05.10.24
Tower Grove Park, St. Louis, MO

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Paul Sableman is a blogger and photographer who documented Cementland from 2010 to 2019.

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Daniil:

Do you remember how you first found out about Cementland?

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Paul Sableman:

I was writing a blog, starting around 2009 or so, called Exploring St. Louis. And that's one of the reasons that I was seeking out new places like Cementland, to blog about it. My blog articles were extremely brief, very concise, but in re-reading that post I noted that I had found out about it through a New York Times article that was published in 2007. It was beautiful and dreamy, and after reading that I just had to go out and find it.

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Daniil:

I think your first batch of Cementland Photos on Flickr is dated to 2010. Was that the first time you went?

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Paul Sableman:

I believe so, yeah.

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Daniil :

Do you remember what that first visit was like?

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Paul Sableman:

I don't know if I recall the first visit, because every one of the early visits that I took felt so new and exciting. I remember scouting it out and just seeing those cement mixing containers that made up the wall right off of Riverview Drive. And every time was thrilling and an adrenaline rush. It was pretty well secured for the most part. So you had to be a little creative to find a way in, especially not being seen on that busy road. 

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Daniil:

Was there private security in those early years?

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Paul Sableman:

Not necessarily, but there were local police officers that would show up periodically, and I encountered them on a number of occasions. Never got a ticket, never got arrested. And I would be bumping into people who were also exploring; you were never the only person inside of Cementland. You were never the only group. I remember meeting this group of photographers from Chicago who were just having a blast. And they said, “Hey, did you get your tickets before you came in?” And we said, “What are you talking about?” “Oh yeah, we got trespassing tickets on our way in.” And they said that the police said, “Here are your tickets; have fun.”

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Daniil:

And that was already after Bob's passing, right?

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Paul Sableman:

I don't have the date in front of me, but I know that I started visiting prior to his unfortunate death there.

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Daniil:

So was it under active construction?

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Paul Sableman:

Yeah, stuff was moving around. I think I was usually there on the weekends, where maybe he wasn't working. Whatever times I went, he wasn't there. I never ran into Bob Cassilly there, but definitely saw changes in those early years, and things coming together.

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Daniil:

And the crew was pretty lax with it? It was only the local cops who were vigilant about people going in?

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Paul Sableman:

The place was so big I never came face to face with a cop. I remember one time, there was a police officer standing in the middle of the island, kind of in that big center pond area by the smokestack. I forget what he was doing, but he was like, “We're going to get you guys.” Of course, my buddies and I snuck out and never really encountered police face-to-face.

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Daniil:

Did you feel like you were on a mission trying to take photos for the blog you were running, or was it more exploratory the first few times?

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Paul Sableman:

I am someone who will carry a camera for most of my life. I don't have a camera on my neck right now, and I feel naked without it. I was halfway [to the interview] on a bike, and I was like, “I forgot my camera. What if I see something cool?” And I'm not a great photographer, but I like to document things. I think that Google Street View is making most of my photography obsolete. But I've always just photographed everything, and I love to explore. So I think these were full day adventures the first few times that me and a couple random buddies went out there and pretty much explored every nook and cranny as much as we could.

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Daniil:

Do you recall how often you would go those first few years? 

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Paul Sableman:

I tried to go every single year. Some years I missed, but tried to make at least an annual visit. Definitely slowed down after 2015. 

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Daniil:

Were you still running your blog after 2015? 

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Paul Sableman:

I didn't maintain the blog for long. After the first couple or three years that I started it, I would post rarely. I think I actually posted in 2020, but it has not been maintained at all. But Cementland was just… The place draws you; it's a magnet, and it sucks you back in. You can't forget about it.

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Daniil:

In 2016, some of the editing you were doing was pretty different: very high contrast, dramatic. Was that something you were just experimenting with across the board at the time, or was it responding to that visit in particular?

