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Historical September 1979 report or notice. Dates, prices, contacts and institutional claims describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
When one of the relative newcomers to Skinker-DeBaliviere asked me (I suppose she sees me as a local greybeard) to write about the “decade of change,” my immediate response was a firm no. But she smiled and I said maybe. If she had been fortunate enough to live here in the early seventies, she would have better understood my trepidation. She would have remembered that one person’s change for the better is another’s relocation problem. Well, I’m certainly not going to extoll the merits of one side or the other of that issue nor am I able to explain the intricacies of urban affairs as monotonously as those degreed to do so by our local universities.
Obviously this subject raises my anxiety level to about an eight and a half but there are a few thoughts I’m brave enough to set to paper.
Please, if you will, imagine that one of the persons who labored to build this neighborhood some seventy years ago and someone who participated in the so-called white-flight of about fifteen years ago were to return among us. The former would most likely be delighted that so much of his handiwork survives; the latter amazed that anything remains, then shocked by the rebuilding, the social organization, and, of course, the prices.
The cause of the fleer’s shock and the builder’s delight is, I think, quite simple. The fleer expected something the builder did not. He believed, indeed, he knew as a matter of fact that this area was doomed to total destruction. A report published by someone at Washington U said so and, if that were not sufficient proof, any fool could look around and see with his own eyes that it was true. Those who fled can only stare in disbelief because the most calamitous change this neighborhood was supposed to endure never happened. •
It never happened because the people who lived here then and who continued to move here refused to let it happen. They and the local churches and Wash U supported the Community Council which became the backbone of the neighborhood. They formed block clubs, began the residential service, the art fair and house tour, THE PAPER, lighted the alleys, fought crime, rehabbed homes, elected sympathetic politicos and did all kinds of things (including making very good friends and enemies and having a lot of fun) necessary to make this a place where people didn’t have to live but where they wanted to live. That sense of dedication, of common purpose, has diminished, but not the friends nor the fun. So we’re not so much pioneers today and we’re perceived by others as pretty much having it made. (Relatives who once thought us dumb turkeys now think us smart cookies and, believe me, that’s change.)
Our homes and apartments have been saved or are being rehabbed or someone has ideas about it. The amenities remain and improve. And while we pause to congratulate ourselves, changes are occurring.
The full influence of the historic district of 353 developments, of condos and of gasoline prices has yet to be felt. Some skirmishes have been fought over who will live here and what they can do to their property. Perhaps these skirmishes will explode into outright disagreements and furious debates may soon be read on these very pages. I hope so. Strong opinions are what made Skinker-DeBaliviere what it is, and I feel that in the last few years a passionless contentment has crept upon us.
Having survived the ravages of urban neglect caused, in part, by absentee landlords and residents whose incomes or attitudes precluded repairs, and having endured the insults of lending, insurance and real estate companies, and the condescension of students from the George Warren Brown School of Social Work, can the neighborhood absorb the next great wave of new immigration — the urban gentry? It may be the most subtle and, yet, significant change of all and I wonder what a report written by someone at Wash U would say about it. And if written, how many of us having read it might be convinced the neighborhood is doomed, and flee?
Originally published in The Paper, September 1979.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1979_09.pdf, printed page(s) 3; PDF page(s) 3.
