You can’t spit in Lowertown without hitting a plaque denoting one historically significant edifice or another. Warehouses stand shoulder to shoulder, erected in a passel of architectural styles—from Italianate to Richardsonian to Beaux Arts—monuments to a zeal for development that’s matched only by the recent condo craze. Many of these majestic industrial buildings, like the Romanesque revival Boston & Northwest Realty Company, were designed by Cass Gilbert, the turn-of-the-century hotshot who went on to draw up plans for the Minnesota State Capitol, the U.S. Supreme Court, and New York City’s Woolworth Building and George Washington Bridge.
Roughly speaking, Lowertown is the area between Galtier Plaza (on Jackson Street) and, to the east, the Saint Paul Farmers’ Market, with its onion-with-a-pinwheel sculpture (on Broadway Street). The farmers’ market has been in operation since 1853, making it one of St. Paul’s oldest landmarks.
Lowertown’s north and south borders are, respectively, West Seventh Street and Kellogg Boulevard. But the strip of land between Kellogg and the Mississippi feels a little forlorn; there, Warner Road shuttles cars past downtown, and a little-used pedestrian promenade offers views of the Mississippi at work.
The river is, of course, why Saint Paul exists at all. In its infancy during the 1840s, the city was occupied by voyageurs too rowdy to mix with the soldiers at Fort Snelling. They made their money trapping beaver, mink, otter, and muskrat while the waters were open, hunkering down when ice made travel impossible. And then, with a belch of smoke and toot of the horn, the railroads—and their attendant robber barons—arrived. Bankers soon outnumbered furriers. Warehouses sprang up overnight as the prosperous businessmen of Lowertown took to architectural one-upsmanship, creating buildings swathed in marble, such as the Merchants National Bank on East Jackson, designed in the Richardsonian Romanesque style.
A closer look at many of these commemorated structures finds that, their glorious façades notwithstanding, they are no longer centers of commerce and industry, but rather parking ramps. In fact, many of the parked cars belong to the office workers who comprise about a third of Lowertown’s weekday population; other neighborhood denizens include artists in live/work lofts (they’ll open their doors during the St. Paul Art Crawl this month, October 13 through 15) and their newer neighbors, the residents of stainless-steel-and-granite rehabbed condos. But still, even at midday, Lowertown can seem sparse. Perhaps it’s the scale of things—all those eighteen-foot ceilings with their massive beams. A building designed to house huge supplies of grain destined for the East coast, or ore heading for the West, or even the trains themselves, is hardly filled by a scant three or four folks sipping coffee at the Black Dog Café (housed in the Northern Pacific Railway Warehouse).
If Lowertown has a crown jewel, it has to be the Saint Paul Union Depot. There, the spirit of the 1920s, when thousands of train travelers passed through daily, is well preserved. Even as jackhammer dust fills the stretch out back where lofts are being built, the depot’s dark, polished wood and hanging lights exude glamour.
If you go to Lowertown by car, take advantage of the free parking by the river at Lower Landing, where steamboats have docked since the 1840s. Walking up Jackson Street, you’ll retrace the first steps taken by many immigrants in their new city. Crest the hill, and brick and stone buildings appear all around. It’ll seem new to you, too.
Leave a Reply Cancel reply