Twenty years ago this month a new and unique organization, the Skinker-DeBaliviere Community Council, was created in the Skinker-DeBaliviere neighborhood. Funded by the area institutions Washington University and the three largest neighborhood churches, St. Roch's, Grace Methodist and Delmar Baptist, it was set up to do what neither they nor the Rosedale and Washington Heights groups were prepared to do individually: provide a permanent, paid, full-time staff to work on any and all problems affecting the neighborhood. The staff was to furnish, on behalf of these institutions and groups, a continuing daily presence in the neighborhood, which over the years proved to be a more important contribution than any particular problem it was able to solve.
The idea for the Skinker-DeBaliviere Community Council, like so many ideas and projects in the neighborhood, came out of a series of meetings. Lots of meetings. Often held at Grace Methodist church, the meetings were attended by people who represented the local churches and the neighborhood organizations. Usually in attendance were such people as Dr. Hager of Grace Methodist, Father Griesedieck of St. Roch's, Dr. Loughhead of Delmar Baptist, Bob Blackburn from Washington University, Jim L'Ecuyer from Rosedale Skinker (the forerunner of the present Rosedale Neighborhood Association), and Joe Botz from Washington Heights. A number of others were present from time to time, but this was the main group. The topic for discussion was the neighborhood itself.
Skinker-DeBaliviere in 1965 was beginning to show signs of wear. Some houses which formerly were well-kept were becoming run-down. A growing number were vacant and staying vacant for a longer time. Some apartment buildings were becoming shabby. The 5700 blocks of McPherson, Kingsbury and Westminster, running west from DeBaliviere, had a number of these. Their height and close spacing gave them the appearance of the tenements more familiar in certain cities on the East Coast. These blocks were sometimes called "the canyons" by local people.
DeBaliviere Boulevard itself was becoming seedier and the ambience was "late Gaslight Square." While the Apollo Theatre was operating as an art house, showing quality foreign films, the Stardust Lounge did steady business as a strip joint, featuring the ecdysiast Evelyn West and her heavily underwritten if not supported bustline. There were some vacant storefronts on "The Strip" and some fires of suspicious origin.
Neighborhood appearance issues weren't the only things on the minds of the people at the Grace church meetings. Crimes such as petty theft, burglary, and stealing from automobiles seemed to be on the increase. Street crimes like purse snatching, virtually unheard of years before, began to occur. Then too, the neighborhood seemed to be getting short changed on services from the City for dealing with these problems and political representation seemed dormant if not comatose.
The neighborhood, as it began to integrate, was being beset by some of the sleazier tactics of unsavory real estate dealers. People were steered to certain blocks only. Residents on some blocks were getting scare calls from agents telling them that if they didn't sell soon they would surely see their investment drop. Federal housing agencies programs were being abused by some agents who placed people in houses they could not possibly afford to maintain, since their entire subsidies were being consumed in house payments. Other real estate agents were starting to pull back from doing business in the neighborhood.
The local public schools were overcrowded and rundown. Many neighborhood people felt that the school administration wasn't sufficiently concerned about local problems.
All of these issues were part of the agendas of those who attended the meetings at Grace Methodist church. Clearly, some new approach was needed in working on these neighborhood problems because they weren't being solved by the old methods. But the meetings, as is often the case with such things, usually ended inconclusively. A number of ideas were proposed, but for a while nothing much happened. Finally, attorney Richard Hart of the 6000 block of Westminster proposed that what was needed was some sort of funding to hire a full-time person who would work on problems affecting the neighborhood. It was this idea which led to the formation of the Skinker-DeBaliviere Community Council.
The concept was that the three churches, Washington University, and the two neighborhood organizations would join together to form a not-for-profit corporation. The board of directors would consist of one representative from each of these groups (this was to change in later years). Dick Hart filed the incorporation papers and helped write the first bylaws.
The four funding institutions contributed a budget total of about $14,000. Washington University put in $5,000 and the three churches put in $3,000 each. With this money in place, the Council hired its first executive director, Jim L'Ecuyer, now of the 5700 block of DeGiverville. Prior to that time, Jim has been president of the Rosedale-Skinker Improvement Association. It was Jim who opened the Council's first office in space donated by Delmar Baptist church on the second floor of a building at 5858A Delmar.
Thus established, the Council needed to define itself to the neighborhood, to pick its goals, and to select the problems on which it was going to work. Some in the area totally misunderstood the Council. Jim L'Ecuyer remembers, "They wanted me immediately, within two or three weeks, to stop the trend of integration in the neighborhood." The Council, itself integrated from the beginning, was determined to proceed in the opposite direction. "We were going to promote integration at any costs. I mean, integration was going to work here or it wouldn't work at all," L'Ecuyer said recently.
