Everybody's doing it

Young son and teen rocker, Matt, and his bandmates in Headfirst, have been working on their first CD, or EP (not sure what the difference is?). The first track is complete, and has been loaded on Youtube. Check it out here:

China Gold

Having grown up within walking distance of San Francisco's Chinatown, enjoying great Chinese food is a good memory from my childhood, and a continuing quest today.

We've found a place in St. Louis that compares to the best family run San Francisco Chinese restaurants. It's on Olive in the well-established Asian community that connects UCity and Olivette.

The name of the place is Shu Feng, 8435 Olive, tel. 983-0099, and the website is: shufengstl.com.

Try this place. You'll be glad you did.

NPS releases GMP for Arch grounds

Online version

The plan presents multiple alternatives, including a "Preferred Alternative - Program Expansion". Interesting language is contained in the other alternatives: "Portals" and "Park in the city".

A design competition, possible reworking of the south end of the Memorial (current site of the maintenance facility), lids, decks, or bridges over the depressed lanes and Memorial Drive, and possible closing of Memorial Drive are all suggested.

STL Today has a feature story about the new plan here.

With thanks to "Anonymous"

Anonymous from Nashville (maybe?) was reading the archives of STL Rising and posted an update to a post about dispersing traffic through local street networks. It is an important policy read:

"But where will the traffic go?"

Arch Design Competition

The National Park Service is close to releasing the final General Management Plan for the future of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. The plan will govern the management of the site for the next 15-25 years. The plan is the result of year long public process. A design competition has been discussed as part of the management plan.

Current conditions along Memorial Drive:


A volunteer citizens group has emerged during the process know as "City to River". The mission of the group is to improve connections between downtown and the neighborhoods of the central riverfront. One idea that has been suggested is the replacement of the depressed lanes with a new at grade boulevard. This post is a sneak preview of how such a plan might look. The image above shows Memorial Drive and the depressed lanes at Memorial and Spruce.

Soulard resident, city booster, and local designer Jeremy Claget (www.jeremyclagett.com) prepared the before and after images shown above and below to provide an example for how the new boulevard would look. Below is an illustration of the intersection of Spruce and Memorial with the new boulevard in place of the depressed lanes (click on the images for an expanded view):

Design concept for new "Gateway Boulevard":


The top priorities of the City to River effort are to enhance economic development opportunities, improve quality of life, and to support transformative change to our downtown area, the Arch grounds, and the riverfront.

City to River is an entirely volunteer, citizen-driven effort. The organization receives no public support or outside funding. All efforts are carried out by City to River volunteers. This effort is a work in progress and needs your help. The National Park Service design competition is likely going to take place sometime after the first of the year. Among the top priorities is improving connectivity between downtown, the riverfront, and the Arch grounds.

If you are interested in learning more about the plans for the riverfront or joining our efforts, please contact us via the comments section below or through email at rbonasch@sbcglobal.net. City to River is working on a website which will launched in the coming weeks.

Local artist creates music site

Space Junk blog

Would a new Memorial Drive discourage you from coming downtown?

One of the concerns raised about replacing the I-70 depressed lanes with an at grade boulevard in front of the Arch is that it reduces access to downtown. It's an interesting question.

Currently, drivers headed to downtown St. Louis destinations must exit the interstate at either Memorial Drive (from the south) or the Memorial Drive/Pine Street exit (from the north). On the other hand, drivers staying on the interstate are bypassing downtown, possibly headed to North County, St. Charles County, Lambert Field, UMSL, South County, Jefferson County and other points north or south of downtown St. Louis.

If there was a boulevard in place of the depressed lanes, all traffic traveling through the current Memorial Drive/I-70 depressed lanes corridor would be on the city street grid from around Walnut at the Old Cathedral north through Laclede's Landing and the Bottle District area.