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Paul Sableman:

That was just where I was in my life then. Early on, I had a point and shoot camera and I would just snap to be like, “I was here.” It was almost a selfie without me in it, really quick and dirty photographs. And then I slowly got into using an SLR and trying to compose my photos a little better. But I never edited until around that time and I was really just learning my way around Adobe Lightroom and doing things that are a little too dramatic and noticeable. I still don't have it down, but would like to say that my edits are a little more natural looking for the most part nowadays.

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Daniil:

You've been going to Cementland for almost 10 years—from 200 to 2019, right? What are some of the major changes you've observed in the landscape there?

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Paul Sableman:

Graffiti snuck in more and more over the years. Vandalism—there was a fire shortly after Bob Cassilly's passing. A warehouse close to the main driveway from Riverview that had some beautiful stuff in it, which I believe was destroyed. So it was going downhill. 

And of course, when someone hasn't been actively working and maintaining it, you're a little more apprehensive to climb to the top of a building years removed from the last maintenance and attention there. And then the overgrowth happened very, very rapidly; up to a point where you had to go in January to navigate easily. And that's why a lot of my photos there are in the winter, because I tried to go in the summer sometimes and you needed a machete.

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Daniil:

How quickly did the sculptures and machinery start disappearing and getting vandalized after the construction stalled?

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Paul Sableman:

I don't think I ever saw the big stuff get dismantled or vandalized outside of spray paint. The big robotic arms and the cool stuff that lined pathways and the bridge piers was there the whole time that I visited, as far as I can recall.

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Daniil:

My first time was probably in 2020, and by that time a lot of that stuff was gone. So I was curious about a couple of things in particular that I didn't get to see. One being the river connection.

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Paul Sableman:

On the other side of Riverview?

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Daniil:

Yeah, that whole area on that side. I think it got bought out by a company maybe in 2019 or 2020 or so. It seemed more blocked off and inaccessible. Do you remember what that side was like?

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Paul Sableman:

I feel like you could walk out right here. You'll see one of my buddies wearing a sport coat in a bunch of photos in here too and climbing on stuff, being in precarious situations. He walked all the way out. I didn't do that.

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Daniil:

Gotcha. Do you think that was intended as part of the visitor experience?

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Paul Sableman:

I think it was part of his long-term plans, but I don't recall any mark of work being done, at least that I can remember.

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Daniil:

Another thing that I couldn't really pinpoint was the Lafarge Corp sign on the side of the building.

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Paul Sableman:

I never would actually come in this way, but if you were driving in from the main gates, there was a big yard of materials and equipment, a staging area sort of. When you first got back into the complex of buildings, that was immediately to the left. It was on a small office building there.

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Daniil:

Are there other parts of Cementland that you felt meaningful coming back to in particular?

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Paul Sableman:

I don't know if this is just in my head, but I think there were renderings at certain points of activities and the water features... You could climb on these mounds that mimicked Native American history, which he was sculpting when he died, presumably. That was such a cool feature and just fascinating imagining what it would be like alive and full of people floating around, and it being lush with plantings. Bob Cassilly's imagination definitely got to you.

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Daniil:

Do you think your photos capture some of those emotional, affective qualities of Cementland?

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Paul Sableman:

I think some of them do. I don't think my photo style is very emotional, so I don't think I was intending to convey any of that connection. More so documenting existing conditions the day I was there, but I certainly felt it.

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Daniil:

So what do you wish people looking at your photos paid attention to the most? Is it you documenting Cassilly Crew's work? Or documenting the eventual decay?

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Paul Sableman:

I would like for them, optimistically, to just document the amazing creative details. Like the big silos—putting cement cornices on them, ornamental details using concrete. I think that was one of Bob Cassilly's favorite mediums. Documenting his artistic transformation and the unique use of materials. Setting that piece of machinery on top of a column or pile made it art. And I love that so much. And I think that looking at a photo of that, you can see it as art.

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Daniil:

Looking at your other work, you photographed a lot of abandoned buildings in St. Louis.

