Our house is haunted too...

Guide books say that St. Louis is one of the most haunted places in the country. From "Bloody Island" during the Civil War, to the Lemp Mansion and all around Alton, there are lots of stories about hauntings here. Come Halloween, St. Louis leads the country in commercial haunted houses. The whole thing to me is good fun. I never thought much more about it until these past few weeks.

A month or so ago, a woman was driving slowly down our block. I was doing work in the front yard. The lady was looking at all the houses. She stopped to talk to me through the car window. She said she was trying to find someone. I didn't recognize her or the name of the person she was looking for. She was a little agitated, and her appearance out of sorts.

She appeared dazed, as if she wasn't sure whether she belonged there. She was slight of build, with a pale complexion and dressed in loose fitting clothes. She drove away. I was a little concerned about her and her search, but I didn't think much about it after that.

Then last week, a very unusual message came across our neighborhood listserve. A member reported that their house was haunted and they were looking for someone who could come over and cleanse the place of spirits. This person was worried because they said this ghost was very strong and capable of causing injuries.

Other posters replied how their homes were haunted too, and that the whole thing was fairly common. They said the best thing to do was to call a priest because they are the best at removing restless spirits. Even a protestant poster said the best thing to do was to call a Catholic priest.

I chalk up the whole spirit and haunting stuff around St. Louis to our historic nature and strong Catholic culture. Lots of our neighborhoods are very old. There are many generations ahead of us here. Our cemeteries date to the early 1800s. A lot of people died violent or plague sickness deaths. It's no wonder we have more than our share of unquieted spirits.

So yesterday, I'm working in the backyard and the mysterious lady from last month returned, only this time she was much more specific in her search. She walked down the gangway and approached me. I was standing there with a power saw in one hand and dead tree branches in the other. She had the same unsettled appearance. From a distance, she looked like she could be in her early 40s, but once she was within a few feet, she looked much older. She might have been 50 or 60. It was very hard to make a close estimate of her age.

This time as she spoke, she was very focused in her questions. She asked me how long we had lived in the house. I told her that we had lived here for about four or five years. She said she knew that, and that when the house was up for sale, she had gone through the home back then. She began asking questions about the same person she was looking for on her last visit.

She said the man she was searching for was her sister's son. She gave me the impression the man had some connection to our house. I asked her his name and she said it was "Tom O'Toole". "O'Toole" is an old time St. Louis name. We know a family of "O'Tooles", but no Tom O'Tooles.

I told her that I had never seen nor heard of a Tom O'Toole, but that I would ask around for him. If anyone reading here knows of a Tom O'Toole that lived in South City, please reply.

Time for City-County Reconciliation?

The Great Divorce happened in 1876. Now, there is talk of the city reentering St. Louis County. I like the idea. I'd like to hear from people in St. Louis County about it, because for a reconciliation to happen, it has to be a marriage of equals.

Both sides bring value to the relationship. Will it happen? It will take some serious relationship counseling. One thing is interesting. Note the map above. The City is almost the perfect size to become the eighth County Council District. We'd have a member on the St. Louis County Council. Doesn't that sound good?

Selling fear with that furnace

The old saying in advertising is, "don't sell the steak, sell the sizzle". People are looking for more than a product when they buy something; they're buying an experience. They want their purchase to make them feel good. So marketers are always looking for that something extra to make a sale. More and more, that something is fear.

Today in the car I heard a radio commercial for a heating and cooling company. They were advertising for the sale of furnaces and air conditioners. The angle they used to promote their business had nothing to do with quality or value or customer service. They were making the case that their employees wouldn't commit a crime against you, their customer. Isn't that wonderful? Doesn't that make you feel good? This ad is running on the St. Louis area's leading FM conservative talk station.

The ad described how you don't want just anyone coming into your house or your basement. How you wouldn't want dangerous people around your family. It went on to say how this company turns away 97% of their job applicants (obvious implication being these unhired individuals are working for their competition). Then it said the leading trades taught in prisons are plumbing and heating and cooling. God knows no one would ever want an ex-con working on their air conditioner or going down in their basement.

Listen to the tone of conservative talk radio. Check out the advertising, whether it be for service companies or school choices. How often are we being sold to our fears? Does this approach cross the wide spectrum of society, or is it targeted against certain demographic groups?

Bloggers Unified...About What?

Following up on yesterday's discussion, if there was an effort to unify blogs, what sorts of things would make sense to address? Progressive efforts range from national issues to very place-based concerns here in St. Louis.

The range of possible issues is very wide. From updating our region's waste water management system, to promoting the notion of St. Louis City reentering St. Louis County, to historic preservation, to urban design. Plus a lot more.

Going in too many directions dilutes the message to the point of having little impact. Are there areas where unified bloggers might help bring about community progress? Or is that happening already and maybe things should be left alone?

How about ending the policy of no beer sales at high school baseball games? That's a real head scratcher. Young ball players grow up from kindergarten through 8th grade playing at athletic association fields across the St. Louis region, where family and friends gather to enjoy watching games and share a beer if they like.

Yet when these same ballplayers make it to high school, playing on these same fields, the snack bar shuts down the tap. What's the difference? Maybe this is a topic better sought by the beer bloggers (they are out there, aren't they?)

Blogger Unification

I follow a number of blogs, a few regularly. The ones I read are grouped in the link section of popular urbanist blogs like Ecology of Absence. I think a big reason blogs are popular in some circles is because you can find information about things you're interested in written by people with an active interest in the same issues.

In the case of the urbanists blogs, the writers tend to be our neighbors, working in their daily lives on the issues they write about in their blogs. So there's a sense of involvement, community activism, and common interest.

With the growing use of online communications, what if the bloggers tried to focus on a few key issues? Would they be able to have a bigger impact? Or are bloggers just too independent a group to develop a set of shared priorities? If they did identify some priority issues, what would they be?

Historic preservation gets a lot of attention in the blogs, as does the idea of "form based zoning". Cycling and transportation planning are other areas often written about. All of these topics are part of the realm dealt with by government and community process. How would bloggers influence these arenas?

When attending neighborhood meetings, the impression I get is that most average citizens do not read blogs. So they wouldn't be aware of a unified blogger voice. Meanwhile, a good way to get a cold shoulder is to arrive at a neighborhood meeting, unknown to neighborhood regulars, coming from another part of town, pushing an issue or agenda. It seems for bloggers to have a bigger impact, there needs to be wider use of electronic communications by average residents and a wider sense of community beyond individual neighborhoods.

Maybe that's an issue blogger unification might address? Building a wider sense of community across neighborhood boundaries? How might that happen? Maybe it takes years since it is going against the grain of St. Louis tradition.

Neighbors Dedicate St. Cecilia Historic District

Saturday morning, neighbors met with elected officials and representatives from other interested organizations to dedicate the new St. Cecilia Historic District in South City. The new historic district is in the Carondelet area, bounded by Grand on the west, Delor on the north, Virginia on the east, and Bates on the South. The anchor institution in the district is the beautiful St. Cecilia Catholic church (photos available at links below).

Dignitaries including State Representative Jake Hummel, 16th Ward Alderman and Director of Institutional Advancement for St. Cecilia's parish, Donna Baringer, 13th Ward Alderman Fred Heitert, newly elected 25th Ward Alderman Shane Cohn were present, along with about 80 neighborhood residents.

The St. Cecilia historic district nomination was prepared by historians Nini Harris and Lynn Josse. Nini and Lynn were introduced and described some of their work in preparing the nomination, including the amazing fact that 673 of the district's original 700 buildings remain standing. After a brief presentation, the professionals turned the dedication over to young people living in the St. Cecilia area.

Carrying an American Flag, 2007 St. Cecilia graduate and current sophomore at Bishop DuBourg High School, Thomas Pollitte, led a processional of young people ranging in ages from about five to twelve to the front of the room. There they stood together, and took turns narrating the story of the historic St. Cecilia area.

The narratives were accompanied by historic images of the area. They spoke of South St. Louis Vernacular architecture, bakery brick buildings, and Arts and Crafts bungalows. They spoke of "window coolers" (someone still has to explain what those are), "coal chutes", and "laundry poles". In the middle of the presentation, right on time and wearing a big smile, one of the youngest presenters marched through the audience holding high over her head an antique wash board made at the Cupples Wooden Ware factory in downtown St. Louis.

