A New Guilded Age for Lafayette Square in St. Louis, Missouri

The Lafayette Square Neighborhood, located on the near south side of St. Louis, Missouri started out as THE place to live in the mid to late 1800’s. Three story mansions surrounded the 30-acre Lafayette Park with its elaborate cast iron fencing. It was one of the oldest parks west of the Mississippi. The neighborhood was within walking distance of Union Station and the riverfront, where many of the wealthy landowners had made their fortune in shipping and the fur trade. Then in 1896, a good deal of the Lafayette Square area was destroyed by one of the worst tornados ever to strike the city. The wealthy residents decided not to rebuild, instead deciding to move to the still fashionable Central West End part of the city. Over the years the Lafayette Park neighborhood became a patchwork of the few remaining mansions, parking lots, and warehouses. A number of high-rise housing projects were built between Lafayette Square and downtown, near 14th Street. In the late sixties and seventies, the decline of the neighborhood began in earnest. I know. I was born there and lived there until I was fifteen. The projects went into decline and a lot of gangs roamed the area. Most of the mansions became rooming houses, their beautiful tin ceilings plastered over, the mahogany woodwork and pocket doors painted, and the ornate fireplaces that were in practically every room were bricked shut. We had our own skid row near Mississippi and Park Avenues; lined with liquor stores, broken glass, and still-breathing corpses in the alleys. The once beautiful Lafayette Park was definitely not a place you ventured into after dark.