The Council embarked upon a period of trying things, experimenting with approaches, seeing what would work in helping the neighborhood. In so doing, it began to establish, through its director, a permanent daily presence in the neighborhood which proved to be so vital in years to come. In coming together in the Council, the neighborhood groups and the institutions could talk frankly and freely among themselves and could present a united front to outside groups, City agencies, and federal agencies when it was needed. It was needed when the St. Louis Public Schools decided to build Hamilton Branch III. Without consulting the neighborhood, the school system decided that a good location would be the 5900 block of Pershing. Recalls L'Ecuyer, "They were actually going to buy the side that faced the highway, tear it all down and put the school there. And they were doing it… It was just done… They were shocked that we were questioning it." The director and neighborhood people began a campaign of phone calling and letter writing to stop this. They pushed and pushed to get the school located on the site of a vacant auto parts store at Des Peres and Westminster and they were eventually successful.
The Council tried a few other things which weren't as successful. They opened a youth club, which was called Kingsbury House, in an abandoned delicatessen at Kingsbury and DeBaliviere. This was at a time when the Council was being pushed to become a social services agency of sorts. The debate over whether the Council should be oriented toward delivering social services or whether it should be a real estate advocacy group or just what it should be would go on for years, but Kingsbury House didn't seem to have much effect on juvenile delinquency in the area and it was eventually closed down.
In about 1968 the Council decided that it must deal with the rapidly deteriorating building conditions in the so-called "triangle" area, the 5900 blocks of McPherson, Kingsbury, and Westminster. It decided to go directly into housing redevelopment. The Council formed Kingsbury Redevelopment Corporation and got some help from Washington University's architecture school in making a redevelopment plan for the three block area. The money to carry out such a plan was not available, but the Council did come up with enough cash to buy three six-family apartment buildings in the 5700 block of Westminster.
Next, the local office of HUD (Department of Housing and Urban Development) was approached for money to accomplish the rehabilitation under a federal program then in existence, 221D3 rent supplement. The money was granted, an architect and contractor were hired, and the buildings were completely rehabilitated. It was the first "gut rehab" in the area and the first use of 221D3 in the city.
The 18 units, as they became known in Council lore, were an initial success but an ultimate failure. They were a success in that their rehabilitation was undertaken and completed by a group with no previous experience or track record in the field. But the surrounding area was never redeveloped under Kingsbury's plan at that time. FHA (the Federal Housing Authority) had shown early interest in the plans, but in the end they would not come in. The deterioration and blight around the 18 units continued unchecked. The units were sometimes vandalized even while they were fully occupied. In one instance, all the copper plumbing was stolen out of the basement, leaving the tenants without water. The buildings became a constant problem for the Council's staff. Ultimately, the Council would deed the 18 units back to HUD and leave the real estate management business to others, a business for which it was not suited.
The early Council worked on getting recognition for itself from the neighborhood at large and from the various agencies outside the neighborhood. The Council then was not as broadly based in representation as it later became. There was only one representative on the Council's board from Rosedale and Washington Heights and Parkview. Thus, the neighborhood often wasn't aware of or involved in the issues the Council was working on. Efforts were duplicated as individual neighborhood groups were working on the same problems. The Council, as it moved into the 1970s, needed to get everyone working on the same problems in the same direction.
Nineteen seventy was an extremely significant year in the Council's and the whole neighborhood's history. In that year the Council expanded its board of directors to include four additional members from the Rosedale-Skinker group and six additional members from the Washington Heights group. This gave them a total of five and seven representatives, respectively, while Parkview retained one. The action meant that the funding agencies had given control of the Council to the neighborhood, something virtually unheard of in human events. How often do the people with the money cede control to others? It happened here in April 1970.
It was also in April 1970, that this journal was first printed, then called simply, The Paper. An independent publication, The Paper was to play a large role in spreading awareness of the Council and its issues.
In 1970, too, the Skinker DeBaliviere Residential Service was formed to provide real estate services, which were sorely lacking from many existing real estate firms, and to counter some of the unethical practices coming from other firms which were quite willing to operate in the neighborhood on their own terms. Formed by neighborhood women volunteers and co-chaired by Susie Roach and Pat Kohn, the Service originally concentrated on activities which would discourage real estate agents who were inclined to engage in block busting, speculation, etc. At the same integrative time the Residential Service worked on projects to improve the neighborhood such as beautification and sanitation. The Residential Service soon began working out of the Council's own office. Eventually, some of the volunteers obtained real estate licenses and assisted in selling houses in the area. Again, this was to fill a void left by established agents who refused to do business in the neighborhood.
