SHAW (27)

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LOCATION
The Shaw neighborhood is located on the near Southside adjacent to the Missouri Botanical Gardens and Tower Grove Park and just north of the South Grand commercial district. The neighborhood is defined by Interstate 44 on the North, Magnolia Avenue on the South, S. Grand Boulevard on the East and Tower Grove Avenue on the West.

HISTORY
Among the outlying common fields laid out by the French settlers of St. Louis was the Prairie des Noyers or "Meadows of the Walnut Trees". Established in 1769, this field was composed of a series of strips running westward from Grand Boulevard to Kingshighway and included most of the present Shaw area. After the Louisiana Purchase, the American Government confirmed ownership of these parcels by various French families, who later sold their tracts to land speculators. Large sections of the area were acquired by Mayor William Christy, who sold them to William Chambers. About 1860, these tracts were willed to Chamber’s daughter, Mary Lawrence Tyler. The Shaw neighborhood takes its name from Henry Shaw, a prosperous merchant and philanthropist who by the mid-1850’s had also acquired several large tracts in the area.

Shaw had arrived in St. Louis from England in 1819. At the time, the town was becoming an outfitting point for the west and Shaw shrewdly invested in the hardware business. Before he was forty, he had accumulated a substantial fortune. He retired from business and traveled widely. On a trip to England, Henry Shaw was impressed by the Royal Botanical Garden at Kew and later determined to establish a botanical garden in his adopted city. Accordingly, the Missouri Botanical Garden was founded and laid out on Shaw’s land, adjacent to his country home, in 1858. Tower Grove Park dates from 1868, when Shaw deeded 276 acres of his country estate to the City of St. Louis for use as a park; he insisted that it be governed by an independent board of commissioners, of which he would be a life member. In this way, Shaw retained control over the Tower Grove’s development as a Victorian walking park.

A series of bird’s-eye view drawings made for the Compton and Dry’s pictorial atlas of 1875 provides a realistic view of the area at that time. While Tower Grove Park and Shaw’s Garden were well landscaped and developed by that time, the surrounding area was largely vacant meadowland. Shaw began platting out some of his holdings in 1878 and built the ten houses that make up Shaw Place in the 1880’s. In 1887, Mary Tyler sold her property to a developer, resulting in the Tyler Place subdivision. Nevertheless, development in the area did not gain real momentum until the opening of the Grand Avenue Viaduct in 1889. Until that time, property owners had to travel east to Jefferson Avenue in order to cross Mill Creek Valley, thus, isolating the area and limiting it to wealthy families that could afford the leisurely commute.

Most of the property in Tyler Place sold at auction on June 9 and 10, 1890. Advertisements promised freedom from the "smoke, heat and noise of the more populated districts." Over the next decade, four hundred residences were built in the subdivision. This was followed by another thousand in the next ten years. The development of Tyler place formed the largest portion of what is defined as Shaw today, the area from Grand Boulevard to Tower Grove Avenue, between Shaw Avenue south to Magnolia Avenue with the exception of Flora Place. Deed restrictions established a uniform building line and limited construction to two-story brick buildings. Although the area’s single-family homes had attracted some wealthy families, most households were headed by middle-income wage earners who labored in the downtown business district or in the shops and institutions along South Grand Boulevard.

CHARACTERISTICS
The Shaw neighborhood is one of the most intact and affordable residential communities within the central portion of the city. Most structures in the neighborhood are brick and built between 1880 and 1920, with a few constructed as late as 1950. Designated a historic district in 1985, the area contains a variety of architectural styles, including Georgian Colonial, English Tudor, Richardson Romanesque, Art’s and Crafts and Dutch Colonial Revival . The mixed development history, as described above, also resulted in a range of different housing types, from large single family homes to 2 and 4 family flats and some larger apartment buildings.