After the young people completed their presentation, a choral group from St. Cecilia Academy came to the front of the room. With keyboard accompaniment, in a preview of their upcoming April 30th "Broadway or Bust" musical show, they sang wonderful renditions of "Meet Me In St. Louis" (twenty years of loving that song, and never knowing it had verses to go along with the "Meet Me in St. Louie, Louie" chorus), "There's No Business Like Show Business", and the theme song from the hit Broadway musical "Rent". The singing and music were excellent. STL Rising encourages readers to attend the April 30th, 6:30 p.m. concert.

Fr. William Vatterott spoke of the growth of the parish, now seeing average Sundays draw over 2,000 parishioners, including a solid hispanic base. St. Cecilia's is one of the most beautiful churches in the St. Louis Arch Diocese. Former Arch Bishop Burke authorized St. Cecilia's to take the name, "Cathedral of the South Side".

The St. Cecilia Historic District nomination is a story of people from various backgrounds coming together for the betterment of the overall community. City and state officials, local institutions, historic preservation professionals, neighborhood residents, and local business all supported the effort. At the dedication, there were members of the 2009 graduating class of St. Cecilia Academy, along with graduates from the 1930s and 40s!

Visit these links for more information about the church and school.

50 Downtowns

The map above is from a 1920s book about public transportation in the St. Louis area. What I like about it is the way it shows all the little downtowns dotted across the bi-state area (click to enlarge the image).

It would be a fun outing to travel the roads connecting these historic settlements. I wonder how many of them resemble the way they looked back in the 1920s? In between towns, many old farm houses and commercial buildings would still exist.

No Free Zoos

Ray Hartmann has written an interesting article for St. Louis Magazine about why the Zoo Museum District ("ZMD") in St. Louis City and County should be expanded to adjoining counties, and why free admission to tourists ought to be eliminated.

He is clear in that free admission should continue for residents of the ZMD since, after all, we are the ones paying the taxes to support the system. However, Hartmann points out that over 50% of the region now lives outside of St. Louis City and County. Tens of millions of dollars would be raised by expanding the ZMD and charging admission to out of town tourists.

In the print edition of the article, there's a chart comparing prices for zoos across the country. A free admission zoo is nearly unheard of, and most zoos charge $15 or so per person for entry. I don't think an admission charge for our zoo would hurt tourism. But I like the idea of starting with a lower admission fee at first - say under $10. After folks get used to it, then slowly raise the fee, a little at a time. Raise it gradually, so that within 5-10 years, we're on par with national averages.

As far as residents of adjoining counties joining the ZMD, that's a different question entirely. Now, they enjoy the benefit for free. Some might consider the free use of the ZMD an incentive to move to an outlying county. So how do you convince people to start paying for something they already get for free? I suppose you do it by giving them a choice - charge them at the gate if their county does not join the ZMD.

Cardinal Red

Working downtown, I get to watch the parade of Cardinal fans walking through downtown before and after games. The fans are easy to tell apart - they're mostly wearing Cardinal Red.

Cardinal fans are for the most part good natured people. They're here for a good time, and they love the Cardinals. But for a lot of them, for years, attending Cardinal games would be one of the few reasons they would visit downtown.

However, for the past couple of years, there's been an interesting change. Now before and after ballgames, you see more and more baseball fans actively exploring downtown. They are parking further and further from the ballpark and walking to the stadium.

On the way, they are stopping and looking in lots of storefronts. They are noticing lots of redeveloped buildings and cleaner streets. By the curious and sometimes a little surprised looks on their faces, I think their impressions of St. Louis are changing, for the better.

Lots of people were critical of the deal to keep the Cardinals downtown. They didn't like taxpayer financing of a stadium for rich players and richer owners. Yet, if you think in terms of the improved goodwill for downtown and the rest of St. Louis, those tax payer investments just might be paying off.

Turtles Rising

Since tomorrow's the official start of the weekend - a holiday weekend for many - that makes today the eve of a long weekend, and for many the getaway day. As Friday's are usually slow days for serious stuff, to get in the holiday spirit, STL Rising will start things off with a low key story about some of the little day to day things that make neighborhood life special. The following is a story about one of our old neighbors we lived across the street from for about ten years.

There are a million different stories. I am reminded of our elderly neighbor, now deceased. She used to give our young son, then about 6-9 years old, baseball cards in little brown paper bags she’d dig out of her basement. Nothing of great collectible value, just a thoughtful gesture from her. Matt didn't know the difference, and at that age, he just liked getting the cards. Our neighbor was widowed by this time, and she sort of adopted us as her family across the street.

She had one daughter who lived down on the gulf shore, and another here in St. Louis. The local daughter lived in a home our neighbor owned over in the Lindenwood neighborhood. Years previously, the house was given to our neighbors by some old friends of theirs. The Lindenwood couple immigrated to the US from Europe and met our neighbors.

Our neighbors hosted a wedding party for the Lindenwood couple in their home over near Lindenwood Park. After the party, the couple left things the same in the house, and when they passed on, they willed the home to my neighbor, with decorations from the wedding party still up in the dining room.

Our neighbor friends never changed a thing, they never uncovered the furniture, anything. Then when her one daughter moved in the place, the place was more than she could handle, and it started to show the wear. My kind neighbor didn’t know what to do about her daughter's situation; she was just trying to help her.

Meanwhile, she mostly kept to her self in her little brick house with the old air conditioner installed by her husband back in the 1950s. She never went on vacation and wore old clothes. When she died, I learned she was worth close to $3,000,000. From as far as I can tell, it was all left to her two daughters and grandkids.

After her death, the house across the street remained vacant for years until the heirs finally sold it. In the intervening years, it too was starting to show the signs of being vacant for an extended period. Our neighbor would have been embarrassed about that. She and her husband had always kept the yard perfect and they kept pet turtles they would find on country drives and bring back home to St. Louis.

In the winter the turtles would burrow under the ground to hibernate. Every spring our neighbor would wait for them to dig themselves out from under the ground and start foraging around her yard. She could tell if they all came back because she painted little numbers on their shells with nail polish so she could tell them apart. She gave them all different names. "Oscar" was one of them. I wonder what ever happened to those turtles?

Anyhow, when we first moved in to the neighborhood, it was our neighbor who invited us to attend our first neighborhood association meeting. My wife later became president of the organization. That was back in the mid ‘90s. My wife, way more techie than me, started the neighborhood listserve. It operates to this day with hundreds of subscribers. Although our old neighbor never had a computer, I'm pretty sure she would be very happy about that.

The houses and old buildings in St. Louis are great, but it is the people and neighborhoods that make it really special. I think I would rather have a neighborhood with 10 percent vacant buildings and engaged residents working together, than a fully occupied neighborhood with little sense of community. In St. Louis, you can find that.

Maybe she can't read?

Driving again, I pass a number of bus stops on the way downtown. This morning, at one of the old stops where the sign is covered up with the announcement regarding Metro's disruption in service, a woman was bundled up waiting for something, a bus maybe. Do buses still stop at the stops where the signs are covered up? Is she waiting for a bus that will never come?

Alley video cameras?

With the lower cost of video technology, some communities are considering the idea of installing video cameras in alleys and on street corners to keep an electronic eye out for suspicious behaviour. Is this too much of an infringement on personal liberty, or something we should consider?

No more electronic voting for me

In the last primary election, I decided to give electronic voting a try. I didn't like it. The machine seemed a little quirky, and I didn't like not having the feel of a depositing a paper ballot in a box. Today, I voted with a paper ballot - much better. Which gets me to the main point of today's post - what the hell happened in the 9th inning of the Cardinal's home opener yesterday?

Great outing by starter Adam Wainwright. Cardinals take a 2-run lead in the bottom of the eighth with a home run and an insurance run. Everything is set up perfect for a win on opening day. Then everything went wrong in the 9th. You know that things were pretty horrible when after the game, on one of the post game talk shows, the host said that the best thing about yesterday's game was that there is another game today. That's about it.

Still, I don't get it. First off, why leave Jason Motte, the closer, in the whole inning? The Pirates were roughing him up. He was totally ineffective, yet LaRussa leaves him the entire inning, and he gives up four runs, blows the save, and loses the game. Questions...

