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ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH Sun., March 27, 1977.
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MORGAN STREET RAG. The four-family flat in the center was the residence of ragtime musician Scott Joplin for a time around the turn of the century. Once designated 2658A Morgan Street, |
it is now known as 2658A Delmar Boulevard. A group of citizens hopes to raise enough money to rehabilitate and preserve it. (Post-Dispatch Photo) |
Citizen's Group Plans To Restore Joplin's Home
The Citizen's Committee to Memorialize Scott Joplin says it plans to rehabilitate and preserve the home in which the ragtime musician lived at 2658A Delmanr Boulevard, then known as Morgan Street.
George Lomack, co-chairman of the committee said that the group was organized shortly after the March 18 announcement by the Department of the Interior that the property had been designated as a historic landmark.
The house was built in 1885, the year Joplin first came to St. Louis from Texas. There have been 16 changes of tenants in that time, it is estimated.
Lomack said "we want to rehabilitate the house, landscape the area around it into a park and build a museum and performing arts theater that will hold about 500 persons.
"This will complement the Dr. Martin Luther King shopping center which is being developed nearby.
Some other groups have expressed interest in the Joplin home.
Jess Usery, a planner for the Community Development Agency, said that three groups acting together had applied for federal funds for rehabilitation of the building.
They are the St. Louis chapter of Girl Friendds, Inc., Operation Challenge and the Landmarks Association of St. Louis, Inc. The application was made under the Scott Joplin National Land Preservation Project.
The groups will be forced to deal with the problem of ownership of the structure.
The building is owned by "M. Goetz," according to records in the city assessor's office. However, a suit is pending against the property for back taxes.
Paul Colombo, head of the real estate division of the city collector's office, siad the suit was filed in may last year and that a sheriff's sale of the property would be held next month.
Taxes owed on the building from 1972 to 1975 total $3164.80, Colombo said. He said that no persons other than the owner could do anything about the property until after the sale.
"We are interested in buying the property," Lomack said.
He said his group was interested in building a monument that would be a "source of national pride" for the area. He estimated the cost of rehabilitation at $50,000.
"Since the house does not have any ornamentation," said Lomack, "it would take an architectural artist to do it."
The house is dilapidated and has been vandalized. Two persons who live on the second floor are the sole occupants of the four-family home.
Joplin, who died in 1917 in New York, is known as one of history's great ragtime music composers. After working in St. Louis for several years, Joplin went to Sedalia in 1889 to work in the Maple Leaf Club. It was there he wrote his most famous ragtime tune, "The Maple Leaf Rag."
In 1900 Joplin returned to St. Louis to live and compose. He bought a 13-room house at 2117 Lucas Avenue.
"Because the house in St. Louis that he owned has been razed," the Interior Department explained, "his first apartment here serves to commemorate him."