The downtown YWCA is a five-story Renaissance Revival block of variegated brown brick, its wall knit with diamond-patterned diaperwork and crowned by a deep, bracketed copper cornice gone green with age. A monumental round-arched entrance rises from a rusticated stone base, flanked by cast-stone urns carved with lion masks and fruit swags. The lower windows sit in elaborate terra-cotta surrounds wound with grapevines; arched openings with carved spandrels and shallow iron balconies mark the main floor; and a top-story loggia of paired windows runs beneath the cornice behind a low iron railing. A carved stone tablet beside the entrance records the building's founding.
The building was erected in 1911 by the Young Women's Christian Association of St. Louis as its central downtown home — lodging, classes, and social rooms for young working women in the growing city. The YWCA occupied it until 1975. From the late 1970s it served a very different purpose as the New Life Evangelistic Center, the downtown ministry and homeless shelter of the Reverend Larry Rice, which also broadcast his television station, KNLC Channel 24, from the building; its rooftop cross and painted wall cross still mark it. New Life's shelter drew a long and bitter dispute with the city over its occupancy permit and capacity, and after years of litigation it was ordered closed for good in 2017. The building has stood largely vacant since, and was offered for sale in the 2020s.
