Two years after completing a major renovation of a St. Thomas thoroughfare, members of the St. Thomas Historical Trust are gearing up to revitalize another historic step street. Volunteers recently spent two days cleaning up portions of Dronnegans Gade East in Charlotte Amalie as a trust board member led a bid for grant funding to lend momentum to this new effort.
Step streets are described as a unique architectural feature of the island, built in the 18th Century by Danish town planners to help pedestrians traverse the hilly landscape. To date, two of the 45 St. Thomas step streets have undergone full structural restoration.
The other project — Store Taarne Gade, otherwise known as the famous 99 Steps — was carried out by Public Works with the help of Custom Builders and was recently completed at a cost of $725,000.
Those familiar with the restoration projects point to cost as a major hurdle to completing the work, but initial efforts to secure funding for Dronnegans Gade East are proceeding nonetheless.
Proponents are pursuing an Urban Forestry grant as a funding component for the new project. Grant writers say they propose to create a step street cultural corridor and urban food forest along the pathway. “We’re trying to combine things in a meaningful way,” said Historical Trust Board Member Anna Monica Villa.
“Step streets were made for walking, and if you’re driving you will not see them; you will not experience meeting the neighbors and having a moment to get the freshest melee you can get on a step street. It’s a way of preserving culture that’s lovely,” she said.
The second completed step street — Bred Gade — began in 2011 and was completed in 2024. Villa is credited as the driving force that pushed the project over the finish line. It was the early 2020s and circumstances brought on by the Coronavirus Pandemic gave Villa enough free time to focus on step street improvement.
“At the time of COVID, I was living at the top of Bred Gade, and my work situation was kind of tenuous … so I had time and opportunity to see how neglect of the step street in front of where I lived was becoming worse every day,” Villa said.
When a friend stumbled over a neglected portion of the street and suffered a serious injury, Villa said her motivation to do something grew.
Residents whose homes bordered on Bred Gade shared similar views of deteriorating infrastructure. Charles Consalvo recalled the early efforts to restore the step street.
“They tackled the bad part at the bottom: brick steps and stairways that were falling down. That got taken care of, and then things kind of came to a halt. Then Anna Monica got on it again and raised some money to do work, and then finally — slowly but surely — the whole set of steps was renovated and is still in pretty good shape,” Consalvo said.
But the former Bred Gade neighbor, familiar with the trust’s involvement, said money — or lack thereof — slowed the project to a halt at times.
St. Thomas architect John Euwema also traversed Bred Gade in his youth, living a block away from the step’s eastern base on Nye Gade. He called the completed Bred Gade project “a culmination of a grant, a lot of volunteering,” he said.
Euwema was hired to help push the project along; he used his familiarity with area homeowners to encourage their involvement and support. But as the work moved forward, he said, some of the original intent was lost through decision-making and shifting priorities.
Still, Villa remains optimistic about the latest effort and continues to encourage volunteers to show up for monthly cleanup activities while other aspects of Dronnegens Gade East restorations move forward.
“It was not an easy task; this was our fifth time as a volunteer trying to uncover the street. The Department of Public Works really worked with us this time, and we really made some advancements and get to some things you can see,” she said.
The best part, Villa said, is meeting area residents who come out to welcome the volunteers and encourage their efforts. “As we’ve been working on it, we found that a lot of people use that step street; it’s a neighborhood,” she said. “There’s a lot of families, older people. It was really nice to meet the people who live there.”