Since the areas closer to Grand developed earlier when the area was only accessible to wealthier residents, some of the blocks east of 39th Street, contain greater proportions of large single-family homes and historic structures. This area contains: the Rene Beavais mansion, built in 1854, now the nucleus of the Memorial Home, Inc., Shaw Place, an early subdivision built by Shaw in the 1880’s after a street in his native England, the Warner mansion, designed by Theodore Link in 1888 and the Temple Apartments, formerly the B’nai El Temple, the oldest surviving structure in St. Louis built for a Jewish congregation. Flora Place, designed to be a grand entryway to Henry Shaw’s home, runs the entire length of the neighborhood and consists of large well kept homes. With the development boom that followed the completion of the viaduct and street-car lines, the area became more viable for middle-class residents and larger numbers of 2, 4 and multi-unit structures followed.

Some of the areas west of 39th Street, excluding Flora and Hortus Place, contain greater concentrations of such structures. Nonetheless, the majority of blocks in the neighborhood contain a mixture of these different housing types within the block as well as some single family homes.

This variety of housing types has attracted residents of a range of different incomes into the community. Areas that contain higher concentrations of single-family homes have drawn middle and upper-middle class professionals. Thus, these areas are generally well-maintained, with greater numbers of home-owners and many rehabbed or renovated structures. Areas with higher concentrations of two, four and multi-family units accordingly tend to have larger numbers of tenants, often of lower incomes. Demographic changes in the area have led to a certain amount of polarization in the neighborhood.

Over the past few decades, the percentage of African American residents has increased, of both low to moderate and middle-incomes, meanwhile the numbers of lower-income white residents has dropped. This pattern is reflected by school attendance in the area, and may be relevant to the larger scope of the city as a whole. During this same period, white enrollment at public schools in the area dropped dramatically. White middle-class families that moved to the area tended to send their children to private, often Catholic, schools. Thus, there is some polarization between more affluent white residents who buffer themselves economically with private services and often lower-income non-white residents and immigrants, who make do with available public services.

Nevertheless, the availability of goods and services, community resources and parks in Shaw is ideal for families of all different incomes. The neighborhood is in close proximity to the South Grand commercial district, giving residents easy access to grocery stores, banks, drug stores, cafes and a variety of restaurants. The Shaw neighborhood is nestled between Compton Hill Reservoir, the Missouri Botanical Gardens and Tower Grove Park. The fact that Tower Grove Park runs the entire southern edge of the neighborhood puts the whole area within walking distance of park space. There is also an abundance or institutions and organizations in the community.

INSTITUTIONS AND ORGANIZATIONS
There are a number of schools in the area, offering both public and private education. Children in the area attend Sherman Elementary, which also serves as a Community Education Center, and Mullanphy Investigative Learning, a science related Magnet middle school in conjunction with the Missouri Botanical Garden. Shaw neighborhood’s parochial schools include St. Margaret of Scotland, offering a Catholic education from preschool to the 8th grade and Tower Grove Christian School, of Tower Grove Baptist Church with grades K-12. In addition to offering scholarships based on financial need, St. Margaret of Scotland also acts as a site for Boy and Girl Scouts and an athletic association. The athletic association, as part of the Catholic Youth Council, sponsors sports activities, such as soccer, basketball and volleyball, and is open to all children in the community.

Missouri School for the Blind, located across from Tower Grove Park, was the first school in the nation to adopt the Braille system and for many years, the only school of its kind in Missouri. It currently serves young people between the ages of 5 and 21. Children in the neighborhood can also access a number of recreation activities at the YMCA on South Grand Boulevard.

There are also a large number of churches in the neighborhood, some which have been a part of the community since it first developed. St. Margaret of Scotland has long been an anchor for the neighborhood and recently celebrated its one hundred-year anniversary. In addition to its school, founded in 1911, the church has a very large parish and gives emergency assistance to needy in the area. Tyler Place United Presbyterian Church has a similarly long history in the area and one of the last reminders of the Tyler Place subdivision that made up a large part of the neighborhood. The church offers a range of services to people of all ages, including:

• youth services, such as a kids club(4-9), a youth group(10-17), a young women’s group(12-18) and summer camps
• a single parents support group
• senior services, including health and housing assistance through Shaw Neighborhood Adult Assistance.

