The North Village Arts District is a

neighborhood A neighbourhood (British English, Irish English, Australian English and Canadian English) or neighborhood (American English; see spelling differences) is a geographically localised community within a larger city, town, suburb or rural area, ...

and arts district in

Columbia, Missouri Columbia is a city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It is the county seat of Boone County and home to the University of Missouri. Founded in 1821, it is the principal city of the five-county Columbia metropolitan area. It is Missouri's fourth ...

. It is located on the northeast side of Downtown Columbia, and is the city's main

art gallery An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The lon ...

district and center for the

visual arts The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts al ...

. The neighborhood is also home to restaurants, bars, food trucks,

housewares Household goods are goods and products used within households. They are the tangible and movable personal property placed in the rooms of a house, such as a bed or refrigerator. Economic role Businesses that produce household goods are categorize ...

shops, theaters, and a distillery. Rose Music Hall, a popular music venue, is located on Park Avenue. There are several dance studios, including the Missouri Contemporary Ballet. The district hosts a monthly art crawl called " First Fridays".

Wabash Station Wabash may refer to: Political entities * Wabash Confederacy, or Wabash Indians, a loose confederacy of 18th century Native Americans Places in the United States * Wabash River, in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois * Wabash Valley, in Illinois and India ...

, a restored railroad station, is the headquarters and central hub of Columbia Public Transit. The station previously served the

Columbia Terminal Railroad The Columbia Terminal Railroad, Columbia Branch Railroad, or COLT is a local, short-line, freight railroad in Boone County, Missouri owned by and serving the city of Columbia, Missouri. The railroad runs from Columbia to the Norfolk Southern Railw ...

, which brought passengers and goods into Columbia throughout the 1900s. The railroad was the primary cause of the neighborhood's original industrial nature. Today, many of the district's businesses are located in renovated warehouses and industrial buildings. A former gas manufacturing site, now owned by

Ameren Ameren Corporation is an American power company created December 31, 1997, by the merger of St. Louis, Missouri's Union Electric Company (formerly NYSE: UEP) and the neighboring Central Illinois Public Service Company (CIPSCO Inc. holding, form ...

, may be turned into public green space. Several buildings in the neighborhood are listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

, including Wabash Station, the Boone County Courthouse, Columbia National Guard Armory, Elkins House,

First Christian Church Early Christianity (up to the First Council of Nicaea in 325) spread from the Levant, across the Roman Empire, and beyond. Originally, this progression was closely connected to already established Jewish centers in the Holy Land and the Jewish ...

, and

McCain Furniture Store The McCain Furniture Store Building is a historic commercial building located in downtown Columbia, Missouri. It was built about 1930 for the S. H. Kress & Co., and remodeled in 1951. It is a two-story, brick building with a simple stepped par ...

. Two National Historic Districts are partially within the neighborhood: the Downtown Columbia Historic District, and the

North Ninth Street Historic District The North Ninth Street Historic District is a national historic district located at Downtown Columbia, Missouri, USA. It encompasses seven contributing buildings in an area that has historically been a center of commerce, recreation and culture. ...

. The district is adjacent to

Stephens College Stephens College is a private women's college in Columbia, Missouri. It is the second-oldest women's educational establishment that is still a women's college in the United States. It was founded on August 24, 1833, as the Columbia Female Acade ...

and Columbia College.

Ameren lot

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Columbia Gas Works operated a coal

gasification Gasification is a process that converts biomass- or fossil fuel-based carbonaceous materials into gases, including as the largest fractions: nitrogen (N2), carbon monoxide (CO), hydrogen (H2), and carbon dioxide (). This is achieved by reacting ...

plant at the corner of Ash and Orr streets. The company was purchased by the Union Electric Company (now Ameren) and eventually ceased producing gas in 1932. The gasification process contaminated the soil and some groundwater in the area with

carcinogenic A carcinogen is any substance, radionuclide, or radiation that promotes carcinogenesis (the formation of cancer). This may be due to the ability to damage the genome or to the disruption of cellular metabolic processes. Several radioactive substan ...

chemicals. Ameren continues to own, and until recently, operate from the location. In June 2014, Ameren was removing contaminated soil from the area, and expected to finish by September 2014. The land is currently fenced and unused. As of 2019 the city is considering purchasing the lot to create a public park. Ameren has been criticized by the North Village Board of Directors and community for its treatment of "a whole city block that is in disrepair and ..an aversion to commerce."

References

External links

Official site
{{Columbia, Missouri __NOTOC__ Culture of Columbia, Missouri Neighborhoods in Columbia, Missouri Entertainment districts in the United States Tourist attractions in Columbia, Missouri Arts districts Art gallery districts

Ameren lot

See also

References

External links