It was in April 1970, that the late Philip Lucier, then president of Continental Telephone Corporation, announced the formation of West End Townhouse, Inc. with an initial capitalization of $150,000. The new corporation would invest in rehabilitation of apartments and single family houses for rental or resale. While there was no direct connection between West End Townhouse and the Council, they pursued similar goals and some of the same people were in each organization.
Thus, in 1970, the Council and the neighborhood were preparing a general assault on the problems bedeviling the area. The Council, through its director, had established a daily presence in the area. By expanding its board, it got area residents more concerned about its affairs and provided the forum for talking about them. There was plenty to talk about, much to plan for, much still to do.
In the fall of 1970, Jim L'Ecuyer resigned as executive director after nearly five years of strenuous efforts in the Council's behalf. The Council turned to Calvin B. Stuart in January 1971, to be its new director. Cal Stuart, now of the 6100 block of Kingsbury had been the Council's president and a representative from Rosedale, where he was also chairman. By this time the Council was in the office most familiar to neighborhood people at 6008 Kingsbury. It had moved from a storefront at 404 DeBaliviere which it occupied after being burned out of 433 DeBaliviere in March, 1970.
Housing problems in the area became a major focus of the Council. While the Council in the period of the early 1970s withdrew from direct real estate management, it did not pull back from dealing with real estate problems in the neighborhood. On certain blocks a deadly sequence threatened certain houses and apartments. It was foreclosure followed by abandonment followed by demolition. It was desirable to head off the sequence entirely, but it was absolutely essential to stop it before step three.
Foreclosures in that period were usually started by one of the federal agencies having to do with housing: HUD (Housing and Urban Development), FHA (Federal Housing Authority), or VA (Veterans Administration). Banks rarely foreclosed because they rarely made loans in the first place.
Remembers Stuart, "The HUD policy for foreclosures, nationally was to tear them down, that they were uninhabitable, not worth a dime, and better cleared." This policy, if left to operate in the area would have devastated some blocks. Working with newly elected Alderman John G. Roach, Stuart and the Council sought to fend off demolitions. Roach approached HUD with the idea that if they would stop tearing down buildings, the Council would get the buildings rehabbed and then find buyers and find loans for the buyers. The marketing would be done through the Residential Service.
This was all enormously difficult and time-consuming in the early 70s, but little by little it was accomplished. Stuart recently recalled that, not counting the "triangle" redevelopment area, the neighborhood only lost three houses to HUD demolition. At one time, said Cal Stuart, "There were twelve houses in the 5800 and 5900 blocks of Waterman almost gone!"
A Crime Watcher program was developed and the network it created fed good information to the police. They began to respect the information they were getting from the neighborhood and hence to respect the people here. Team Policing was started in the area in 1976, with strong support by the Council. This was the concept of assigning a specific group of officers to a specific area to handle all aspects of crime in the area. The concept met with great support in Skinker-DeBaliviere and among the officers themselves as they became familiar with the neighborhood.
The Council was always working on every aspect of neighborhood life. It was the Council which obtained Community Block Grant funds through CDA to build the Four Corners project at Kingsbury and Des Peres in 1976. It was the Council which obtained funding from the same source to start the Community School at Hamilton School, and at one time or another, helped The Paper with money, The People's Clinic with volunteers and money, encouraged Grace and Peace Fellowship to come into the neighborhood, and worked with the churches on their summer programs.
All of this work and activity over the years did pay off, and in many ways. It attracted many people to the area who found that there was a genuine sense of neighborhood here that didn't seem to exist elsewhere in the City or County. It resulted in property values moving upward from the trough they had been in the early 70s, slowly at first, but then more rapidly later. It gave the neighborhood a good reputation far beyond its borders and throughout city government. It made us proud of ourselves.
We were so proud of ourselves that we proposed making Skinker-DeBaliviere an Historic District in 1975 and a neighborhood committee worked on the project, with much Council support, for the next year. There was much lively discussion over the next several years about the merits of this issue. Eventually we became a City Historic District in 1978. Said Cal Stuart recently, "There were reasons to do the historic thing in terms of stability and there were reasons to do it so it wouldn't hurt anybody, and it also turned out that for investment, the historic district was important."