Among other churches in the neighborhood, Mount Olive Baptist offers computer classes and a food pantry.

A number of organizations provide social services in the community. Shaw Neighborhood Youth provides a family leadership program and after school programs. BicycleWORKS, an innovative and educational youth program begun by Roy Bohn in 1988 allows neighborhood children to earn bikes by completing hours of bike repair and maintenance training along with neighborhood service. Recently, Covenant House, a national organization for helping at-risk youth, made its home in the Shaw neighborhood. The organization assists young people aged 17 to 21 years with preparation for the GED, educates them about life skills and helps them with job readiness and placement. There are also several child care centers in and surrounding the area, such as Cornerstone Center/Early Learning, Casa Dia Montessouri and Shaw Avenue Children Center.

In addition to senior housing and care available at Beauvais Manor, seniors have access to recreation and social activities at the Stupp Memorial in Tower Grove Park. Housing Options Provided for the Elderly(HOPE) at Shaw Avenue UMC helps seniors through relocation assistance. Peter and Paul Community Services operate the Labre Center in the neighborhood, a shelter for mentally-ill adult men.

Shaw Neighborhood Improvement Association(SNIA) sponsors an annual Holiday Home Tour and is made up of several very active block units. St. Margaret Housing Corporation is a non-profit, non-denominational organization that works to maintain and preserve the neighborhoods historic housing stock by encouraging both private and public investment.

PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT
Both organizations were involved in the planning that took place in the neighborhood during the 1980’s in conjunction with the Community Development Corporation and then as an Operation ConServ neighborhood. As part of these efforts, streets were closed along the boundaries of the neighborhood along Grand and Tower Grove Avenues, with the support of SNIA, to decrease through traffic. Also during this time, the Thurman Avenue access under I-44 was blocked off in response to increased crime and drug activity along the street and in adjacent McRee Town. St. Margaret Housing Corporation has worked to stabilize the area by rehabbing existing scattered sites. In recent years, the organization has paid particular attention to the 4000 and 4100 blocks in the neighborhood, rehabbing existing structures and converting four-family units to two-family units and two-family units to single family homes.

Street closings and redesign do seem to have quieted traffic and crime levels have decreased over the last decade. Nonetheless, unfortunately many of the streets that now serve as through streets are also some of the more deteriorated streets in neighborhood, giving visitors a negative impression of what is for the most part a well-maintained and stable neighborhood. The 39th Street Redevelopment Corporation addressed a similar problem, the then deteriorating commercial district, by converting underutilized storefronts to landscaped greenspaces. St. Margaret Housing Corporation’s collaboration with Pyramid Construction on the “Gateway to Shaw” project has potential to alleviate the problem. By rehabbing 2 currently boarded-up four-family flats and an 8-family unit along the entrance of Shaw Avenue near Grand, the project will dramatically change the initial view of the neighborhood.

In the summer of 1998, the Missouri Botanical Garden initiated a community-based planning process with residents of Shaw, McRee Town, Tiffany and Southwest Garden neighborhoods. The resulting Garden District Plan proposes linking the four surrounding neighborhoods as members of a "Garden District". In addition to developing "greenways" along feeder streets and improving the lighting and treatment of highway underpasses, The plan also calls for the construction of 100 new single-family homes, 75 town house units and 60 units of elderly housing. Fourteen new homes are already planned for the south side of I-44 in Shaw as “DeTonty Homes”. Nevertheless, the majority of redevelopment centers on the McRee Town neighborhood. In addition to constructing in homes in the neighborhood, the plan proposes the creation of passive greenspace, athletic fields and a community recreation center west of 39th. In the past, planning more often looked towards large scale clearance of McRee Town and conversion to other uses such as industrial rather than supporting residential development of the area. Nevertheless, the above goals will come at a cost, the lost of four residential blocks, a significant portion of the neighborhood. More positively, this process initiated by the Garden District Plan encourages these communities, separated in the past by the construction of highways and street closures, to work together.