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Paul Sableman:

We have a lot of them. We had a lot more 10–15 years ago, when I was really starting to get into it. Many have been lost. And that was one of my goals at the time: this building is not going to be here much longer, potentially. Thankfully, some of them have been saved. But I'm thinking of the Clemens Mansion, for example. I explored that building and didn't take the best photographs of it, but tried over time. Now it's an empty lot, and it's almost impossible to imagine the beauty that was on it once in the very recent history.

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Daniil:

Do you see the photographing of vacant, abandoned, ruined buildings in St. Louis as preservation work almost?

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Paul Sableman:

I would like to think so. At least preservation of where it was, the state that it was in when I saw it. I like to go back and take pictures of restored buildings, and sometimes empty lots, or that missing tooth that was crumbling when I first saw it. I’ve taken pictures of a lot of the same places over the years. St. Louis is not that big.

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Daniil:

Is it important for you to be coming back to the same place in St. Louis and documenting the transformations over time?

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Paul Sableman:

I think so. I mean, it's tough. Look at the NGA site. I don't even know how to align myself. You can't get into the middle of the property, where there used to be not much of a neighborhood, but a neighborhood, when I first walked through it.

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Daniil:

And where are you at with UrbEx? Do you think that your work fits within urban exploration culture, or do you not think of it in those terms?

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Paul Sableman:

Well, I did consider myself an urban explorer. That was part of [my blog] Exploring St. Louis. Definitely went into a lot of buildings. I think that St. Louis was in a heyday of urban exploring 10–15 years ago. There were a lot of buildings that aren't there anymore that were explored by a select group of individuals, and I made a lot of friends urban exploring. You go up on the roof of a building and it's like, “Oh, someone else is here taking pictures.” So it was definitely a community that I felt part of.

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Daniil:

What do you think is the relationship between urban exploration as a subculture and socially engaged, preservation-minded  photography? Do you think those are adjacent? Or are they two completely different things for you?

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Paul Sableman:

It depends on the context, and there's a lot of urban exploring that I think is not respectful. I've always lived by the "Leave nothing but footprints, take nothing but photographs" philosophy. Not everyone is like that. I see arguments that salvaging things that may otherwise be taken by someone less capable of preserving it or who wants to destroy it might be better than leaving it. But some of these matters are complex ethically. 

But I think that many times, preservationists who present very beautiful exterior shots sneak in too. They might've just not published that portion of it, if it’s controversial. And there were certain circumstances where I was let into a space by the owner or by someone with access and was asked not to share those photos, and I didn't. I felt comfortable publishing photos of places that are just open, and there are photos of them all over the place.

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Daniil:

Do you think one of the boundaries between the preservation world and the UrbEx world is the publishing, the output of where the photography is going? The intention behind how the photography is published?

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Paul Sableman:

I think it's really complicated. When I picture a lot of UrbEx, I'm thinking of a fisheye lens on a GoPro and climbing up to the roof of somewhere and then hanging off the edge, and it being almost like a sport. Whereas preservation is really about the building itself. I don't think I took it as a sport. And I'll tell you what: today, you would not find me in any of those buildings. I'm a father now, and I could not go up a rickety staircase of any kind. 

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Daniil:

How do you think your Cementland body of work fits into your overall practice, first as an explorer and now more exclusively as a preservation focused photographer?

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Paul Sableman:

Cementland is a very unique place. I would say, there's probably nothing like it anywhere. And so to me, it's a special place. To me its photos are kind of a unique collection of their own. I've made attempts at publishing a more curated short form photo essay of my 300+ photos. I've never gotten to the end of that exercise before, and would like to revisit that.

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Daniil:

You have an album on Flickr that's called Brick Theft with striking images of totally collapsed residential homes in North St. Louis, mainly. Could you share a little bit more about what that is, and how those images you took relate to that?

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Paul Sableman:

Well, a couple disclaimers. I'm not an expert in this topic. For all the photos I have in that set, I don't have evidence of brick theft. I didn't witness anything in action. They could have collapsed themselves, and the owner cleaned up the bricks, or it was all done above board. But I know that there've been a lot of documented instances of brick theft by other people. 

