96 Years Ago
I love perusing older National Geographic magazines. On my first pass, I skip the articles and study the advertisements. I can’t quite explain my fascination, but I think it’s a combination of the artwork, fonts and language used to illustrate whatever product or service one is selling. Together they give me a small glimpse into a bygone era and leave an impression of something that is no more. I came across this ad scanned from the March 1914 issue of National Geographic for Hy-Tex Brick, a product of the Hydraulic Press Brick Company, Largest Manufacturers of Brick Face in...
read moreElaborating on the title
One of the things we’ve both spent a lot of time thinking and talking about is the film’s title. I wasn’t instantly sold when Bill first mentioned the quote and presented a rough draft of the title. Almost immediately he changed my mind by elaborating that it was chance that St. Louis had such an abundance of clay, chance that brought so many skilled immigrants to St. Louis where they were allowed to do such amazing brick work, and now we have a chance to save what we still have; many fortunes were built in brick, St. Louis brick is our underappreciated fortune and the brick...
read moreAldermanic Sunday
Sunday we had an opportunity to spend our morning filming interviews with two of the city’s Alderman, Antonio French (21st Ward) and Sam Moore (4th Ward). I’ve had a hard time writing even just a few sentences about them because it comes out too positive and sounds like I’m kissing their ass instead of introducing them, so I’ll send you elsewhere to get a sense of who they are. Visit 21stward.org where you can read Alderman French’s bio. It’s not simply a resume of his experience, but a biography of his life experience that gives a good sense of his...
read moreMeet the Locals
Working with Bill on this documentary has introduced me to a lot of people who are passionate about and excited by the built environment of St. Louis. While some are specialists or experts – historians, preservationists, architects – there are plenty of everyday people who simply love the brick homes, commercial buildings, schools and churches around them. It’s unrealistic to think we’ll be able to film an interview with everyone I’m meeting because an hour-long documentary doesn’t allow us the time, but I’ll feature some of them here. I was excited...
read moreAbout Brick By Chance and Fortune
St. Louis is a city with a rich heritage of brick architecture. Home to some of the largest and most innovative clay working companies of the nineteenth century, you can still see some of the finest examples of brick work ever produced all over the city and region. Today the city's brick heritage is under threat by neglect, brick theft and urban renewal.