In January 1979, Cal Stuart resigned as Council director, effective April 1979. The Council, for the first time, turned to someone not living in the neighborhood and hired Richmond (Skip) Coburn. Skip came from a position in University City's Department of Planning.
So much had been put into place, so many programs were underway in the Council from the past 13 years that Coburn's first duties were simply to carry on and to learn the neighborhood.
The Council was once again preparing to get involved in a redevelopment effort. This time the proposed redevelopment area was Nina Place. The blocks under consideration were the 5000 [5800/5900] blocks of Kingsbury and McPherson, the 5800 and 5900 blocks of Nina Place and two buildings at 5803 and 5817 Waterman.
In 1972, the Council once again tried its hand at redevelopment of the 5700 blocks of McPherson, Kingsbury, and Westminster and nearby areas in the "triangle." Working with Team Four, Inc., an urban planning group, the Council created a redevelopment plan for the area which was approved by the City Plan Commission. The Council re-established Kingsbury Redevelopment Corporation and applied for Chapter 353 redevelopment rights. After a noisy hearing at City Hall in February 1972, the plan was approved by the Board of Aldermen in May 1972. The work was to be completed in 18 months.
The Council's corporation, KRC, got to work and hired an attorney, planning firm, architect, and developer. But the Council was never able to raise enough money to get the project going. A freeze had been put on federal housing funds and private money wasn't available to a not-for-profit corporation. KRC applied for and received several extensions of the 18-month deadline, but was still unable to raise the money.
In 1975, Pantheon Corporation expressed an interest in acquiring Kingsbury Redevelopment Corporation's 353 rights in the area. Pantheon was itself planning a major redevelopment in 353 areas from Union to DeBaliviere and from Pershing to Delmar. After a lengthy meeting in May 1975, at which Leon Strauss presented Pantheon's redevelopment plan for the area to the Council and members of the public, the Council voted to sell KRC's redevelopment rights to Pantheon. At the same time the Council proposed the formation of a Redevelopment Advisory Committee which would represent Skinker-DeBaliviere's interest to Pantheon. The proposal was accepted by Pantheon and the committee was subsequently formed and began meeting with Pantheon representatives.
The Council, though not successful in general redevelopment, was successful in promoting the upgrading of properties through a combination of code enforcement activities and finding sources of home repair loans. The Council always emphasized these activities because, as Cal Stuart recently remarked, "The Council's focus was always on the physical well-being of the neighborhood with the strong feeling that if there are no people here, it doesn't matter what kind of programs you have."
Throughout this period the Council's office was a source of information about all aspects of the neighborhood and it frequently was the first place visited by people new to the neighborhood. People were attracted by the variety of topics on which the Council had materials as well as housing and real estate information.
The Council worked hard to maintain good relations with all the area schools. Members, in particular, sought improvement in the local public schools, Hamilton and Hamilton Branch III. Meetings were held with the principals, the district superintendent, even the Superintendent of Schools himself, all with a view toward reducing overcrowding and upgrading the programs so that a more integrated group of pupils could be attracted.
The Council worked hard, too, on crime problems in the neighborhood. The Council's Crime Committee, headed by Jack Wright, who was also Council president for many years, developed statistics which, on the one hand, would pinpoint trouble spots, and on the other, would squash rumors and fear based on bad information.
The Council had begun discussing Nina Place in the fall of 1978 when the then 28th Ward Alderman Vince Schoemehl and Jim L'Ecuyer approached the Council with the idea of applying for some money from CDA to do some rehabilitation in the area. Schoemehl believed that if the Council could put in an application before the end of that year, it stood a good chance of getting some money for a rehab effort. As it turned out, the present 28th Ward Alderman Dan McGuire was still dealing with the Nina Place issue six years later. Nothing happens quickly in Nina Place.
By late 1978, the Council had formed a committee to study what should be done in Nina Place and had received a $21,500 grant from CDA to have a planning firm assist with a study of the area. Team Four was again retained. In early 1979, the Nina Place committee was expanded to 18 members to include residents and property owners in the Nina Place area.
Throughout 1979, the Council discussed procedural matters concerning formation of another redevelopment corporation to implement the redevelopment of Nina Place. It was finally agreed to form a corporation whose board of directors would consist of seven members appointed by the Council and six members selected by the newly formed Nina Place Block Association.
