4200 McRee: The Anti-Botanical Heights

In 2004-2005, the City of St. Louis, supported by the Missouri Botanical Garden and the Garden District Commission (GDC), completed the most extensive land clearance project in St. Louis in decades. A practice, thought by many to be a tool of the past was back. In all, six complete blocks of century old brick homes and apartment buildings were leveled for widely spaced 3,400 square foot, $379K, single-family homes on cul-de-sacs.

Perhaps the old McRee Town should not be romanticized too much. Six years after the eastern half of the neighborhood was leveled, the western half has seen very little change. Buildings remain boarded up and shotgun homes can be had for less than $10K. At the time, Michael Allen's Ecology of Absence and Rob Power's Built St. Louis blogs railed against the clear cutting and documented the destruction. St. Louis Commerce Magazine praised the development, correctly noting that gunfire, theft and drugs had become all too common in McRee Town, but clearly going a big step too far by proclaiming of the new development, "Henry Shaw, would no doubt, be pleased.