These Gates Stand in a Park. The Street They Guarded No Longer Exists: Vandeventer Place, St. Louis

In 1947 the city of St. Louis began pulling down the most exclusive address in the American Midwest. By the time it was finished, not one of the fifty mansions on Vandeventer Place was left standing. Not a house, not a foundation, not a paving stone. Only the gates survived, and they were moved three miles away, where they still stand in a public park with nothing behind them. This is the story of how that happened, and of the rules that made it inevitable. Vandeventer Place was laid out in 1870 by Julius Pitzman, the surveyor who gave St. Louis forty-seven private streets. It was protected by the strictest deed restrictions in the city: no shop, no flat, no alteration without the unanimous agreement of every single owner on the street. Not a majority. Not a board. Every one of them. Those rules were written to guarantee that the street could never change. They worked. That is exactly the problem. Sources are listed at the bottom. Where they disagree, the video says so instead of picking the better story. CHAPTERS 0:00 Stone gates in a public park 1:39 Rules written to last forever 2:40 The city that made a private street necessary 10:38 How the machine was actually built 16:26 The peak, and the turn 22:04 The demolition 27:21 Why this street, and not the others 28:56 What is left SOURCES St. Louis Magazine — "What happened to Vandeventer Place?" St. Louis Magazine — "Behind the rise and fall of private streets in St. Louis" St. Louis Magazine — "The Genius of Julius Pitzman" St. Louis Magazine — "Reconsidering a Forgotten Historical Treasure in Forest Park" Saint Louis Patina — "Vandeventer Place, Revisited" St. Louis History and Architecture — "Introduction to Vandeventer Place" Forest Park Forever — "Vandeventer Place Gates" Compton Heights Neighborhood Betterment Association — "History" The Cultural Landscape Foundation — "St. Louis' Private Places", "Benton Place" Immigrant Entrepreneurship — Edward Mallinckrodt Sr. UrbanReview STL — on the 2013 expansion of the John Cochran hospital #StLouis #AmericanHistory #UrbanHistory #LostArchitecture #GildedAge