With two outs, and the Cardinals still leading by one run, runners on second and third, why not walk the batter to load the bases? Walking the batter would have created a force play at any base. Instead, Motte pitches to the batter and hits him. Same net result, but not good for the space between Motte's ears, which by now is must sound like herd of charging elephants.

Okay, so now there are two outs, bases loaded, Cardinals leading by one run, and Motte still pitching. That screaming noise of pressure is exploding in his head. He makes a pitch and the batter lifts a fly ball to medium deep left field - over the outfielder's head for a double. Three runs score. Pirates up 6-4. Game basically over. Cards go on to lose 6-4. Okay, so why was the left fielder playing so shallow? The ball did not even reach the warning track, but it lands over his head for a double? I don't get that. Can someone explain?

Electronic voting machines? Never again. Motte? Yes, we will give him another chance.

Downtown Then and Downtown Now

After attending the dedication of the new Post Office Plaza on Friday, I thought about all that has happened in the last ten or so years in downtown. Riding Metrolink, I started a list of the memorable things. In no particular order...

Metropolis lots
Last Seinfeld episode
Men's Final Four, Walk to the Arch
Women's Final Four, Walk to the Arch
Record crowds attending Komen Race for the Cure
Mardis Gras parades, VP Fairs and parades, St. Patrick's Day parades
Rams Super Bowl Victory Parade
New Busch Stadium
Cards win World Series at home
Cards Championship Parade
New Schnucks under construction
Well-attended loft housing tours downtown
Thousands of new downtown residents
Illumination of the Arch
Illumination of Washington Avenue
Lots of completed historic rehab developments
Last Seinfeld episide
Street vendors selling lunches to lines of customers
Reversal of a corporate HQ decision to close the 6th and Olive Starbucks
Dedication of Old Post Office plaza
Soon to dedicate new sculpture park on the mall
Nicest casino in region
Roberts Tower going up
Possibilities of reconnecting the Arch, downtown, and riverfront

I started working downtown about 15 years ago. In those days, it was empty. There was nothing going on. In the evenings and on weekends, streets were empty. A lot has changed.

Now, it's hard to find a parking space on Saturday mornings. There are always things going on. Every day you see people walking dogs or babies in strollers. Downtown is a neighborhood again.

Illinois poised to adopt MO-styled historic rehab tax credit?

While attending a conference on neighborhood redevelopment tools, I heard from a colleague active in the Metro East that the Illinois legislature is considering a new bill to create an Illinois Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit.

According to my contact, the bill is being modeled after Missouri's successful historic rehabilitation tax credit program. If anyone has any more information on the possible new Illinois historic preservation and development program, please reply in the comment section. Thanks.

Old Post Office Plaza debuts this weekend

At 4:00 PM Friday, city leaders will dedicate the new Old Post Office Plaza. Festivities will continue throughout the weekend.

The Old Post Office Plaza will be the city's second major park/open space under private ownership and management, the other being Tower Grove Park.

Programming for the Old Post Office Plaza will be managed through the Partnership for Downtown St. Louis.

Note: Thanks to a reader for emailing a question re. the ownership and management of Tower Grove Park. Check the comments section for a clarification of the status.

Building better neighborhoods one block at a time

With spring upon us, people are coming out of their houses. Parks are getting crowded with baseball practices and dog walkers. It's the season to work in the yard and in the neighborhood. St. Louis is a neighborhood city, and one of things that makes neighborhood life worthwhile are the interactions with good neighbors.

This year, we plan to rent a core aerator for the block and share it with all the neighbors. I'm the volunteer who thought this up, and there was enough interest from other neighbors, so we're going to give it a try sometime this spring.

We've got a block wide email list, so word about neighborhood stuff is quick and easy to circulate. Planning the aeration project was simple enough. To make better neighborhoods, we need to do more good neighbor projects. We need to do more little stuff that adds up to a better sense of community and more people knowing their neighbors.

What a difference St. Louis is from the commute-dependent place where I grew up. There, neighbors hardly knew each other, and never shared a meal or a ladder. Living in a place where neighbors know each other and work together is a blessing that isn't measured in dollars but peace of mind.

Block parties are great, and they take a lot of work and volunteers, but it's a one day thing. We need more little stuff going on the rest of the year. A beautiful block requires well maintained houses and yards. Working together as neighbors can make a so-so block better and raise property values. People want to live on blocks with good curb appeal and friendly neighbors.

There's lots of time spent complaining about things we don't like. What would the neighborhood be like if people instead spent that time doing positive things? They would be happier and the neighborhood would improve.

One good thing about the neighborhoods here is that the yards are small enough that it doesn't take all day or half a day to finish the yard work. That leaves more time to lounge on the front stoop, play some catch, play with the dog, or introduce the neighbors.

Given how much good neighbor work there is to do, maybe we should start looking for a place with even a smaller yard. Small yards, close together, with beautiful decorated brick, stone and painted wood trim houses look great all lined up on a traditional block.

Alleys? I could go on all day about alleys. That's a whole 'nother post. When an elderly lady neighbor lectures a bunch of teenagers about keeping the alley clean, that's a good sign you're in a solid neighborhood.

There is a critical mass to a good neighborhood, and it's about a lot more than property value. It's more about the distance between houses and people and how much good neighbor stuff is happening.

The amount of shared food and drink is a better indicator than just about anything else. It's a good thing that the fences between our houses are low enough that it's easy to share a cold beverage across them.

Metro's Top Ten List for March 30, 2009

With the calendar showing March 30, the day Metro debuts its drastically reduced schedule, what better way to usher in the new era of Metro service cutbacks than a top ten list of the benefits to the St. Louis region for having reduced public transit services?

Number Ten: No comfy train waiting at the platform

Number Nine: A banner day for cab drivers

Number Eight: Cheery station agents have way more people waiting to greet them

Number Seven: Fewer times riding in a car getting stuck behind a bus stopped to pick up passengers

Number Six: Fewer "bus people" coming to the neighborhood

Number Five: At the end of the year, I have about $60 bucks more in my wallet

Number Four: No further Metrolink expansion for at least another 20 years

Number Three: Transit riders have increased waiting times to ride longer and more circuitous routes to their destinations.

Number Two: Speeds up our personal timeframe to buy a second car

and, The Number One reason to celebrate the region's reduction in public transportation services: Lots of free plastic bags all over town being used to cover up bus stop signs on closed routes

All joking aside, this situation sucks on a variety of levels. People depending on public transportation have fewer options. Neighborhoods looking to position themselves with the benefits of improved public transportation have to put their plans on hold. St. Louis is less connected.

A Metro staff person handing out the new reduced service schedule at the station this morning said they hoped these cut backs would be short lived. Without a replacement source of revenue, the question is, how?

Congress for the New Urbanism Federal Testimony on Reforming National Transporation Priorities

John Norquist is the President and CEO of the Congress for the New Urbanism and former Mayor of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Last week he testifed before the House Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation and Urban Development. The following is a transcript of Mr. Norquist's congressional testimony. It is reprinted here with permission.

Chairman Olver and distinguished members of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, thank you for the privilege of appearing before you. I deeply appreciate your efforts to join the issues of transportation and neighborhood development. In government it is easy to get overly focused on narrow specialties. It's important to break out of silos and look for synergies that can benefit the people as you are doing on this committee.

One of these specialties is traffic engineering. Current road policy has focused on highways, arterials, and collectors as individual road segments with the goal of reducing congestion by adding lane capacity and separating the street from the built environment. In other words, getting everything out of the way of the traffic. The system depends on large road types that attract traffic and ultimately grow congested, particularly at rush hour when you need the roads most.

For thousands of years of human history, urban thoroughfares have served three purposes – movement, commerce and social interaction. This is the street that engineers were trained to build in the first half of the twentieth century — 50 feet of pavement and 8 foot sidewalks. This street, Kinnickinnic Avenue in Milwaukee, clearly fulfills the three traditional functions of an urban thoroughfare. Here are three of these streets coming together in Wicker Park in Chicago. And in this economy, places like this are holding their value.

