"There are only three things America will be remembered for 2,000 years from now—the Constitution, jazz music, and baseball," said renowned essayist and American culture critic Gerald Early in the 1994 Ken Burns documentary Baseball. "Those are the three most beautiful things this culture’s ever created."

If his belief proves true, it’ll be an excellent legacy. And if we take Early's adopted hometown as an example—with the Constitution in relative safety and the hometown Cardinals a perennial World Series contender—it seems we’d do well by our stars to focus on jazz a little bit.

Enter the St. Louis Palladium Building.

It may not look like much now, but once the 1914 structure was converted into the Plantation Club in 1940, it became the place in St. Louis to grab a gimlet and sway with some of the best jazz and swing musicians out there.

As was so often the case during that era, the joint was segregated, but African American artists like Billy Eckstine, Noble Sissle and His Orchestra, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, and Benny Carter made nightly appearances at the reportedly mob-run nightclub.

“I think [the Palladium Building] is nationally significant to the history of jazz, and so it’s obviously very important to the history of jazz in St. Louis,” says Andrew Weil, executive director of the Landmarks Association of St. Louis. “It’s basically the last building that has a strong association with an African American musical tradition that was once very strong in the city.”

And it’s because of that importance, and the current threat to the structure, that the Palladium Building was named to the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s 2014 list of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.

The building has sat vacant for longer than some people can remember, and, as a result, is suffering from deferred maintenance, general neglect, and deterioration. On top of that, it sits in one of the four (out of 28 total) wards of the city of St. Louis that are not subject to the city’s preservation ordinance, nor is it recognized as a local landmark or listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Thus, the Palladium Building is not protected from arbitrary demolition without historic review.

This is all not to mention a potentially more immediate threat.

Until a Section 106 review last fall that deemed the Palladium Building eligible for landmark designation, the local VA hospital was considering purchasing and demolishing the structure as part of an expansion project. Since then, the organization has publicly stated that plans to demolish the building are off the table, but, according to sources, is quietly continuing to state its interest to the building’s owners.

Editor's note: While it hasn't yet been demolished, the Palladium Building is still abandoned. Find more information on Save the Palladium Building at Grand Center's Facebook page.