On a new boulevard, drivers would have multiple connection points to downtown hotels, restaurants, Laclede's Landing, Lumiere Casino, Washington Avenue, the proposed new Immigration Museum, Market Street, the Edward Jones Dome, the Bottle District, and all other points downtown.

Drivers on the depressed lanes have no connections to downtown, unless they exit the interstate. For those concerned that a new Memorial Drive boulevard in place of the depressed lanes reduces access to downtown, how do you see that happening?

11/14 Trivia Night to benefit CCBF

Where: Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish
Address: 4092 Blow Street
When: Saturday, November 14th

Doors open at 6:30 PM
Trivia begins at 7:00 PM

Tables of 8, $20 per person.

Includes beer, soda and snacks.

Proceeds benefit community development programs of the Carondelet Community Betterment Federation.

To make a reservation, please call Stephanie at (314)752-6339

Early birds?

There's a new CVS Pharmacy opening at the corner of Gravois and Germania. It's across the street from a Schnuck's store with a pharmacy and a Walgreen's pharmacy. When opened, there will be three major pharmacies in head to head competition at the same intersection.

The CVS is nearly complete. The lighted signage went up last week and the parking lot is paved and striped. Workers appear to be stocking the store right now. Unexpectedly, this morning, all the signage was covered over with white plastic.

My guess is that with the parking lot finished and the signs up and lit, customers from the area figured the store was open so they were trying to get in for a look.

Some might loath the idea of a third pharmacist at the corner, especially one surrounded by surface parking that took down four or five existing houses to build. Others might like the competition or just having a new store in the area.

"Hope springs eternal...

...pitchers and catchers report to spring training on February 15th" *

* As seen on a sign Sunday night outside a church along Big Bend in Webster Groves.

Old house window options

Our house was built in 1932 with large, wooden windows. Over the years, the windows have been well maintained, but they are now 77 years old. They are "six over six" windows, measuring approximately 3 feet wide and 5 feet tall.

The house is a solid brick, neo-colonial designed home. The historic windows add a lot to the aesthetics. They work well, but are showing some wear. A few panes have cracks, one fell victim to a random slap shot, and they need exterior painting. They are made of single pane glass, with triple track storm windows and screens. We've gone round and round about whether to replace them.

A historic replacement window would cost in the $800-$1000 range installed. To replace them all would cost close to $25,000. That's a lot of cash. And the existing windows are not in bad shape. So we have decided to keep and maintain.

This month, we are having them painted and repaired by a professional painting company. The cost is running about $80 per window. We are also having the basement windows painted. The total cost of the window painting and repair will come to something under $2,000. Or less than 1/10 the cost of full window replacement.

For less than half the cost of historic replacement windows, we could install vinyl windows, but they would severely lessen the charm of the home. Weighing the options, we are maintaining the original windows in place.

In another 5-7 years, it will likely be time to paint again.

South Grand, Delor traffic improvements looking good

South Grand traffic calming experiment from Arsenal to Utah:

Drove it, liked it, hope they extend it. I especially like the way they used massive concrete barriers and sections of concrete pipe to erect temporary barriers. The concrete barriers and restriping create an immediate, noticeable change.

I like the "brutalist" look of it. It makes a statement: "We're gonna do something to clam traffic around here, and we're gonna do it now. We're not waiting for millions of dollars from somewhere else, we can do this now." Traffic was calmer and pedestrians looked more comfortable crossing the street.

Maybe we should consider other opportunties for doing similar projects with these heavy concrete, movable street barriers and lane restriping? South Broadway through Carondelet seems a natural, as does N. Broadway through Baden. There must be many others. Natural Bridge on the north side is a street many say is way over capacity.

Delor street widening from Ridgewood to Morganford:

It is impressive the way new sidewalks and pavement can brighten the whole area. The tiny front yards look appropriate given the small lots, compact houses, and narrow gangways. The charm of the area looks to be improved. Another plus will be improved views of historic Bevo Mill from the west.

