in the city's central business district. Designed with commercial
space on the ground floor and residential units above, they
fit the Main Street prototype found in small towns and
villages throughout the United States. The earliest of these
commercial/residential structures in South St. Louis are
similar to the simple late nineteenth century town houses.
They display the same proportions of windows and the
same simple corbelled brick cornices as their adjacent and
contemporaneous residential buildings. Many of the
earliest stores were in houses or buildings whose exterior
appearance was indistinguishable from the nearby
residential units. As time went on, commercial design
adapted to expanding merchant demands shop buildings
came to be constructed with larger entry doors to
accommodate patrons and deliveries and windows were
enlarged for the display of goods. A significant number
featured stylistic designs or artistic fronts and it was not
unusual for corner buildings to rise to three stories" ~ NRHP Multiple Property Submission
The map of this district
"The Gravois-Jefferson Streetcar Suburb Historic District is located within the boundaries of the City of St. Louis, Missouri. The -715-acre District is a triangular area generally bounded by the intersection of Gravois and South Jefferson Avenues at the north, South Jefferson Avenue and South Broadway Street
(south of Chippewa Street) on the east, Meramec Street on the south, South Grand Boulevard on the west, and Gravois Avenue on the northwest. 1 Gravois Avenue is a major arterial street and historically served as a wagon, streetcar, and vehicular transit corridor. South Jefferson Avenue also was and is a major
transportation corridor. Meramec Street is a major collector street. Mixed commercial, institutional, and residential use along these major city thoroughfares visually and historically defines the survey area. Within the triangle formed by the District's arterial street boundaries, the setting retains its overwhelming
residential land use and its buildings and streetscapes retain a high degree of historic architectural integrity. The building stock contains similar functional and architectural property types associated with the evolution of early working-class housing and related commercial and institutional property types typically found in early working- and middle-class streetcar suburbs in St. Louis. The vast majority of these buildings are one- and two-story brick buildings sited on narrow urban lots arranged in a cohesive
grid system platted in blocks bisected by brick alleys. The uniformity of lot size, sidewalks, alleys, and building set-backs as development evolved southward and the continuous rows of one- and two-story residences that share the same scale, massing, and repetition of architectural styles and ornamentation provide a cohesive character to the District. The retention of the granite curbs and the original brick paving in alleys and on many interior streets further reinforces the District's visual unity. The dense
assembly of red brick buildings with raised limestone foundations, the majority of which were built in a thirty-year time span, further contributes to the integrated nature of the -early streetcar neighborhoods that compose the District.
"There are 4,642 contributing resources in the District dating from circa 1880 to circa 1940. Of these, 629 are contributing ancillary buildings. There are 1,679 non-contributing resources, of which 1,055 are ancillary buildings. There are also 251 vacant lots that are not counted as being contributing or noncontributing. Of the contributing primary resources, over 90 percent are residential buildings, of which 4 percent are single-family residential properties and 96 percent are multi-family residential housing types. Of the contributing resources; more than 7 percent are commercial buildings and 1'percent are cultural and recreation resources. As a group, these contributing resources retain an exceptionally high degree of integrity. The greatest loss of integrity is along the arterial streets of South Jefferson Avenue/South Broadway Street on the east and along Gravois Avenue/South Grand Boulevard on the west.
"The District is part of a larger area in the city's historic South Side, which is generally bounded by Lafayette Avenue on the north, South Broadway Street on the east, Bates Street on the south, and South Grand Boulevard on the west. The land in this general area is rolling karst plains that slope
southwestward to the River Des Peres and west to a ridge along South Grand Boulevard. During the 1960s, federally funded urban renewal programs leveled the neighborhoods on the north edge of Mill Creek Valley near South Jefferson Avenue. The construction of a federal interstate system in the area beginning in the mid-1960s further destroyed historic neighborhoods. Considerable demolition occurred in the construction of what is today Interstate 55 to the east of the District and Interstate 44 to the north of the District. The limited access and elevated right-oi-way of these freeway systems formed artificial boundaries, further severing important physical and synergistic connections between the South Side neighborhoods. Other than the Soulard Neighborhood in the area between Interstate 55 and the Mississippi River, the area that was once the earliest to develop in South St. Louis retains little of its original residential, commercial, and industrial neighborhoods." ~ NRHP Nomination Form