SIC TRANSIT GLORIA

This modern building in downtown St. Louis is in an approximate tie for the tallest in town and has by far the greatest amount of floor space of any in Missouri. It was once the world headquarters of AT&T. It has been completely vacant since 2014.

The anti-trust break-up of the original AT&T years ago led to the creation of regional "Baby Bells" (as in Bell Telephone). St. Louis was headquarters of Southwestern Bell. The Baby Bells started to merge with and acquire one another, with Southwestern Bell in the lead. It then bought the rights to the AT&T name and eventually moved the headquarters to San Antonio.

The building sold in 2006 for $205 million with a leaseback to the phone company. I have read that it is hard to redevelop because it was built for a single tenant. It resold last spring for $4.1 million to an ambitious but much smaller developer. There is a proposed plan to turn it into a "vertical city" with apartments, office space and a hotel. I haven't heard anything further.

As I say here from time to time, we used to be somebody.               

THAT WHEEL, ETC.

One of our City Daily Photo colleagues commented yesterday that it seems mandatory for cities to have a Ferris wheel these days, and it's nice to have one here. It is built on the side of Union Station, now a hotel and entertainment complex. There is an aquarium, a mirror maze, mini golf and more. Expensive but fun. But two things to note about this scene:

Something in this image is totally fake and it would take a Photoshop nerd to spot it. The newest version of the program has a tool called Replace Sky. It precisely finds the edges of everything in front of the sky and drops in a new background of your choice. These clouds weren't there. The actual sky was empty (see yesterday's post).

The tall building just right of center is vacant and has no immediate prospect of reuse. After the breakup of the old AT&T into the regional "Baby Bells," STL was the home of Southwestern Bell. It bought up some of the other regional carriers and then acquired the rights to the AT&T name. This building was, for a time, AT&T's world headquarters. Then they decided that St. Louis was Podunk and moved the operation to Dallas. I read that it is hard to repurpose a large building built for a single tenant so it just sits there.                  

THURSDAY ARCH SERIES

Haven't had one of these in a while but then there are only so many ways you can depict an upside down catenary arch. The monument is partly concealed by what passes for a skyline around here. 

Some notes about the buildings: The low, saddle-topped building is the hockey arena, home of, if I may say so, the Stanley Cup champion St. Louis Blues. The tall building with the dome on the right is the federal courthouse. It precisely blocks the view of the Arch from the main highway coming into downtown from the west. The tall building on the left is vacant. After the anti-trust break up of the original AT&T many regional "baby Bells" were created and Southwestern Bell was headquartered here. It gobbled up some of the other regional phone companies and then bought the rights to the AT&T name. For awhile that building was the headquarter of the new AT&T but then they moved the operation to Dallas. The building, having the greatest amount of floor space of any in the area, has been emptied out. I've read that since it was built for a single tenant it is very difficult to repurpose, so there it sits.          

The Law And The Economy

Three downtown buildings seen from a distance. 

On the left, the old Civil Courts building, where state-level litigation takes place. Hard to see from this distance but the architecture is genuinely bizarre. Worth this short read. 

The tall center building houses the federal courts, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. It is the largest single courthouse in America and is 18 years old. It has been controversial from the start because it completely blocks the view of the Arch from the main highway coming into downtown from the west.

The building on the right has the strangest story. After the breakup of the original AT&T into the regional "baby Bells," this was the headquarters of Southwestern Bell. That company started buying up other baby Bells and eventually the AT&T name. The headquarters moved to Dallas and this 44 story tower has been vacant for nine months. It will be hard to use because it was built for a single tenant and now has almost no parking. So another urban ghost building but the biggest one we've ever had.       

A Mix Of Styles

A downtown lesson in comparative architecture.

Top right is the federal courthouse. It has streamlined references to the classical, with its colonnades, quasi-temples in the top corners and domed top. It also exactly blocks the view of the Arch from the main highway running east into downtown, but what do they care.

The dark glass, International School structure is the low rise part of a Bank of America tower. The high rise part just to the left is an austere black, featureless octagon. I sometimes call it the Darth Vader Tower. The reflection in the glass is an old AT&T building that looks like a commercial castle. A block over is a modern 44 story tower that AT&T just announced plans to vacate, dumping about a squillion square feet of office space onto the already-depressed downtown real estate market. Good for tenants like me, I suppose.