A million small things

Working to make things happen usually isn't rocket science. It's often the opposite. Very simple little things done over and over and over again. Maybe a thousand little things. The challenge is getting away from pointing out errors or weaknesses and moving to action and results.

There are lots of issues in St. Louis deserving attention. The challenge is, how to make an impactful difference? Having meetings, talking about issues, making points about what needs to happen often leads to suggestions that these things require the actual work of someone...else. That's not effective.

If you want to see something happen, then you have to be part of making it happen. This subject reminds me of the criticism of volunteer groups. It always strikes me as extremely ironic when people are critical of volunteer organizations. Why would people criticize volunteer efforts?

Rather than criticize, how about joining, offering funds, or partnering in some other way? There certainly is plenty of work to do and not enough money, time or people to make it all happen. When people volunteer, they give of themselves, and they are trying to make a positive difference. They need help and support, not criticism. We get more done working together and leveraging our efforts.

A point was made at a recent meeting about helping to improve educational outcomes in city schools. The person made the statement that each one of us needs to become personally invovled. He was right. How does that happen? We hear lots of complaining about the city public schools. Other than complaining, what are people doing to make a difference in improving them?

I read online recently about the idea of targeting historic buildings for preservation. The idea is appealing. How will it happen? It will take a million, or maybe a thousand, small steps. People have to work together. Get on the same page. Share a vision and a passion. Overcome differences, find common ground, and move forward toward making things happen. That means alot work for a lot of someones. And usually it's on top of our normal 8-5 jobs, family and home commitments, walking the dog, and everything else that demands of our time.

Let's explore the things that we've done to make good things happen. A couple of best examples in St. Louis include the creation of Metrolink and the restoration of Forest Park. Getting those projects done took a million small things and years of work. What are some of the other big challenges we face? Zoning reform? Improving educational outcomes? Dealing with vacant and abandoned buildings? What should happen, but more importantly, how do we get things to happen?

"Urbanexus Next American City" finds St. Louis

Urbanexus - Next American City came to town this week and is finding a place where creative people are working together to remake St. Louis.

A meeting of Urbanexus representatives, local creatives, and out of town experts convened at the downtown Left Bank Books. The event started at 7, with most people lingering long after the 9 PM scheduled conclusion.

There were well over 100 people in attendace. The standing room only group overflowed into the upstairs balcony.

Had this event occured ten or fifteen years ago, there would have been likely fewer than a dozen persons on hand. And there would have been little to do afterwards. Attendees at last night's event had many venues to choose from for after meeting gatherings.

Among the issues presented included creating a 1% for the arts program. Former 28th Ward alderman Dan Maguire was in attendance and encouraged attendees to promote such ideas to current members of the Board of Aldermen.

Panelists included current alderman for the 21st Ward, Antonio French. Alderman French stressed the need for an update to the city's zoning and development process. His point was supported by another panelist and Trailnet representative who mentioned the importance of an understandable and predictable development process.

A German born architect and current UC Berkeley professor stressed the importance of cross collaboration. Cherokee street creative entrepreneur and start up business advocate Galen Gandolfi spoke eloquently about the importance of providing capital to low and moderate income persons and businesses.

St. Louis American editor Chris King moderated the event. It's always good to meet the people whose blogs we read. King did a good job emceeing the event and sharing his love for St. Louis. King described Alderman French, as exactly the sort of bright, educated, young professional person St. Louis needs to retain.

The need for strong leadership was a recurring theme. Whether its for passage of a tax for a regional trail system (have) or a 1% for the arts program (need), it takes leaders to make such ideas into reality. Question: How does St. Louis nurture the increase in such leadership that gave us the regional trail system to do more progressive things for St. Louis? Case in point: if a revamp of the planning and zoning code for St. Louis is a desired goal, how do we build leadership around that issue?

Downtown St. Louis has become the focal point for the discussion. But its important to remember that many of the principles discussed last night have already been happening in St. Louis for a long time. Alderman French cited the success of the Loop as an example of a creative person, Joe Edwards, making change happen. The role of gays and the sustainability of the Central West End was emphasized.

