Next Neighborhood Meeting is Tuesday, December 15th in the
Tiffany community Center - Inside the Tiffany Park @ Blaine Avenue &
Spring.
We will be choosing the neighborhood officers for 2010 and
hosting our yearly Tiffany neighborhood Holiday Party
The Tiffany neighborhood, as well as present day Shaw and Botanical
Heights neighborhoods, were originally part of the common fields laid out by
the French stretching West of Grand Avenue.
These included the Cul-de-Sac Common, the St. Louis Common to the North
and the Prairie des Noyers which was laid out in 1769, to the South. During
this early period, Grand Boulevard was far beyond the edge of the settlement
of St. Louis.
By the 1860s, much of the northern area, including what is now the
Tiffany neighborhood, had become the property of Mrs. Mary McRee. Except for
a few houses on the perimeter streets, most of the land was made up of
meadows and cornfields. Some industry had begun to develop towards the
railroads to the north and in McRee City (now Forest Park Southwest), but for
the most part the area remained undeveloped.
This began to change in 1888 when Mary McRee sold her land to a
developer. Dundee Place was developed in 1889 after Colonel Thomas A. Scott
purchased it from William McRee for $448,000. It covered an area of 138 acres
and a portion of this tarct was subdivided by Mrs. Mary McRee and named
"McRee City." In 1869 a large subdivision, called McRee City was
developed by Mrs. Mary McRee, widow of Colonel Samuel McRee, who died in the
cholera epidemic of 1849. McRee's subdivision was timed to take advantage of
the arrival of horsecarriage lines in the Shaw neighborhood and the presence
of the Pacific Railroad which had been laid along the northern edge of the
area in the 1850's.
With the completion of the Grand Avenue Viaduct in 1890 and electrified
streetcar lines by the turn of the century, the area was transformed into a
middle-class commuter suburb. The Tiffany neighborhood takes its name for one
of these streetcar lines, called the Tiffany line, which connected transit
offices and shops at 39th Street, then called Tiffany Street, and Park with
Chouteau Avenue
The Grand Avenue Bridge, a 700 foot long suspension bridge
built in 1891. It once crossed the Mill Creek valley but was wrecked for
"urban renewel" in 1962
Today, solid brick two-story homes, many of them two-family, give the
Tiffany Neighborhood its character. Many of the settled homeowners like it
for the nearby private grade and high schools, for the world class Missouri
Botanical Garden just a five-minute bike ride to the West, the wonderful
neighborhood Tiffany Park and playground, and immediate acess to Interstate
44 and to the rest of the Metro area.
The multi-cultural homeowners and a strong Tiffany Community
Association constitute a vibrant and active force for revitalization, while
the neighboring businesses and the newly formed Botanical Heights
Neighborhood give assurance that the Tiffany Neighborhood is a vital and
important partner in the in the renewal of city revitalization.
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