Wednesday, January 18, 2006

"That's not North St. Louis"

I was at a gathering recently near Calvary Cemetary where a group of neighborhood residents were discussing perceptions of the city's north side.

They explained to me that if you are in the know, which I wasn't, you know that much of what is generally referred to as "North St. Louis" isn't considered so by local residents.

By their traditional standards, areas south of Page and west of Union are not considered North St. Louis. Those areas are considered Central or West End.

2 comments:

Joe said...

That's always been my impression: Page is the real southern boundary of the North Side, at least west of Grand.

East of Grand it's less clear. You could say the North Side doesn't start until Cass, but is that any more justified than saying it starts at Cole?

The neighborhood bounded by Delmar, Skinker, Union and Page is officially called the "West End." So, it makes sense that it's not considered part of the Northside. It was, after all, a really wealthy area at one time in history. Even now, the new houses being built there ain't exactly cheap.

Anonymous said...

Likewise, Dogtown is as much a part of the City's westside as its southside.

And in addition to saying just North, South or Central, many also now say Northwest, Far North, Southwest and Far South too.