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Frisco Building

Downtown St. LouisNational Register of Historic Places in St. LouisOffice buildings completed in 1903Skyscraper office buildings in St. LouisSt. Louis Area, Missouri Registered Historic Place stubs
St. Louis building and structure stubs
St. Louis Frisco Bldg
St. Louis Frisco Bldg

The Frisco Building is a historic office building in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. The building was built in 1903-04 as the headquarters for the St. Louis–San Francisco Railway, which was also known as the Frisco. The architecture firm Eames and Young designed the building as well as its 1905-06 addition; the building's subtle ornamentation and its pier and spandrel system were both important developments in skyscraper design. The Frisco occupied the building for almost eighty years after its opening, and in that time played an important role in Missouri's economic development through railroad construction.Its expansion forced the Kieselhorst Piano Co., a leading vendor of pianos in the city, to move one block east on Olive Street.The Frisco Building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 29, 1983.

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

Frisco Building
Pine Street, St. Louis

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Latitude Longitude
N 38.628611111111 ° E -90.195277777778 °
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Pine Street
63103 St. Louis
Missouri, United States
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St. Louis Frisco Bldg
St. Louis Frisco Bldg
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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.

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.