1972: Lafayette Square’s Corner Place

Just to the north of the Lafayette Park Hotel stood a small single story building at the corner of Mississippi and Park Avenues. Its address was 1400 Mississippi Avenue. The earliest reference I see was from 1888. A popular corner place, It became a polling station for the 23rd ward, 123rd precinct of St. Louis: 

Interesting that the city districting considered this alignment to be the Lafayette Square area. It didn’t take in the part north of Lafayette Ave, which ran to Geyer in later iterations of the Square. It also missed from Hickory Street south to Chouteau, although it did take in more eastern area, almost to 14th Street. 

20th century connections

By 1914, the building housed a confectionary and ice cream parlor. It was then owned by Sahag Terzian.  An ad from May 1918 sought two girls with experience to start immediately: 

The store was later purchased by George Panagopoulis. There was a robbery two months after the above ad was placed. Not exactly the James Gang. They got away with about what the theft of a tip jar from Clementines ice cream parlor netted bandits in 2017.

The store appeared to change hands frequently. A year later, it was owned by Nicholas Arvanitis. He appeared in an article from the Star and Times of March 3, 1920. Seems he had paid two men two dollars to place an ad for the candy store in a movie showing at the Elite moving picture theater at Eighteenth Street and Park Avenue. Nicholas sat through three shows without seeing an ad. He complained to the manager, and showed him a $2.00 receipt scribbled in pencil on a piece of wrapping paper. The manager laughed and said those men didn’t work for him, and must have kept the $2.00.

From candy store to cafe to tavern

Fifteen years later, in the middle of the Great Depression, the same place was known as the Lafayette Cafe. Chicken dinners were the order of the day, inexpensive and hearty.  

The restaurant didn’t fare much better, for by 1939, the building was a tavern owned by Basil Theodor, a Rumanian immigrant. 

Sometime in the 1940s, the business was bought by Nicola Bulica and his wife Constance. They were both in their 60s when they took over the bar from Theodor. They opened Vicki’s Bar at 1400 Mississippi Avenue, and threw an open house when they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in October, 1949. 

The need for two women to work the enterprise remained. Here is Bulica’s ad from 1950. I guess Constance didn’t mind attractiveness if it attracted a thirsty crowd:

The place was still going strong in 1957, around the time this photo was taken. The corner at Mississippi and Park Avenue was a hot spot, with two bars, a pharmacy, liquor store, and a couple of cafes within easy reach. 

Caroline Mission and a corner place

By 1968 Vicki’s Bar was history, replaced by another tavern called the Corner Place. Early Lafayette Square restorationists used a part of it, called the Corner Plus, for meetings. The Corner Plus was an outreach office for the Caroline Mission, which was located three blocks away, at 1819 – 1823 Hickory Street.

A brief side note. German Evangelists began the Caroline Mission in St. Louis around 1913. Originally known as the Good Samaritan Center, it worked with the sick, poor, homeless and unemployed. By the 1930’s, from its Lafayette Square quarters, it served 2,000 people a week, and ran a thriving early education center. It was a testament to the hard times that beset the Square neighborhood during the Great Depression. 

Here a recent look at the same three occupied properties that used to comprise the Caroline Mission in the Square. The Mission filled the last empty lot with a new school in 1915. The Cassillys rehabbed it into what is a lovely setback home today.  

Back at 1400 Mississippi, it was the early 1970s and folks were just beginning to rethink the center of Lafayette Square. The nascent Lafayette Square Neighborhood Association met there, and ran a grocery co-op from the building. The co-op was a joint venture between the Mission and neighborhood volunteers, addressing both cost of groceries and lack of grocery stores.

A place to gather

This article from the Post-Dispatch in July 1968 features a community meeting, with discussion of the proposed highway that would have nearly bisected the Square. This threat existed in different forms right into the early 21st century, and its defeat accounts for the very recent development of Dolman Street.  

Maybe having neighborhood meetings at the Corner Place became an impetus for change on Mississippi Avenue. Then again, the adjacent twin lots on Mississippi Avenue stayed vacant for nearly another half century.

Then and now – still a corner place

The Corner Place was rough, with glass block windows and air conditioners protruding through boarded over transoms. This photo from 1973 provides the general impression: 

It met the wrecking ball in 1975, creating a clean sweep of three contiguous lots. The corner was part of a TIF acquisition in 2001. The neighborhood association worked with the city parks department to create a small pocket park area from the corner. The Lafayette Square Restoration Committee (LSRC) acquired full ownership around 2017. 

Working with Kileen Architects, the Lafayette Square Neighborhood Association is exploring the possibility of reshaping and adding a small two story structure to the corner lot. This development, if successful, would give the neighborhood a headquarters within the community, and help reinvigorate the Park Avenue business corridor.

Notes: 

This essay is a companion piece to my earlier look at the double lot adjacent to the corner on Mississippi Avenue. You can find it at lafayettesquarearchives.com/1875-the-lafayette-park-hotel/

Information on the origins of the Caroline Mission from the United Church of Christ website; https://www.ucc.org/the-caroline-mission/

The Caroline Mission still exists today, at 2828 Caroline Street. It offers licensed, accredited early childhood care and education for children from six weeks to six years of age. I recommend their site at https://upstl.org/early-childhood-education/

A copy of the Lafayette Square Neighborhood News from March, 1972 contains a shopping list for the food co-op. It makes interesting reading, and provides insight into the scratch gravel times the new wave of restorationists faced. Click here: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ve27lb1wfff0nuicb0chv/Lafayette-Square-Neighborhood-News-March-1972.pdf?rlkey=emh1x160fqrlprsa12oz4oto7&dl=0