Most streets today, however, are built for only one purpose, moving traffic. There are huge setbacks so the road can be widened later. There is no money left over for sidewalks, so people can walk in the dirt, or as an alternative walk in the gutter.

When you have lots of streets on small blocks as in Northampton, Massachusetts the streets don't need to be big. Many streets share the burden, giving travelers lots of choices, including walking. And networks like Northampton are a great setting for jobs, good living and hold high value/square mile. Yet Federal and state road policies put over half the money spent on pavement into grade separated highways- the top end of the functional classification system.

We now understand that freeways don't last forever. In 1973, New York City's elevated West Side Highway collapsed and was eventually replaced by a street. With views of the Hudson restored, Manhattan's lower West Side gained residents, jobs and vitality. In 1989 an earthquake damaged the Embarcadero Freeway, which had replaced a boulevard in 1950. The boulevard is now restored, the freeway is gone and jobs and residents are back. Even the traffic has improved since the boulevard helps distribute cars more evenly across the grid. In Milwaukee, without an earthquake, we removed a freeway segment, replacing empty lots and surface parking with the beginnings of good redevelopment. But by far the most dramatic change can be seen in Seoul, South Korea where an elevated roadway built on top of a river at the end of the Korean War was replaced in 2005 with two surface streets on each side of the restored river.

This is the man responsible, Lee Meoung-Bak, elected mayor in 2001. See how happy he is. He had the courage to do the right thing and now he's President. He was successful because he embraced the complexity of the city, rising above the narrow concerns of the traffic specialists. He saw the whole, the combination of river, neighborhood and infrastructure as greater than the sum of its parts.

CNU and our allies at the Institute of Transportation Engineers have collaborated on exciting reforms to make transportation work for people and communities, not just their cars. In cooperation with FHWA and EPA we have developed a manual that provides design guidelines to resurrect the street, avenue and boulevard. These are road types that Federal and State departments of transportation should allow and encourage.

Let’s start to plan urban and suburban transportation movements around highly connected networks of streets and transit rather than just individual road segments. We need to better appreciate the value of networks like this one, the Plan of Washington DC. The street network absorbs and distributes traffic just as wetlands absorb and cleanse water. And the grid serves as a setting for valuable economic and social activity just as the wetlands providing rich habitats for diverse plant and animal life. We’ve learned that paving steam beds isn’t always the best answer.

Street networks, especially when connected with transit, make life convenient and strengthen the bonds of community. They also dramatically reduce household driving and lower household greenhouse gas emissions. Residents of Atlantic Station, a new neighborhood with a walkable street network on the site of an abandoned can plant in Atlanta, drive an average of eight miles per day compared to a regional average of 34 miles per day.

Through its partnership with the United States Green Building Council and the Natural Resources Defense Council, CNU helped create the nation's first certification system for green development at the neighborhood scale. And to qualify, these green neighborhoods must have highly connected networks of walkable streets, with at least 150 intersections per square mile (including alleys). The oversized highways, and arterials that the federal government typically funds lead to not only higher infrastructure costs and carbon emissions, but less valuable neighborhoods. These road designs should no longer be promoted as the preferred option by federal policy.

Research by the Center for Neighborhood Technology and the Brookings Institution confirms that neighborhoods with connected street networks and transit service give families real relief from high transportation costs.

Consumer preferences show that people are eager to live in complete, convenient, walkable neighborhoods. Future transportation policy should support this preference. Transportation investments should be at a compatible scale with the neighborhood. They should build on rather than undermine the efficiency and environmental performance of walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods.

I urge you to take advantage of opportunities to realign federal transportation policies around sustainable transportation networks.
• Thanks to Senators Carper and Specter and Representatives La Tourette and Blumenauer, the CLEAN TEA legislation now promotes investment in new, local street and transit construction that enhances network connectivity and performance. That provision deserves your support.
• Likewise, T4 Reauthorization is an opportunity to further direct investment towards infrastructure that adds value to communities. Key CLEAN TEA provisions could be incorporated in T4 to help move it beyond the predictable highways vs. transit modal split debate. States and regions that receive T4 funds would benefit from plans that take into account the carbon impact of their transportation investments. Such planning will lead communities to high-performance street and transit networks that achieve transportation and economic development goals through cost-effective use of federal dollars.
• Transportation engineers at CNU and ITE realize that the federal highway program must evolve into a federal networks program. Congress can help speed that transition by asking the FHWA to extend its successful context-sensitive thoroughfares project to provide research and guidelines for the sustainable networks formed by those streets.

Our new President has declared his commitment to reforming and improving transportation. We need only look to the Internet, employed to so effectively by his election campaign, for a telling example of how 21st century transportation systems should work. Internet traffic makes use of a network of linkages, breaking up large volumes of data into small packets and distributing them through a web of available nodes. It's fast and it's reliable. The same model applied to transportation networks will allow all modes of traffic to flow over multiple routes, reducing travel times, making driving, walking and bicycling easier, and making transit service and emergency response more effective.

CNU, the Institute for Transportation Engineers, the Center for Neighborhood Technology, and The T4 America Coalition( of which CNU is a proud member) are ready to help you get transportation moving in the right direction, adding real value to America’s communities.

By John Norquist, President and CEO, Congress for the New Urbanism, March 19,2007

Park East Freeway to McKinley Boulevard

A Milwaukee case study in freeway removal....

Freeway razing sets stage for $250 million in development

Former Milwaukee mayor John Norquist editorial re. cost savings and benefits of replacing downtown interstate with new boulevard

Congress for New Urbanism summary

Man, this looks familiar...

Fountain Square

The plaza across from the Old Post Office is nearly complete. The project spans the south side of the block between 8th and 9th Streets. The plaza shares the block with the Roberts' Orpheum and Tower projects. The plaza has a sleek design, with modern lighting and an impressive water feature.

At the east end of a giant flat metal projection screen is a 4-story fountain. Well, it's more like a 4-story waterfall. Water pours down the side of a round metal surface and then drops four floors straight down into a stone pool.

The falling water makes the loud, continuous crashing sound you'd expect from a sizable waterfall. I'm guessing here, but this is probably the tallest waterfall in the midwest.

Both the sight and sound are impressive. I wonder if it will be lit up with colorful lighting at night? Passersby were stopping on the sidewalk to take it all in.

STL to star in Hollywood movie

The news is reporting that Sutton Avenue in Maplewood is closed to traffic today for the filming of George Clooney's "Up in the Air" movie. For the next few months, film crews will be working in St. Louis on Clooney's next big screen production. I don't know anything about the movie, except with George Clooney in it, it's sure to get a lot of attention. And that's good for St. Louis.

Over the past few weeks, film crews have been downtown. They were lined up along Memorial Drive near the Arch, and also by the Bowling Hall of Fame/St. Louis Cardinals Museum. With the great renaissance happening in Maplewood, it's no wonder location scouts have landed upon Sutton Avenue.

St. Louis makes some sense for film makers. We have four seasons. We have a wide variety of scenery. And we're an affordable place to do business. In the 70s, our run down buildings were chosen to serve as the backdrop for a post-civilized New York City in "Escape from New York". Today, STL is being chosen as an authentic American landscape.

It will be interesting to learn the impressions from movie people about their experiences working in St. Louis. With good word and a successful project, St. Louis can raise it's standing as a viable option for more Hollywood movie making.

Older North

This weekend we are enjoying a milestone celebration in our house, so we were looking for some nice ways to commemorate the event. We visited a place we haven't been in over ten years, and are happy to report, the place is as authentic and enjoyable as ever. I'm referring to one of the oldest homes and entertainment venues in the region, the Bissell Mansion.

Built in 1823, the Bissell Mansion is one of the oldest homes in St. Louis. Much of the original building is intact, with the main interior bearing wall around two feet thick. The building's original owners have important history dating back to the founding of the United States, with General Bissell a veteran of the War of 1812. Back in the 1820s, St. Louis was barely a dot on a map, so it's fun to walk the grounds, see the view of the Mississippi, and think about what St. Louis was like, forty years before the Civil War.

The Bissell Mansion is a dinner theater, so a visit there is an interactive and entertaining evening. Staff serves the meals and acts in the show. The artists both perform and write the shows. The place has a lot of heart; the performers give their all; and the food is good too. Guests are given scripts and are invited to participate in the show. But no worries - you're given the option of a small or larger part when you make your reservation.

