Anatomy of a demolition on St. Louis Avenue
BY BARBARA MANZARA
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio.
—Hamlet 5.1.179
At 8:07 one April morning, a friend sent me a text with the death knell: “the Blair Witch house is half gone.” That’s my black humor – naming the endangered sites of St. Louis Place that we pass on the daily commute from homes in revitalized Old North St. Louis to jobs in revitalized downtown. I’m a little ashamed to say I came up with that name. The house in question was a beauty, a 3-story mansion on St. Louis Ave with classic limestone eyebrow lintels and a huge copper cresting. The location was prime too, just blocks from Crown Candy Kitchen and one very important block west of North Florissant road -- the boundary that divides protected Old North from vulnerable St. Louis Place.
I called it Blair Witch House because the Blair Witch lived there. Yes, the house was a beauty, the garage of rusted-out vintage cars was a favorite for the kids to peep into. But the old man who lived there had abandoned the upper floors, living downstairs without electricity and staying warm in the winter in a camper. The yard was undoubtedly scary. The tall fence was festooned with a mix of old clothes, bags, ropes, twigs and branches, all knotted together in sinister patterns instantly familiar to fans of a certain mid-90’s cult horror movie. From behind this curtain, thin streams of smoke would rise from campfires that smoldered for days.
The horror-flick name suited the landscape in another way. Recently, the people of the 1900 blocks of St. Louis Place have simply disappeared. The Blairmont juggernaut, a large and secretive force buying up the 5th Ward, cut a wide swath up the 19th St corridor. The homes in its path were purchased, vacated, unsecured, mined for precious metals, then brick-rustled or burnt. One by one, a dozen solid, occupied homes were stripped naked. The survivors asked the Alderwoman to spend our small 5th Ward budget to clean up the dead so that we could focus on saving the living.
The Alderwoman gave the order, and the building division took the reins. House after house was condemned, the salvageable along with the goners. The brick rustlers moved in, racing to beat the legitimate demo crews. Finally the sextons came in bulldozers. Wright Street was buried unmarked in its own cellars. Montgomery was laid into dumpsters and hauled away. The haunted house at 1951 St Louis Ave got lonely, the veils still heavy over the fence. But all was quiet. Then it was April, and the grass started growing on the bare dirt lots.
My friend waited for the bus at 20th and St Louis Ave, so she could hardly miss a demolition on a sunny morning. The wreckers told her that an older man was living there, so they had to wait until he left to start wrecking. In the evening, he got off the bus in front of his partly demolished home, and became extremely upset. The wreckers called the police, and he was removed. I read the text message and I couldn’t bear to reply. I’ve accepted that St Louis Place is under attack. After months of fighting and losing, I have an affect flattened to match the landscape. We have lost so many good neighbors. I felt if I picked up my phone to reply, I might just go up in a flash, incandescent with rage.
I told another friend about it who helped to find him in a couple of days through the social workers at St Patrick’s Center. We sat on marble slabs of the old Cass Bank Greyhound station and heard his story.
Victor Casine has owned 1951 St Louis Avenue for going on 40 years but has lost the financial ability to maintain the building. Victor prefers to be called Tarzoon, for Truth and Righteousness Zooming Over Our Nation. In the last couple of years, whenever he is cooking in his outdoor kitchen, men come up to the fence and ask to buy his scrap metal, his garage full of old cars or his bricks. Yes, the bricks that make up the house. Tarzoon keeps turning them away, but they keep coming back. They tell him that the city is going to tear down his house if he doesn’t sell. Tarzoon has begun blocking these persistent buyers by weaving tarps into the fence. With a thick layer of protection, they can’t see him to harass him.
Tarzoon has padlocked all his gates up tight. But he is sure they are getting in. He can hear them rattling his gate at night. His dog barks and barks and then is found dead, Tarzoon fears poisoned. He emails the Alderwoman, the Post-Dispatch, everyone he can imagine. He tells them thieves are working on the floors above him, palletizing brick and taking it away. One night in early April he wakes when they break in very brazenly, shouting that the house is coming down tomorrow. His barricades hold and he barely repels them. A patrolman is on the scene and Tarzoon writes down his badge number. The patrolman does not see anyone. A police report is not filed. A few weeks later, the wreckers break in again, late on a Sunday, and a police sergeant arrives. The sergeant has been called in by the demolition crew, who have a valid demolition permit.
Tarzoon explains that he is being repeatedly attacked by housebreakers trying to steal his bricks. The police give Tarzoon a copy of the condemnation letter. Tarzoon swears he has never seen the letter, and the damage is as a result of thieves destroying his walls for the brick. The police don’t believe him, as they see no bricks scattered on the ground. He begs for time and the police calm him. They file this as yet another nuisance call. The wreckers are repelled for the night and he sleeps. On Monday morning, he gets up early. He writes a letter asking for a stay of the demolition order. He takes the bus downtown. He makes copies and visits the building division, the City Councilor’s office and the Mayor’s office. He faxes his letter when he can’t hand-deliver it to anyone. He drags his tired old bones home on the bus.
Tarzoon gets off at the bus stop that he shares with my friend. His home is being demolished. He runs to it. He tries to get into his camper, but it has been crushed by a load of brick. He tries to find his cats, at least the littlest one. He can’t find his money jar with his silver dollars, his family pictures or his Masonic sword. There is a scene, from which he is removed. He walks a long way, ending up at Karen House, and sleeps on the porch. After a few days, a social worker finds his room in a shelter. This is where Tarzoon is staying today, so he has to get back before 6 p.m. The only thing he owns is a leather satchel of his legal papers.
On Wednesday evening after work, we carpooled past the demolition site. The house was nearly gone, replaced with a pile of bricks. The demo crew was working on the brick pile, knocking at the stumps of walls with long sticks and dodging the falling brick. They are desperately poor men, putting themselves in harm’s way for a few dollars, with no hard hats, glasses, gloves or other protection from the work. They packed the brick into pallets to be taken to Hemphill brickyard. They divided the metal into carefully guarded piles for each man to take to Cash’s metal yard in a pickup truck or a shopping cart. The specialty wood trim was piled up for firewood. A small pile of unsellable personal possessions was topped with a soft grey hat. The men wanted money from us to stand and look at the pile, so we explained that we had empty pockets and then we walked away.
Alas, poor Yorick, he is dead
And empty is his skull
Pity no longer, arm in arm with Dread
Walks in that polished hall
Joy too is fled
But no man can have all
- Millay