Tough issues such as a challenged public school system and attracting middle class families were debated. Some suggested writing off the idea of attracting middle class families. Others said a "quiet tax" exists for families choosing to live in the city and paying to place their kids in private schools.

What is never brought up in the schools debate is the fact that most enrollees into private high schools in the St. Louis region live outside the city of St. Louis.

Here's a related question. The City of St. Louis has a residency requirement for most public employees. As a former public employee, I support the policy. What I don't understand is why are employees of the city public libraries and city public schools exempt from a residency requirement? You must be a city resident to serve on the school board, but you don't need to live in the city to be a city school teacher.

Wouldn't city school teachers have a more vested interest in the success of city schools if they were city residents themselves?

Urbanists: are you "hitting the hustings"?

I had to look that term up on Google to learn what it meant. "Hitting the hustings" is an old English expression that means campaigning and debating for an issue.

We read a lot of ideas about ways to improve St. Louis. There is lots of debate online and in the blogs. However, most citizens don't follow blogs. They get their information by attending meetings or talking with friends and neighbors.

If you're passionate about an issue, are you out there in person making presentations to promote your ideas?

Mapping St. Louis urbanism

There is much talk on the blogosphere about revitalizing neighborhoods and improving our city's urban assets. Most of the talk centers around built environment issues. Concerns over building scale, setbacks, demolition of historic buildings and neighborhood walkability are frequently mentioned.

There is such intense debate about the built environment, some advocates of urbanism suggest that parts of St. Louis are not urban. If this is so, then does it mean we could map the urban parts of St. Louis?

STL Rising differs from the above point of view. We see the whole city as urban. We'd add some adjoining areas outside the city to our urban fabric as well, but we'd definitely not remove any parts of the city from what is urban.

The city proper is a whole, with one overall tax base and many distinct neighborhoods and 28 individual wards. When we pay our 1% earnings tax, annual real estate taxes, or buy a gallon of gas, it doesn't matter where in the city we buy it, the tax revenue from the sale supports the whole urban community of St. Louis.

If I'm a city resident, then I'm 1/350,000th of our city's urban fabric. It doesn't matter what neighborhood I live in or what my house looks like. I'm part of the city. When you visit the city, and spend money here or attend an event, then you're part of our city's urban fabric too. STL Rising's position is the most important ingredient in sustainable urbanism is people.

So I'd be curious to hear from others, with anonymous comments welcome. If you believe parts of St. Louis are urban, while others are distinctly not, how do you make the distinction?

City wants to super-size your block party

An article in the Beacon describes a plan to close long stretches of city boulevards for several hours at a time to create miles long play areas connecting multiple neighhborhoods. With our abundant street system, this idea sounds fun and feasible.

Closing long stretches of city streets has been done for parades. Market was closed during the Final Four a few years ago for the "March to the Arch". We participated with thousands of others, dribbling basketballs down a mile or so stretch of Market Street. We brought the dog and a group of our son's friends. It was fun.

The plan is being developed by the Mayor's office and Trailnet. It's an effort to get neighbors outside, away from the television, doing healthy activities with friends and families. Boulevards closed for the day might link with city parks, creating an open space and recreational network. Lindell has been mentioned as one of the possible streets.

Okay, so STL Rising doesn't like to complain, but it seems like some places get all the cool stuff. Lindell and the CWE is a great choice, but what about doing this in lesser known parts of the city?

Last weekend I attended the Gateway Cup bike race around Francis Park in St. Gabriel's parish in South St. Louis. A former U-City resident now Chesterfield resident, and lifelong St. Louis area resident in his sixties approached me. He said he had never seen Francis Park in his life. He was amazed at the neighborhood's beauty. I suspect he's never been to Natural Bridge and O'Fallon Park or South Grand and Carondelet Park either.