Attendance was good, with a large party upstairs, and our group downstairs. Nonetheless, in tight economic times like these, competiton for discretionary restaurant dollars is tough. For an authentic St. Louis night out, to experience a special occasion with family or friends, and to help preserve an important piece of St. Louis history and tradition, STL Rising recommends the Bissell Mansion dinner theater.

Shows change four times a year. This year we will make an effort to visit again for their fall or winter performances.

Bevo Mill - For Sale or Rent?

Bevo Mill has closed its doors. The property was recently donated to the City by Anheuser Busch, and so, it really belongs to you and me - the city taxpayer.

The building is one of the city's destination landmarks for tourists. Approaching it from Delor on the west is the ultimate in a Scrubby Dutch St. Louis view. So what should happen with it?

Rent for a $1 and offer it to the operators of the Boat House in Forest Park? Convert to an urban Bed and Breakfast? Sell to the highest bidder?

Offer rent free to Schlafly for a southside microbrewery with live music, splitting proceeds with the Bevo community organization to help fund neighborhood improvements?

Something needs to be done to ensure the building lasts another 100 years. How do we make sure it's something good?

Grounds For Action

Yesterday closed the public comment period for the draft General Management Plan for the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. Sometime over the next few months, the National Park Service will finalize and adopt the new General Management Plan. The GMP will guide the future of the park for the next 15-20 years. That's a generation of urbanists to you and me.

The GMP lays the ground work for action. Action to fix the connectivity problems plaguing the Arch. Connectivity is the common thread identified for improvemenet in all three action alternatives of the draft General Management Plan. What those action measures include will become the outcomes of the current planning process.

The Danforth Foundation and the National Park Service have gotten the momentum going. It is time for the rest of the community to build on that momentum. Investors in Chouteau's Landing, casino interests, MODoT, the Army Corps or Engineers, Laclede's Landing merchants, the City of St. Louis, and the Partnership for Downtown St. Louis - as well as average citizens like you and me - all have vital roles to play in bringing about improvements to our downtown and riverfront area.

Success is built on partnership and collaboration. Leveraging the resources of the multiple stakeholders involved will bring about the best outcomes for future generations of St. Louisans, and help draw more people to our region. Our challenge is to switch from planning mode to action on solutions. It will be interesting and fun - and let's hope rewarding - to see how well we do.

What do you think? How would you proceed? What would you do?

Deadline Approaching to Submit Comments on Future of Arch

The deadline for the public to submit comments on the Draft General Management Plan for the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial is Monday, March 16.

More information can be found here:

NPS Update on Arch Planning Process

The link opens with a good video and provides all the information you need to offer public comment.

Arch Connections Group Gets New Name

The ad hoc riverfront connections group that's been meeting for a few months has a new name: "City to River Group".

The group has been looking at ways better connections might be made between downtown, the communities of the central riverfront, the Mississippi River, and the Arch grounds. The link on the right side of this page will take you to the group's Google page.

For years, it has been said that St. Louis has turned its back on the river. With better connections reestablished between the City and the riverfront, St. Louis will start to feel like a riverfront city again.

So, in an effort to rebuild the idea that St. Louis is a river city, and that its rightful front door should face the river and not turn its back to it, the riverfront connections group has given itself a name that's all about reorienting the city's relationship with the Mississippi River.

If you would like more information or to get involved, please visit the Google page linked on the right side of this page.

Vernal Equinox at Cahokia's Woodhenge

March 20 is the date of this year's Vernal Equinox. That's one of two days in the year when day and night are of equal length and the path of the sun splits the heavens.

It's also a day when people gather over at Cahokia Mounds to witness the event from inside Cahokia's Woodhenge.

At least that's what one of the regulars gathered at Iron Barley told me last night...

Cahokia is on the UN list of World Heritage sites. Now there's talk of adding the Gateway Arch to the same list.

There's all sorts of cool and creative stuff going on around St. Louis.

They Heard Us!

Walking outside in search of a cup of coffee, I looked over with an empty feeling to the corner of 6th and Olive where workers were scheduled to box things up and close the one downtown STL storefront Starbucks location.

Jaywalking to Met Square, things didn't look right at the Starbucks. It looked like employees were wearing their green service aprons and white oxford shirts. And there weren't just employees in the store, it looked like a short line of customers. What was going on?

I walked up to the front door and found an impromptu sign taped up. It said they were staying open! Management decided to renew the lease and keep the store. People in St. Louis voiced their concerns, and the corporate decision to close the store was reversed! Today they are restocking everything and coffee and pastries are being given away free all day!

Us customers stood together smiling and half stunned. The employees were joyful. One man said it was like showing up to class to take a test you hadn't studied for, only to hear the teacher say the test had been postponed. Another man said it was like finding money in a pair of pants you hadn't worn in months. I'm going back for another free cup of coffee!

"Park Into the City" - an approach for Chouteau's Landing?

Improving connectivity is the one common theme throughout most of the discussions about how to enliven the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. In the draft General Management PLan, there are multiple alternatives and one preferred alternative. The preferred alternative is called "Program Expansion". Another alternative is called, "Park Into the City" and the last action option is called "Portals".

Through the design competition, combinations of the various alternatives may emerge. During the student design charette, one proposal showed the park growing across Memorial Drive, into the heart of downtown. That may be among the interesting but undoable ideas, but what about considering this approach for the connection with Chouteau's Landing?

Yesterday we described the no-mans land under the Poplar Street Bridge between Chouteau's Landing and the Arch grounds. At Chouteau's Landing, there's good potential for historic rehab, artists lofts, and new investment. Could a "Park Into the City" approach breath life into the Chouteau's Landing neighborhood?

Thinking of improving connectivity in an incremental way is one approach to making progress in manageable stages, that over time add up to a better connected downtown and riverfront.

Richard Florida on the Economic Crisis, National Reset

Interesting take by writer and academician Richard Florida on our current economic problems. Florida is best known for his work promoting the important role of the "creative class". He was a guest yesterday on NPR.

Florida is not a fan of the term "depression". He thinks it's too, well, depressing. Instead, he prefers the term "reset", and that's what he thinks our nation is going through now.

According to Florida, the days of long commutes, unsustainable sprawl, and homeownership based economies are fading. Instead, he sees an era of emerging mega-regions, increased emphasis on affordable rental housing, and a concentration of creative talent in fewer select areas.

Florida sees tough times ahead for second tier, rustbelt cities, with most Americans being drawn to mega regions. On the other hand, he offers Pittsburgh as an example of how smaller cities can remain competitive. From a current piece in the Atlantic magazine, Florida writes:

"Finally, we need to be clear that ultimately, we can’t stop the decline of some places, and that we would be foolish to try. Places like Pittsburgh have shown that a city can stay vibrant as it shrinks, by redeveloping its core to attract young professionals and creative types, and by cultivating high-growth services and industries."

One of the points Florida made about the revitalization of Pittsburgh during the NPR interview was the important role of "CDCs - Community Development Corporations". He described the way CDCs work at the neighborhood level to rebuild community.

I wish someone would made it on the air to ask a question about St. Louis. St. Louis also has a major CDC presence. I wonder where Florida would rank a sense of community in the heirarchy of things attracting the creative class? Given his support of CDCs, probably pretty high.

You can read the entire Florida article from The Atlantic here.

Chouteau's Landing - Connections Waiting to Happen

When you exit northbound 55 onto Memorial Drive, you have two options, continue north on Memorial Drive past the Old Cathedral, or make an immediate right turn to the east, heading down the levee toward the riverfront.

Making the right turn, you're driving along the southern edge of the Arch grounds, the Mississippi River flood wall is a couple of blocks ahead, and on your right side is the sea of concrete support columns for the Poplar Street bridge. It's a sort of no-man's land now. But is there potential for something better?

Chouteau's Landing lies across the divide created by the Poplar Street bridge. You can see it from the Arch side, but you're looking through the eerie landscape of a mostly abandoned area with dozens of cylindrical concrete columns holding up the PSB. The original city street grid under the bridge is intact. The space between the columns is paved with asphalt, striped for surface parking, and is mostly empty and fenced off with 6' cyclone fencing.

