Fire at Holy Corners

Tim Woodcock writes: Last week I started to make some notes for a blog post about the gorgeous vacant church at the corner at Kingshighway and Washington, which I have long admired and been puzzled by. I was intrigued by the recent addition of a sign outside the Second Baptist church that says a national Gospel Hall of Fame is “coming soon.” But early on Tuesday morning, a fire swept through part of the building, leaving the future of the building plan in doubt – or at least making any future renovation even more complicated and expensive.

Second Baptist is not just any old disused church building. It’s an entire complex that fills up a city block in one of the most desirable parts of the city; it includes gardens and cloisters that connect the various buildings. As a piece of architecture, it would not look out of place on an Italian hillside. It is a building beautiful enough to stop a passerby in his tracks, as was the case for me on a recent Sunday, when I was biking home from church. (And I can also distinctly recall being awed by it fifteen years ago during lunchtime walks when I worked in the CWE).

Details of the fire are still emerging but according to the Post-Dispatch’s reporting it took 50 firefighters to get the blaze under control and the damage was largely limited to the bell tower.

The decline of the building has been well documented and vandalism at the site is apparently a regular occurrence. The building has been on Missouri Preservation’s Places in Peril list since 2019. 

The proposed $20-million-plus redevelopment plan, officially an effort to create the “Gospel Music Hall of Fame and Cultural Arts, Entertainment and Gospel Research Center,” was in its early days and is almost as grand as the building itself. The plan seems more fitting than an earlier proposal: converting the building into a brewery. 

The church building is part of the Holy Corners Historic District, along with Temple Israel, the Tuscan Temple and the First Church of Christ, Scientist, and St. John’s Methodist Church. St. John’s, after closing as a church offered space to various community groups, including a theater, is now home to an auction house. The building was designed by Theodore Link, the same architect as Second Pres.

Digging into the background of Holy Corners some more, I discovered another resonant connection with our congregation: the Second Baptist congregation moved westward to 9030 Clayton Road, Richmond Heights, in 1957. In 1961, Second Pres held a vote on moving westward, following the population growth (it even had a specific parcel of land picked out). But the church membership narrowly decided against doing so, recommitting itself to the city instead.

Back to our neighbor, Second Baptist: Next time you pass it by, do take a closer look. It has so long potential but has been vacant or underused for so long. Let’s hope better days are ahead for this landmark building.

 

Links to stories from local media:

Historic St. Louis Church Could Become National Center For Gospel Music (St. Louis Public Radio)

Bell tower goes up in flames at vacant church in Central West End (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

Local producer aims to turn 'Holy Corners' church into gospel music hall of fame (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

Preservationists fighting to save Holy Corners church in St. Louis (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)