Basically, these abandoned buildings, particularly in North St. Louis, are worth almost nothing on paper. In a lot of cases, the land is worth something to a long-term speculator like Paul McKee. But he wants to start with a blank slate. Again, disclaimer: some assumptions here, personal opinions. But the stories go that you need this natural brick for facades in St. Louis County or in the Sunbelt. And as that building material, this stuff's invaluable. 

I was working on a project in Ladue, and it was a unique building that I was working on, built in the 1960s. So I did some research trying to figure out the history, mostly out of curiosity, and came across an advertisement in the Post-Dispatch or the Globe Democrat. And it was advertising the unveiling of this new corporate office building in Ladue. The company had moved their headquarters from downtown St. Louis, as was the trend at that time that never stopped, unfortunately. And it said, “We have a solid brick fireproof masonry building constructed in Ladue using bricks salvaged from Mill Creek Valley.” So that's almost a form of brick theft. It seems like a recurring theme in St. Louis that these poor neighborhoods have the bricks taken from them for projects in rich suburbs.

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Daniil:

What do you think of repurposing salvaged materials like that in creative reuse projects like Cementland or City Museum? Do you think that's something productive from a preservation standpoint?

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Paul Sableman:

I think that adaptive reuse of any material is productive. It'd be a shame to not reuse these bricks. And that's one of the beautiful things about brick is that, if cared for, it is infinitely reusable. Not literally, but they've got a very long lifespan. It’s a good thing that they're being reused, but it’s a sting for this city that has suffered because of policies that drove flight to the suburbs. It seems as though the city suffers because of the suburbs, and for it to give its last piece of clothing to the suburbs when they've been the bad guys—it just feels wrong.

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Daniil:

So you think it's more of a matter of where these bricks and salvaged materials are going, the displacement of them from the neighborhoods in which they stood to the wealthy white suburbs? So in terms of taking those bricks for preservation to the National Building Arts Center or Bob Cassilly style reuse projects in different areas, do you think there are any ethical gray areas there too? Are there ways for the city to preserve those historical buildings in the areas where they historically were situated?

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Paul Sableman:

Well, you can look at Old North St. Louis, and buildings are literally being rebuilt brick by brick from a hole in the ground. So it's almost never impossible to bring back a building—it's just how much work you are willing to put into it. In many of these cases, it's just the backside of the building that's gone. It doesn't have to be replaced with brick. There's a lot of ways you can save these buildings. And yes, that's the ideal situation. But I would rather them be shipped from Hyde Park to Soulard if that's been part of a project. That is probably equally ethically ambiguous or problematic, but I think that the reuse is good. And the City Museum is not public, and you have to pay 20 bucks or whatever to get in, but I still think that's awesome. Because it is a museum, a display, and the public can see this history and touch it and smell it. That's a little bit different than being in a gated community.

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Daniil:

What’ do you do for work along with your photography?

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Paul Sableman:

Photography is probably one of my biggest hobbies, but it is not my occupation. I've been in design and construction for most of my career. My photography does not aid me whatsoever. 

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Daniil:

Do you think your construction background informs your photography at all?

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Paul Sableman:

As I've grown in my career, my photography has as well. But I think it's through practicing both independently. 

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Daniil:

In your professional construction work, do you work on projects in St. Louis?

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Paul Sableman:

No. I've had very little experience in St. Louis. I'm working on a new career direction where I would really like to do that. I'd like to get into the St. Louis design and construction industry, development.

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Daniil:

As someone who is in that world and is looking to get into it in St. Louis, do you have any thoughts on some possible ways that the city can engage with the abandoned industrial facilities like the Missouri Portland Cement factory? Besides making it into a sculpture park, what are some other ways that cities can engage with their industrial legacy?