It's sort of a haunting feeling, driving the original riverfront street grid, under the PSB, between the support columns holding up the bridge, seeing mostly vacant or underutilized warehouse buildings in the Chouteau's Landing area, and being directly adjacent the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.

With so much dead space, existing road network, and underutlized building stock, redevelopment of the area and connection with the Arch and the rest of downtown doesn't seem so much a question of if but how and when?

Planners like to talk about buildings or neighborhoods having "good bones" for redevelopment. In this case of the southern edge of the Arch grounds and its connections to Chouteau's Landing, driving through the support columns of the PSB feels like you're in the middle of big, dry, urban bones. Is there life in those bones? Can the planning for the future of the Arch help bring back the area and improve the vitality of the Arch and downtown in the process?

Misery and Flexibility

Way back in the 1980s, when I first started work in the field of community development, an architect friend and mentor passed along to me two principles of his practice that he always tried to factor into his work: the concentration of misery principle and the flexibility principle.

When it came to concentrating misery, he always tried to combine the negative aspects of things spatially and chronologically. He wanted lousy experiences to be minimized, so he worked to put them close together, and get them out of the way. If he had a bunch of unpleasant things to do, he tried to get them all done together. That way, the rest of his time would spent on more positive work.

On the other hand, when it came to making choices or finalizing alternatives, he took an opposite approach. He always worked to preserve as much flexibility into the planning and development process as possible. Rather than painting oneself into a corner by making firm decisions too soon in a planning or development process, he would create room for new ideas and options to emerge in a forward moving, collaborative process.

This week, the planning process for the future of the Arch moves forward. There will be two public meetings regarding the Draft General Management Plan for the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. When the General Management Plan is adopted, it will establish the direction for future management of the Arch site. This is a key process for defining the future of our riverfront and downtown.

Thinking back to my old architect friend's advice, he would recommend that the final product promote flexibility. With the top issue of agreement being a lack of connectivity, are there flexible approaches about how to improve connectivity?

Regarding the concentration of misery, I think he would like the way the Arch site concentrates its new service area all on the southern part of the site. But what about the parking area on the north end of the site? What ways might it be repositioned to increase flexibility at the site?

In terms of difficult connections, they are found all around the Arch grounds. Poor connectivity is a problem surrounding the entire park. Is there a way to minimize the bad connectivity experience at the Arch and maximize the better connections? Where are the key connection points?

As Laclede's Landing and Washington Avenue as well as the Chouteau's Landing areas continue to draw more downtown businesses, visitors and residents, how can we best connect those activity generators to the Arch site?

Information about tonight's public meeting for the future of the Arch can be found here.

St. Louis Stimulus

Today President Obama signs the $787 billion dollar economic stimulus package. The plan calls for a wide range of interventions aimed at reviving our nation's struggling economy.

The plan calls for major infrastucture investments, aid to state governments, and tax breaks for working Americans and corporations. At $787 billion, the amount works out to about $2,600 for US citizen. That doesn't sound like much. So government leaders have been working to decide how best to target the resource.

A major priority for the stimulus plan is jobs. Whether job creation or job preservation. President Obama states the plan will generate approximately 3.5 million jobs. Second on the priority list is housing. The third leg is infrastructure.

The nation's housing market is in trouble, with millions of foreclosures and declining property values. St. Louis is one of the nation's major centers for automobile manufacturing. The future of the US auto industry looms large in determing the direction of our region's economy. For years' we've had a national call to rebuild our nation's aging infrastructure, and contained in the stimulus plan is billions for new light rails, road construction, and education projects. So what about St. Louis?

At about 3,000,000 (give or take), the St. Louis region has about 1% of the US population. If we receive a prorata share of the stimulus plan, our region would realize $7.87 billion in stimulus help.

With the City of St. Louis having about 1/10 of the region's population, the city would see about $787 million in help (thanks to a reader for correcting this amount). However, knowing that things won't be doled out on a prorata basis, there's likely going to be a substantially larger amount of funding coming to St. Louis for local stimulus efforts.

The National League of Cities has made the case for projects to managed at the local, not state level. They are working to get the help to the project locations more quickly. St. Louis submitted a proposal for local priorities as part of the League of Cities request. The package included light rail and multiple public infrastructure investments.

A website, "Stimulus Watch", details proposed economic stimulus spending. St. Louis has a request in the amount of $2.45 billion pending. The breakdown is available here. The site is interactive and allows visitors to vote on individual projects.

Knowing that stabilizing housing markets, building new infrastructure, and providing for job creation and preservation are the nation's top goals of the stimulus plan, what projects would you like to see prioritized in St. Louis?

Straggler Lounge

Last night we were scheduled for a meeting of one of the working groups of our Arch connections committee. We planned to hold the meeting at the swanky and historic lounge of the Roberts Mayfair hotel. However, at the last minute, the meeting was rescheduled.

Never knowing how many people read their email on any given day, I went to the Mayfair just in case we had any stragglers show up. Sure enough, promptly at 6 PM, one member of our committee, Paul, arrived. So the two of us worked on the name thing for about a half hour. More on that in a minute. First some appreciation for the Mayfair Hotel.

The lobby and lounge at the Mayfair are right out of the old mob days of 1930s St. Louis. They drip with historic charm. The lounge is dark with a smokey feel, and lots of stained glass. If you're looking for a quaint, private, historic setting for dinner or a drink after work, this place is a good choice. When the adjoining condo tower opens, it will be a great combination of historic and new in the heart of downtown.

Back to the name of our connections group. Paul and I passed ideas back and forth until we came up with "Riverfront Connections Task Force". We liked "riverfront connections" because our group is about improving connections between downtown, the adjoining neighborhoods, the riverfront, and Arch grounds, and we like "task force" because the group is about working toward solutions. Incremental solutions, big ideas, altogether any good ideas that move St. Louis in the direction of reestablising its identity and lifestyle as a riverfront city.

With the two of us in agreement on a possible name, Paul got up to leave. While I was waiting for my ride to arrive, I decided to test market the name with the bartender. By this time, it was just the two of us left in the bar. I made the acquaintance of "Tom", bartender of the Mayfair hotel.

I introduced myself and told him about our group and its efforts to improve connections between downtown and the riverfront. I mentioned the one idea of removing the I-70 depressed lanes between the Arch grounds and the Old Court House and replacing them with a new urban boulevard. His face immediately lit up, and he compared the idea to the Embarcadero in San Francisco. Amazing coincidence, Tom and I were both living in the Bay Area during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake which led to the removal of the Embarcadero Freeway along the San Francisco waterfront.

Tom and I shared stories about life in the Bay Area. The two of us had similar experiences. We both lived in St. Louis once before, moved to California, and then returned to St. Louis. Back in the 1960s, Tom was a bartender in the Gaslight Square district of St. Louis. After getting held up at gunpoint 4 times in one day, Tom had enough of St. Louis and moved to California. It was the mid-1960s.

Back then, the Bay Area was a great place. Rock and roll was coming to life, and the place was affordable. Up through the late 80s, apartments could be found for under $1000 per month. But by the early 90s, things had gone crazy. Tom described situations in the upscale communities of Mill Valley and Sausalito, with rents reaching upwards of $4000 per month, forcing three and four families to live together in the same house, just to afford the rent.

With overcrowding of housing, traffic problems ensued. Tom described bumper to bumper traffic at 11:00 o'clock at night through some parts of Marin County. With people struggling to get by, but still "enjoying" life in the Golden State, I suggested the notion of living with a "false sense of prosperity".

So at about the same time, Tom and my wife and I all came to the same decision. Time to move out of California and somewhere more reasonable. We chose St. Louis. Tom lives in the Central West End. When his friends visit from California, they're jealous of the hip and comparably affordable CWE neighborhood.

So I ran the name "Riverfront Connections Task Force" by Tom and he liked it. He had some other suggestions for improving the visitor experience there. For starters, get rid of the cobblestones. He noted how in the CWE, when they removed the cobblestones from the north side of the Chase Park Plaza, along Maryland Plaza, lots of new businesses opened up. There's no doubt that little stretch of the CWE is much more pleasant now, not to mention easier on the undercarriage of your car and high heeled shoes.

