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Southwestern Bell Building

1926 establishments in MissouriBuildings and structures in St. LouisDowntown St. LouisOffice buildings completed in 1926Skyscraper office buildings in St. Louis
Telecommunications company headquarters in the United States
Southwestern Bell Building, top, StL
Southwestern Bell Building, top, StL

The Southwestern Bell Building is a 28-story, 121.0 m (397.0 ft) skyscraper constructed to be the headquarters of Southwestern Bell Telephone in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. At the time of its construction it was Missouri's tallest building. The building, which was one of the first in St. Louis to use setbacks, has 17 individual roofs.Its architect was Mauran, Russell & Crowell, who also designed the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis and the Railway Exchange Building (St. Louis). I.R. Timlin, Southwestern Bell's company architect, was associate architect on the project.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Southwestern Bell Building (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Southwestern Bell Building
Pine Street, St. Louis

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Wikipedia: Southwestern Bell BuildingContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 38.6281 ° E -90.1955 °
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Pine Street 1010
63101 St. Louis
Missouri, United States
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Southwestern Bell Building, top, StL
Southwestern Bell Building, top, StL
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Civil Courts Building
Civil Courts Building

The Civil Courts Building is a landmark court building used by the 22nd Judicial Circuit Court of Missouri in St. Louis, Missouri. The building with its pyramid shaped roof is prominently featured in the center of photos of the Gateway Arch from the Illinois side as its location on the Memorial Plaza is lined up in the middle directly behind the Old Courthouse. The building was part of an $87 million bond issue ratified by voters in 1923 to build monumental buildings along the Memorial Plaza which also included Kiel Auditorium and the Municipal Services Building. The Plaza and the buildings were part of St. Louis's City Beautiful plan. It replaced the Old Courthouse as the city's court building and its construction prompted the descendants of the founding father Auguste Chouteau to unsuccessfully sue the city to get the Old Courthouse back since the stipulation was that it was to always be the courthouse. The pyramid roof on the top was designed to resemble the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus which was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It features 32 Ionic columns. Each of the columns have 6 fluted drums, and a cap, and are about 42 feet (13 m) high, 5+1⁄2 feet in diameter. They are made of Indiana limestone.The roof is made of cast aluminum and is topped by two 12-foot (3.7 m) high sphinx-like structures with the fleur-de-lis of St. Louis adorned on the chests. These sphinx-like creatures were sculpted by Cleveland sculptor, Steven A. Rebeck.Some architectural elements from the building have been removed in renovations and taken to the Sauget, Illinois storage site of the National Building Arts Center.During St. Louis PrideFest, the building has lit its columns up in a rotating rainbow pattern. In 2016, the top of the building lit up with 49 purple lights to show solidarity to the victims in the Orlando nightclub shooting. The tradition of Pride started in 2012, when the building was first lit up.

Century Building (St. Louis)
Century Building (St. Louis)

The Century Building, designed by Raeder, Coffin, and Crocker and completed in 1896, was a 10-story Classical Revival historic building in downtown St. Louis, Missouri that was used for offices, retail, and a 1600-seat theatre. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 16, 2002. In 1999, St. Louis planners and historic preservationists working as an advisory committee released their Downtown Plan, which called for the preservation and adaptive reuse of the Century Building. The Slay administration rejected the recommendations of the committee, and announced that a development team had been chosen (DESCO and DFC, Inc) to renovate the nearby historic Old Post Office (OPO) and to demolish the Century Building in order to build a parking deck to service the OPO. City officials made the argument that tenants for the renovated OPO building demanded parking within view of their new offices. St. Louis' preservationists' next line of defense was the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP). Contacted in 2001, NTHP was initially supportive of preservation efforts for the building. Midwest Trust Director Royce Yeater recommended that an alternative site be chosen for the proposed parking deck, noting that there were "10 underused parking facilities in the 10 blocks surrounding the OPO."In 2004, the NTHP changed its stance concerning the project. The NTHP would now provide $6.9 million in gap financing in the form of tax credits for the OPO renovations and parking deck. NTHP refused to stop the demolition of the Century Building, and was now supporting the very project that preservationists were desperately trying to stop. Preservationists around the country signed an on-line petition in a concerted effort to save the Century Building. Richard Moe, president of the NTHP, defended his organization's actions by stating that the demolition of the Century Building was key to revitalizing the area around the OPO.The Landmarks Association filed a final lawsuit on October 19, 2004 requesting a temporary restraining order to halt demolition. Their request was ultimately denied, and demolition of the building commenced shortly thereafter. Many historic preservationists call the loss of the Century Building a major sacrifice for Downtown St. Louis. Some have also said the NTHP drifted from its primary mission of historic preservation by supporting the developers of the OPO project. Other professionals take the side that certain sacrifices need to be made in order to improve neighborhoods as whole, and the Century Building was one of these sacrifices. It is generally agreed, however, that the Century Building was an important part of St. Louis' architectural history, and could have been transformed into an asset for Downtown St. Louis had the building been saved. Beams and parts of its facade were recovered by the National Building Arts Center. They're currently stored at the foundation's Sauget foundry.

St. Louis
St. Louis

St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It is located near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while its bi-state metropolitan area, which extends into Illinois, had an estimated population of over 2.8 million, making it the largest metropolitan area in Missouri and the second-largest in Illinois. Before European settlement, the area was a regional center of Native American Mississippian culture. St. Louis was founded on February 14, 1764, by French fur traders Gilbert Antoine de St. Maxent, Pierre Laclède and Auguste Chouteau, who named it for king Louis IX of France, and it quickly became the regional center of the old Illinois Country. In 1764, following France's defeat in the Seven Years' War, the area was ceded to Spain. In 1800, it was retroceded to France, which sold it three years later to the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase; the city was then the point of embarkation for the Corps of Discovery on the Lewis and Clark Expedition. In the 19th century, St. Louis became a major port on the Mississippi River; from 1870 until the 1920 census, it was the fourth-largest city in the country. It separated from St. Louis County in 1877, becoming an independent city and limiting its political boundaries. In 1904, it hosted the Louisiana Purchase Exposition and the Summer Olympics. A global city with a metropolitan GDP of more than $160 billion in 2017, metropolitan St. Louis has a diverse economy with strengths in the service, manufacturing, trade, transportation, and tourism industries. It is home to eight Fortune 500 companies. Major companies headquartered or with significant operations in the city include Ameren Corporation, Peabody Energy, Nestlé Purina PetCare, Anheuser-Busch, Wells Fargo Advisors, Stifel Financial, Spire, Inc., MilliporeSigma, FleishmanHillard, Square, Inc., Anthem BlueCross and Blue Shield, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Centene Corporation, and Express Scripts. Major research universities include Washington University in St. Louis, Saint Louis University and University of Missouri–St. Louis. The Washington University Medical Center in the Central West End neighborhood hosts an agglomeration of medical and pharmaceutical institutions, including Barnes-Jewish Hospital. St. Louis has four professional sports teams: the St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball, the St. Louis Blues of the National Hockey League, St. Louis City SC of Major League Soccer, and the St. Louis BattleHawks of the XFL. Among the city's notable sights is the 630-foot (192 m) Gateway Arch in Downtown St. Louis, the St. Louis Zoo, the Missouri Botanical Garden, the St. Louis Art Museum, and Bellefontaine Cemetery and Arboretum.