Summit-University, Saint Paul

Hill by Summit Avenue showing the James J. Hill House and Cathedral

The neighborhood was settled in the 1880s and 1890s with duplexes and apartment building settled alongside mansions.[5] Early development of the area was limited due to the steep slopes of Summit and Ramsey hills. By the 1880s a portion of Summit-University had become the neighborhood in Saint Paul, after streetcar service made it accessible. Not all of Summit-University was populated by the rich, but the neighborhood was always middle class or better. The best housing was along the southern and eastern edges. Closer to University Avenue the housing was less grand. The whole area was predominately residential. Neighborhood stores were located along the streetcar routes but little industry intruded.[7]

For decades Summit-University was protected from downtown encroachment by the physical barricade of the bluff, and by the pace of downtown development. With the advent of easy automobile travel in the 1920s, the city's elite began moving away from the neighborhood. The great mansions along Summit Avenue and Crocus Hill declined somewhat but were not subdivided allowed to decay as were similar areas in many American cities. This genteel area of the neighborhood's southern and eastern fringe helped preserve it. The Saint Paul Pioneer Press claimed the Hill District was the “largest solid home community” in the country in the early 1930s.[8]

External image
Summit-University neighborhood in 1923. Note the density of buildings.

The northern fringe provided another sort of anchor. Since the 1880s, Saint Paul's small black community had lived along the railroad corridors slightly north of Summit-University. By the beginning of urban renewal, the section of the city with a concentrated black population was still small by big city standards, but concentrated. Expansion to the north was effectively blocked by the rail corridor, and the dislocations of the Eastern and Western redevelopment projects and freeway construction in the 1950s and 1960s drove African Americans into parts of the Summit-University neighborhood. Houses were subdivided and fell into disrepair as their white owners participated in the national "white flight" era, moving west into newer city neighborhoods or to the suburbs. Some houses and businesses were abandoned. Selby Avenue, the commercial heart of the district, became increasingly deteriorated.[8] The wealthy homes originally for the white elite then housed lower income residents. Many of the homes were subdivided and in disrepair.[5]

By the early 1950s Summit-University clearly had many of the classic signs of urban decay and disinvestment. Late in that decade Summit-University residents began to petition the city government for renewal. Those displaced in the renewal areas to the north and from the freeway construction places pressure on the area, and the ensuing deterioration obviously required some action. Planners, politicians and residents knew that Summit-University needed help, and considered urban renewal the answer. The community was the HRA's top priority after slum clearance projects then in progress were completed.[9]

For more than a decade, major problems plagued renewal efforts in Summit-University despite the city's and residents’ determination to improve the area. Considerable conflict over the renewal arose between the city and HRA leaders on the one side, and community leaders on the other. These conflicts were intensified by the fact that community leaders came from three different sources. First there were the “professional” leaders – ministers and social agency workers. During the years of decline, the Summit-University acquired a number of social agencies including the Hallie W. Brown Community Center, and local chapters of the Urban League and the NAACP, that continued to play an important part in the life and health of the area. Traditional black organizations and black ministers resisted the city's efforts to conduct renewal without the substantial resident involvement.[10]

Businessmen comprised the second leadership group through their commercial clubs. The third group of leaders came out of indigenous citizen organizations. Often these groups formed in response to some unwanted city action. The Dale-Selby Action Council, for example, formed in the early 1960s to protest HRA plans to construct a public high rise for the elderly on the abandoned Neill School site on the corner of Laurel and Farrington. Residents felt the Neill playground was vital play space in a crowded neighborhood. The HRA built the high rise despite the protest but the organization survived and formed one core of resident power.[11] Some of these organizations were funded by “War on Poverty” money from the federal government. Other citizen groups were formed by the middle-class residents who were beginning to try to restore old homes in the area.[10]

The James J. Hill House, now a museum.

The renewal of Summit-University had (and has) a dual focus: preserving the historic landscape and creating a cosmopolitan community. The two thrusts have often worked at cross purposes. Both have been at least partly achieved, though the preservation effort is more secure. The HRA did extensive house moving within the district to promote its historic ambience – an innovation that troubled HUD auditors for years. The preservation of the physical character of the area was clearly important to keeping and attracting middle-class households to the area. Summit-University provides an elegant urban setting that suburbs cannot match.[16]

Summit-University is a large area whose renewal results have not been uniform. North of the freeway, in the north quadrant of the original project area is Central Village, a bit of suburb-in-the-city designed to retain St. Paul's black middle class. It was built in the late 1970s as part of the Western Redevelopment Project.[18] Next to it at the corner of Dale Street and University Avenue, Unidale Mall has been less successful. Ideally, this project was to create a suburban shopping mall in the heart of the city. Even by generous standards, it has failed. Forced on city planners by neighborhood activists, the mall suffered the perennial problem of finding suitable tenants. Some that it did attract, such as a welfare office, are scarcely the stuff of suburban dreams.[19]

The destruction of the Rondo neighborhood in the 1960s through the construction of 1-94 was the focus of Josh Wilder's play "The Highwaymen", which was directed by Jamil Jude and performed at the History Theater in February 2016.[20]

• Woodland Park District
• S. Edward Hall House
• Pilgrim Baptist Church
• David Luckert House
• Saint Joseph's Academy (Saint Paul, Minnesota)
• Cathedral of Saint Paul, National Shrine of the Apostle Paul
• James J. Hill House
• Blair Flats
• Burbank–Livingston–Griggs House
• F. Scott Fitzgerald House
• Vienna and Earl Apartment Buildings
• Horace Hills Irvine House
• Historic Hill District

• Neighborhood website