Maybe something as basic an improvement as removing the cobblestones from areas around the riverfront would improve connectivity? Maybe so.

Point of View

Closing out a week featuring some downtown dining options, we recently visited Patty Long's Point of View restaurant.

Point of View is one of the few St. Louis area restaurants located on a top floor of a high rise building. They are way up on the 30th floor of the Laclede Gas building. On a clear day, the view extends at least 15 miles. It's cool looking that far down river. Three words: try this place.

This is an easy choice. Outstanding views. Excellent service. If you know Patty Long (think 9th Street Abbey), you already know about her great menus. Beautiful decor. The restaurant fills the same space once occupied by an exclusive private dining room open only to lawyers and their clients. This place is a gem.

With so much to recommend it, I was amazed by the reasonable prices. Most items were $10 or less. White tablecloths. Classy service. Great food. Breathtaking views. And prices comparable or below most other downtown sit down restaurants.

Lunches Tuesday - Friday, 11-2. Reservations being accepted for a special set menu Valentines Day dinner.

Soup Man?

There was a commercial on the radio yesterday advertising a new downtown restaurant that's based on the "Soup Man" character from the Seinfeld show. It's in the historic Bee Hat building on Washington Avenue.

"The Original Soup Man" website

It sounds good. Any recommendations?

Newcomer Perspectives

A new blog is up dedicated to the experiences of someone recently relocated to St. Louis from Chicago.

Given the inferiority complex many St. Louisans have toward Chicago, it will be interesting to read what our new neighbor thinks about St. Louis.

Check out Arch Observer for a newcomer's perspective on the Gateway City.

Local Leaders to Discuss Arch, Riverfront

February 12, 2009
Kemper Art Museum and Steinberg Auditorium at Washington University
Saarinen Exhibit Tours: 5:00 - 8:00 PM
Panel Discussion 6:30 - 8:00 PM

Confirmed panelists:

Barbara Geisman, Executive Director for Development, City of St. Louis
Hon. Phyllis Young, Alderman, 7th Ward, City of St. Louis
John Hoal, PhD, Architect, Washington University Associate Professor
Tom Bradley, Superintendent, Jefferson National Expansion Memorial
Peter Sortino, Executive Director, Danforth Foundation
Bill Burke III, RLA, Principle, Arcturis

Moderator: Bruce Lindsey, Dean of Architecture School, Washington University

Given the top leadership and decision making roles of the panelists, this meeting is important for anyone interested in the planning process relative to the future of the riverfront, downtown, and the Arch grounds. Free and open to the public.

Link to official website

Links Updated

Links have been updated on the right side of the page. The newest addition is Brian Spellecy's Downtown St. Louis Business Blog.

If you have a suggestion for blogs promoting the St. Louis area, please let us know about them and we will add them to the blog roll. Thanks.

Starbucks to Close 6th and Olive Store

Noting a falloff in business, mostly unnoticeable to customers used to standing in lines, Starbucks Inc is planning to close its 6th and Olive store in downtown St. Louis, at least according to workers in the store. The planned closing date is February 24.

This store is across the street from the tallest building in the St. Louis metropolitan area, Met Square, and is a frequent morning stop for downtown workers, politicians, business people and travelers.

According to workers, no other downtown stores are affected by the closing. If you want to voice your concerns over the 6th and Olive store closing, contact Stabuck's corporate HQ here.

Designing Around The Arch

With two days being too little for the amount of activities going on this weekend, I wasn't able to attend this weekend's meetings at Washington University focused on the Arch as a community design opportunity.

Artists and designers from around the country convened in St. Louis to discuss the Arch as an important asset from a community design standpoint. Did you go? Are there any news stories out there? Did ideas about restoring connectivity between downtown, the riverfront, and the Arch grounds come up? Any feedback, links would be appreciated. Thanks.

UPDATE: the Post-Dispatch has a feature story on the new Wash U Saarinen exhibit, linked here.

Transforming Communities

When it comes to revitalizing neighborhoods or whole cities, a catch word in the lexicon is "transformative". We are looking for transformative change. Something big and permanent. More and more you hear people talking about transformative projects. I think of something as transformative if it does two things.

First is whether there is change beyond the scope of the project itself. Things may be great within the four corners of a project. But how is the project driving transformation of the community around it?

Second, and in a way related to the first item, is what has changed when it comes to us? Without a change in the quality of life and the thinking among the people in the community, there's no transformation. We may have spent a lot of money. We may have spent a lot of time in meetings. But if there hasn't been a change in the lives of community residents, we really haven't succeeded in reaching our goals of transformation.

The next thing is that plans are not transformational; zoning is not transformational; and, rules are not transformational. These are resources and tools, but not solutions. Here's an example.

I ride Metrolink. This week we had a lot of snow. At the station where I get dropped off to catch the train, workers have cleared the driveways and sidewalks of snow. Workers removed alot of snow; there's a financial cost to snow removal; and, 99% of the area is clear.

Somewhere on the shelves of the Metro administrative offices, there's probably a safety manual with procedures for snow removal. Plus, with this sort of activity, there's a certain amount of common sense applied. So good people operating plows and shovels cleared the roads and sidewalks. Yet there's a tiny defect in the results that has a big impact on the lives of Metrolink riders.

No one cleared a walkway from the area where people are dropped off from cars to get across to the sidewalk. Instead, people have to scale a two foot ridge of snow and ice to get to the sidewalk. That's got to be a bummer for someone in dress shoes. And totally unnecessary. A supervisor knows it isn't right. If there's a procedure for snow removal, it certainly doesn't call for leaving a condition like that. Hours of work done, but an important detail missed.

Now the snow is hard as rock. Done at the right time, it would have taken about ten seconds to clear a little walkway for people to get through. The point is that with a little additional snow clearing effort the situation would have tranformed for a lot people using Metrolink. It would have made a positive difference for people.

Okay, so enough about Metrolink and parking lot snow banks. Let's get back to the idea of transforming communities, and focus our attention on the planning process unfolding at the Arch. It seems that most people want the same thing.

We want something "transformative" to happen at the Arch, the riverfront, and downtown. We sense the opportunity. But how do we do it? How do we get there? There are a lot of different ideas.

The one issue that seems to be in agreement is the idea of connectivity. Improving connectivity might transform the Arch area and downtown. It's a key topic in the possible design competition for the future of the Arch.

Going back to the start of this post, what about the part about changing people? What is it about the way we do things in St. Louis that we might do differently as people trying to create powerful change? Are there things we can learn from outside St. Louis? Are there different ways of looking at the connectivity issues related to downtown and the Arch area which might result in transformative change?

A new acquaintenance has drawn my attention to a design competition involving a National Park site from the New York area. It's a case study we might be able to draw from to inform our St. Louis efforts.

Another challenge is how we define scope and time horizons. The jurisdiction of the National Park Service in downtown St. Louis is much smaller in area than the overall connectivity challenges facing the effort to reconnect downtown to the riverfront and the Arch. How can we effect transformative change without establishing the proper scale for solutions to the challenges? We can't. So we have to do things differently as people.

Individuals and agencies with overlapping interests need to work together to find common ground. Organizations like MoDOT, the Army Corps of Engineers and the City of St. Louis as well as the numerous private, public interest, and community groups all have a role. We need to work together as people and organizations, respecting our differences, yet driven by a shared vision of how to build a better community. A community that changes the quality of the lives of the people living in it for the better.

That won't be easy. Whoever thought transforming things would be? It is going to take a lot of work. For us working to transform the area connecting the riverfront, the Arch and downtown, we have to start with changing who we are and how we do things.

Heine Meine Baseball Registration Info

The Lemay Baseball Assocation, organization responsible for the care and operation of Heine Meine Field, has sent out its registration information for 2009 youth baseball.

For information about registration, open now through early March, contact Matt Boyer, league official, at tel. 314-846-7086 or email 34matt@sbcglobal.net.

Heine Meine Field is a St. Louis area treasure. It's a great place for kids and parents, family and friends, and baseball with heart.

Shop Downtown

For the past few months I've been shopping for a winter coat. I never found the right one, so the search continued. Then last weekend, I found a great deal on a beautiful black topcoat. It's perfect. I found it at the downtown Macy's.