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Paul Sableman:

St. Louis is a very unique place, because we have such regional fragmentation. I think that a lot of developers want to do work in the City of St. Louis. And I think that the city makes it more difficult than they have to. And there's municipalities in St. Louis County and St. Charles that make it really easy to build. They have less historic building stock to renovate, but the same concepts apply. Incentives are kind of a dirty word, but frankly, especially in today's climate of high construction costs and relatively high interest rates, incentives are still necessary for some big projects to get done. And the city needs to look at that carefully and have negotiations with developers on how to not kill the school districts or cut them off, while still making the finances of the project feasible. And if we don't do that, these buildings are going to be gone and it'll be too late to do anything with them. That’s controversial, but I think the city needs developers. The developers need the city. Some people hate the politicians, some people hate the developers. We need everyone.

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Daniil:

And what are some things that would be worthwhile for the city to give out incentives for?

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Paul Sableman:

The city already does give out incentives, and I think that there's a pretty good consensus that the North Side still needs and deserves incentives. I think that it's not universally agreed upon that the Central Corridor is worthy of incentives. You hear so much about wealth in the Central Corridor; there's so much development in the Central Corridor. But if you walk through it, it still feels like you've got really bright blocks, and you've got a whole bunch of empty ones or rundown ones or unactivated ones. And at the same time, unfortunately, you can walk a few blocks north or a few blocks south, and you're in no man's land. Almost quite literally, with just grass or a highway or train tracks. So I think that we still need a lot of help pretty much everywhere: north, south, and in between.

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Daniil:

Just last week, we talked to the Alderwoman of the 13th Ward, Alderwoman Boyd. In her ward, she's got Chain of Rocks, which is adjacent to Cementland. We were talking to her about how she would like to see Cementland used ideally, and she brought up the Foundry in St. Charles as an example of positive investment and development for these big industrial buildings. What do you think of that?

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Paul Sableman:

The St. Charles one doesn't look nearly as activated and as busy as the City Foundry does.

I went to an event earlier this week where a very similar question came up. I was talking about what to do with the AT&T building downtown. And what do you do with the Railway Exchange Building? These are massive, over a million square feet. There are plenty of industrial sites that are huge. I'm thinking of the Lemp brewery, which has mostly artist lofts and little office spaces and things like that. I think the answer is, you need multiple uses. Somebody pointed out there's a big old Sears warehouse in Memphis, and it’s just a massive central building. And it's similar to City Foundry, but the scale is so much bigger. And there are apartments in the same building that there are offices and charter schools. And so there are just mixed use space, which is awesome. It's like a vertical city sort of, or a city within a city.

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Daniil:

When you revitalize an industrial site in this way that's not in St. Charles on Main Street or in Grand Center in St. Louis, but maybe in the underserved communities in North St. Louis, do you think there is a risk of rent increases and gentrification that might take place? 

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Paul Sableman:

Well, a couple of things. First of all, developers and landlords aren’t looking at the market rate of a particular rundown block or community alone. They're looking at the market of a metropolitan area, really, or city. And if you really deep dive into prevailing rental rates, you can go to North County, and they're not that much lower than those of much more desirable places. And I hate to call out North County, but I was just looking at a project there. And developers are going into an old apartment complex and putting in LVT flooring and new countertops and charging much higher rents. So I think that the cost of living wouldn't be dramatically affected by putting in destinations, because you're seeing these expensive apartments everywhere. I think that more risk for gentrification is property taxes or someone on a fixed income maybe.

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Daniil:

Have you been following any other St. Louis photographers who've been documenting Cementland? Is there any work you'd recommend?

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Paul Sableman:

Not recently enough to know off the top of my head. I did back when I was actively photographing it, but it was nobody that I knew personally. I definitely spent many hours googling other people's adventures and following their stories and reading Reddits and blogs. But there are many, many very talented people that have been there and taken incredible photographs and had told amazing stories that I really enjoyed following along with. And I connected with some of those people online, but nothing that lasted into a friendship or anything.

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Daniil Gerasimov:

Was it through running your blog that you've made those connections?

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Paul:

And social media. Flickr is a place where I've interacted with people. Social media is kind of a funny thing. You make virtual friends that you usually don't interact with ever in person. But yeah, really across all platforms: I would share photos periodically on Instagram or Twitter and get conversations going that way. Or look for other people's content on those platforms.

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