In February 1980, the Nina Place Block Association pulled out of the Council's proposed redevelopment corporation with a view toward forming their own redevelopment corporation. The Council decided to proceed with forming a corporation of its own. These actions led to the existence, by late 1980, of two redevelopment corporations—the Nina-McPherson-Kingsbury Redevelopment Corporation sponsored by the Council, and the Nina Place Redevelopment Corporation sponsored by the Nina Place Block Club. Both groups submitted plans to CDA for redevelopment of the area by early 1981.
In this same period the Council attempted to deal constructively with the most important change in the St. Louis Public Schools since the Council was formed: the Metropolitan Desegregation Plan. Under the plan there was a transfer of some students from the Skinker-DeBaliviere area to the Dewey and Roe schools just south of Forest Park and a similar transfer of students from the south side to Hamilton School. The Council formed a Parents Committee to assist in the situation. "Pairing" meetings were held with Dewey/Roe parents and Hamilton Parents. On the first day of school under the desegregation plan, Director Coburn and a number of neighborhood people were at Hamilton School with doughnuts and coffee to meet the South Side parents. They were very impressed.
By this time the director was no longer having to deal with almost daily housing crises in the area. Foreclosures were way down, housing prices were climbing, and real estate firms which had never been seen in the area in the late sixties and early seventies were seeking listings.
The director and the Council could work on projects such as bringing evening concerts to the Four Corners or having a poster created which publicized the neighborhood. The neighborhood was more stable and was attracting ever more new residents.
In November 1981, Skip Coburn resigned to take a position as executive director of the Land Reutilization Authority. This led to the hiring of Ron Laboe in January 1982. Mr. Laboe resigned suddenly in September 1982. The Council scarcely got to know him.
After this episode, the Council decided to turn to someone living in the neighborhood, in fact, upstairs from the Council itself. In November 1982, the Council hired Ann FitzGibbons as executive director, who, with artist-husband Bill FitzGibbons, happened to own the building housing the Council's office. Ann was at that time the executive director of West End Neighborhood Arts Council.
The new director was immediately faced with the first major change in the Council since it was formed. In December 1982, the Washington Heights Neighbors group voted to leave the Council, citing as its reasons opposition to the way the director was chosen and a belief that the Council was not pursuing policies helpful to Washington Heights. The Washington Heights area was thus left without representation on the Council. (The Council was later to accept some at-large members from the Washington Heights area.)
Prior to the selection of Ms. FitzGibbons, the NMKR Corp. withdrew from active involvement in the Nina Place area. Redevelopment continued to be stalled. As things turned out, Pantheon Corporation obtained redevelopment rights in the area and expects to begin work on the project in the spring of 1986.
The Council with Ms. FitzGibbons as director turned to a number of projects to enhance the quality of life in the neighborhood. There was an emphasis on bringing the arts to the neighborhood. There were more concerts at the Four Corners, the start of the "Art Exposed" tours, and scholarships for low-income youngsters to go to the Art Museum.
The Council, in this period, also established a Community Assistance Office to help those in the neighborhood with economic difficulties by providing information on the kinds of help available and how to apply for it. The CAO sought to provide help with funding, food, clothing, emergency housing, transportation to job, home weatherization, and the like.
The Council continued to work on familiar problems. Block watchers were recruited once again and a fundraiser was held to aid victims of crime. Efforts were made to keep blocks organized to assist with the City's Operation SafeStreet. The Crime Committee proposed to assist with buying and installing porch lights.
The Council found itself faced with housing problems stemming, in part, from the past spectacular success in the area. The few vacant buildings in the neighborhood became that way not because there were no willing buyers or no money available, but because the owners would, and will, not sell at any economically sensible price. Also, new developers have been attracted and have undertaken projects which have resulted in tenant evictions. This had led the Council to become active in helping define tenant's rights.
In the beginning of 1985 Ann FitzGibbons resigned as director as of the end of February. The Council hired Nancy Farmer, its present Executive Director in April 1985. The Council also moved from its long familiar location at 6008 Kingsbury to an office in Delmar Baptist Church at 6195 Washington, after the Kingsbury building was sold. Thus, in twenty years the Council went from an office provided by Delmar Baptist to an office provided by Delmar Baptist.
About the time the Council was being planned those twenty years ago, someone at Washington University's School of Architecture predicted that the Skinker-DeBaliviere neighborhood would be abandoned and demolished by 1970. He was wildly, spectacularly wrong. He was wrong because he didn't pay attention to the kind of people who stayed here in those early days and to the kind of people who joined them. He didn't note their ability to organize a Council, for which there was no model, and to make it work. The Council, ultimately was the people and the people have made all the difference.
Original newspaper source
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, March 1986.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