I hope if the city does move forward on its plan to close long stretches of major city boulevards, the lesser known parts of St. Louis get to participate. We have lots of streets to celebrate.

Broadway through Baden. Natural Bridge, Page and MLK on the north side. Hampton, Manchester, S. Grand and Jefferson on the South side.

Why hold back?

Morning bits

Smells are powerful mental cues. They can remind you of things from decades ago. I had one of those scent triggered memories today.

Growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, I spent about half my childhood in downtown San Francisco visiting my mom at her "Upper Tenderloin" or "Lower Nob Hill" (depending on your point of view) apartments. My sister and I would ride the bus from our suburban home in the East Bay to the South of Market area A/C transit station on Friday nights or Saturday mornings. From there, we'd walk the ten or so blocks up the hill to mom's Leavenworth or Bush Street apartments.

Along the way, there were lots of activities and various smells. Some good, some not so good. Fresh newspapers being delivered. Flower stands on the sidewalk. Along with the fresh flower stands, good food aromas coming from coffee shops, restaurants and hotels were my favorites. This was way back in the early 70s.

Fast forward to the present. I've worked in downtown St. Louis for about 15 years. Good smells haven't really been part of the experience. Dust and cold concrete mostly. Today, that changed. I exited the parking garage onto Olive near 7th street and for the first time, I noticed the smell of breakfast cooking. It immediately took me back to those early morning walks in downtown SF.

It may not seem like much, but the smell of breakfast cooking sure beats the alternative of cold concrete and musty air that used to greet morning visitors to our downtown.

The Gateway Connector project

The Illinois Departmnent of Transportation has plans to build a north-south running highway known as the "Gateway Connector" through the metro east intended to connect communities from Troy through O'Fallon to Columbia.

The project has a price tag of $500,000,000. Its price is very comparable to the $460 million cost of the Highway 64 rebuild from Interstate 270 into the city of St. Louis, but its size is much different, running 41 miles compared to the 11 of the Interstate 64 rebuild.

As one would expecet, the project has both opposition and support, but rather than debate the merits of the plan, what I find interesting is the timelines involved. It seems like the project has been on the drawing boards for at least 10 years and planners estimate it could take another 20 years before the road is ready to drive on.

Opponents cite urban sprawl as the reason to block the project and among the supporters are businesses working in real estate and home building. They say the project will open land for development.

The thing that amazes me is the way we are looking at decade after decade to plan such a project. Why does this take so long? Wouldn't it be better to either commit to move forward or outright kill the project? The slow funding and decision making process is torture for the participants on both sides.

If we have STL Rising readers in the metro east, it would be great to hear your take on the proposed Gateway Connector. Given the extremely long lead time for this project, one gets the sense that the road building industry and highway lobby has some of the longest horizons in American society. Sort of like the 50-year business planning strategies of the Far East.

Carondelet to bookend its southern flank

Redevelopment takes time. Sometimes a long time. Today, St. Louis celebrates a milestone in one of its longest term redevelopment efforts.

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon, St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay and other community leaders will take part in the groundbreaking of a new business park to rise on the site of the decades abandoned and once environmentally unusable Carondelet Coke site.

The new business park will bring jobs to the Carondelet neighborhood and the city of St. Louis and complement what's happening across the River Des Peres at the new River City Casino project.

Visitors to the area will see new businesses, more workers, and the historic South Broadway commercial area will have new traffic from the increase in activity. It's a win-win for all, and the result of coordinated effort between the City of St. Louis and its development agencies, the State of Missouri and its development agencies, the EPA, the Army Corps of Engineers, and residents of Carondelet.

With new historic rehab housing developments underway, a new community center nearly complete, the Ivory Triangle area experiencing rapid growth as an entertainment and dining destination district, and now the redevelopment of the Carondelet Coke site a reality, Carondelet is making rapid progress in becoming one of the city's latest neighborhood improvement success stories.