For better or worse?

While patronizing a popular downtown eating and drinking establishment this weekend, I had a brief conversation with the long time store manager. He was expressing frustration about having to shoo off the homeless from his property. He says the problem with homeless people coming inside his place of business is getting worse every week.

We talked about the growth in the number of downtown businesses, and how the increase in homeless activity might be tied to the overall increase in activity downtown. He didn't look at it that way. He noted that from the business's perspective, it was just an annoyance and bad for business.

There's no doubt that downtown is changing. St. Louis is changing. There is progress all around the city. With change, comes new things. We were on the Hill Saturday night for the Missouri/Kansas game, and there we saw a fresh take on a Hill tradition that was a real surprise.

A couple of doors west from Milo's, someone has added a luxury second floor addition to a single story, brick shotgun home, replete with a walkout front balcony. The balcony provides a view of St. Ambrose church. Some might think reworking a vernacular shotgun house on the Hill is too much messing with tradition. I liked it.