The service and selection at Macy's were outstanding; the price was right; and, there were special financing terms. The entire consumer experience was excellent. And to top things off, yesterday, I received a survey in the mail, thanking me for shopping at the downtown Macy's, and asking me about my experience.

Today I'll return the survey, describing how wonderful the store and its people are. STL Rising encourages all readers to support downtown St. Louis and give downtown retail a try.

Left Bank Books is now open. The downtown Macy's competes with all the regional stores in terms of price and selection. The Mayor's office is encouraging people to linger downtown by proposing free parking at meters after 5:00 PM. That's a good idea, and something to support too.

Heartland Move?

The nation's economic troubles are hitting hard in the Sunbelt states. California is facing its greatest out migration since the early 90s.

Would it be a good idea for states like Missouri and Illinois to team up on an ad campaign targeting those middle class households looking for a more modest lifestyle? What would those ads look like?

Check out this article describing some of the reasons people are leaving the Golden State in droves.

New Mississippi River Bridge Project

ABOVE: MoDOT's map of the Ultimate Project Concept for the new Mississippi River Bridge project.

The project website is located here.

On the Ultimate Project Concept page, note the proposed roadway changes at the Missouri and Illinois connections to I-70, at Cass Avenue in St. Louis, and at I-64/55/44 near the Old Cathedral.

Due to a lack of funding, the new MRB project has been significantly scaled back. The current phase is to build a 4-lane bridge. The ultimate concept is to build an eight lane bridge.

Is there a way to leverage the bridge project into plans for reconnecting the downtown area? According to the website, meetings are planned to address the issue of urban design.

Maybe it's worth trying to make the a case that the ultimate bridge concept is "shovel ready" for the Obama stimulus package, and that the downtown reconnection work comes in as phase two?

Downtown Reconnection Efforts Go Online

President-elect Obama built up a wave of support by harnessing the power of the internet. His fundraising was huge in the online, smaller contribution segment.

Google Exec Eric Schmidt notes how online social networking and the power of the internet can drive change and social movements.

Schmidt has been a key advisor in the early stages of the Obama adminstration. He is a supporter of the idea of rebuilding America's infrastructure as a core strategy of the nation's economic recovery plan.

In this vein, the Arch, downtown, riverfront connections effort is going online. A new google group has been established for this purpose. The public is invite to join. Access the google group on the right side of this page.

Eating the elephant

There's an old saying, "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time."

On Saturday, we took the first bite, and we discussed ways of continuing the feast. And a huge feast it will be.

That feast is the task of restoring connections between downtown, the Arch grounds, and the riverfront. The tasks are huge.

Over the past ten years, downtown has made tremendous progress. The elephant in the room, to borrow another cliche, is the rotten connectivity conditions between the Arch, downtown, and the riverfront.

On Saturday, a group of people met in downtown St. Louis to consider forming an organization dedicated to working together on this issue. Detailed coverage of the meeting is reported in the Beacon.

Here at STL Rising, we've been advocating ideas including the reworking of the depressed and elevated lanes into a new Memorial Drive/grand urban street. On Saturday, we didn't discuss specific plans, but rather approaches on how to proceed. How to start working through the elephant.

There was talk about starting small, to test things out, and help get people comfortable with the idea of change. The first possibility is to close from one to three blocks of Memorial Drive, creating immediate, permanent pedestrian access between the Old Court House and the Arch grounds.

The group also agreed to continue working together. If you want to learn more about how to get involved, please contact me at rbonasch@sbcglobal.net. The list of individuals is growing, and is now nearly 50 strong.

Organizational Meeting for Arch/Downtown/Riverfront Connections Citizens Group

Date and Time: Saturday, December 20, 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM

Location: Landmarks Association of St. Louis, 911 Washington Avenue, Suite #170

AGENDA

1. Welcome and introductions
2. Discussion of possible formation of a volunteer citizens group to promote improved connections between downtown, the Arch grounds, and the riverfront
3. Possible roles and structure
4. Preliminary discussion of goals
5. Next steps

This will be a very preliminary meeting to introduce interested parties and explore the level of interest in the idea of starting a new organization around the issue of improving connections between downtown, the Arch grounds, and the riverfront.

If there is sufficient interest, future meetings will be set to establish goals, priorities, and structure going forward.

If you plan to attend, please rsvp to rbonasch@sbcglobal.net. If you cannot attend this Saturday, but would like to have your name added to the list of interested parties, please also send us a note to the same email address. We will add you to the list and notify you of future meetings. Thanks.

Foreclosure Help

Channel 9 KETC TV in St. Louis is helping households in the St. Louis area facing possible foreclosure by providing information through their website and programming.

A lof of detailed information about where and how to get help is available here:

KETC foreclosure assistance web portal

The "Depressed Lanes" Need a New Name

For decades, St. Louisans have referred to the section of interstate between the Old Court House and the Arch grounds as the "depressed lanes". While the lanes are below grade, somehow, the term just doesn't communicate the present reality.

Let's call them what they really are: a trench.

While some men in the picture above are smiling, most of what goes on in trenches is pretty awful. Trenches are among the worst of man's environments.

Face it - we have a dirty, smelly, ugly trench running through the heart of our downtown, right alongside one of the most beautiful landmarks ever constructed. A trench! How stark a contrast, how completely ironic, and how damaging to our city's image!

The 70 Connection

Here's a view of how downtown will look after the installation of the new Mississippi River Bridge. Upon completion, there will be four bridges entering the heart of downtown: the Poplar Street Bridge, the Eads Bridge, the Dr. Martin Luther King Bridge, and the new Mississippi River Bridge.

The outer two bridges, the PSB and the new MRB, will be interstate highway throughways (serving Interstates 40/64, 44, 55, and 70). The inner two bridges, the Eads and MLK, connect directly to downtown streets. The picture above shows how the new MRB, to be located about one half mile north of the Edward Jones Dome, has the effect of "stretching" downtown to the north.

Imagine the area between the four bridges connected via a new Memorial Drive. In the picture, you can see how I-70 and the elevated lanes now cut through downtown. The elevated lanes are especially noticeable. Think how the feel of downtown changes if those are replaced with a surface level boulevard. Consider the development potential for lands along this boulevard. It could be our "Miracle Mile".

Some have questioned the feasibility of constructing a new Memorial Drive prior to completion of the new MRB. With or without a new Memorial Drive, reconnecting I-70 from it's old alignment to the new bridge is going to create disruptions. The project is similar to the reworking of the I-64/I-170 interchange.

Part of the task for advocates of a new Memorial Drive is to show how these connections can happen with minimal disruptions to downtown and interstate traffic. Preliminary estimates from highway contractors place the timeframe for building a new Memorial Drive at about one year, or about the same as the completion of one leg of the new I-64.

During the construction period, as in the case of the 64 rebuild, alternative routes would need to be established, including directing traffic onto Interstates 64, 55, 44 and downtown streets.

Calling On the "29th Ward"

With around 350,000 residents, the population of the city of St. Louis makes up less than 20% of the region's 2.5 million.

President-Elect Obama is making a big move with his plans for national infrastructure improvements, prioritizing roads, bridges, and schools. Over the weekend, he used the expression "use it or lose it" when it comes to taking action on this opportunity. The program is being described as the largest federal infrastructure project since the 1950s.

Meanwhile, work on the new Mississippi River Bridge project is well underway. Greg Horn, project manager for the new bridge, said soil testing under the river has found solid bedrock on which to anchor the new bridge. He's predicting the start of construction in the next 18 months.

So how will the St. Louis region respond to Obama's challenge to invest in new infrastructure? What will be our region's top priorities? With a regional mandate, improvements around the Arch grounds might make the cut. For that to happen, we need a large contingent of non-city residents to support the Arch improvement project.

So, if you're a resident of Illinois, St. Louis County, St. Charles County, Jefferson County, or other parts of our region, what you say about efforts to improve the connection between downtown, the riverfront, and the Arch grounds will make a difference. You really carry the most weight. The city needs your support in this endeavor.

The city of St. Louis is made up of 28 aldermanic wards. Meanwhile, regional citizens, residents of what I like to call our "29th Ward", will be key in determining the outcome of this process.

For A Friday...

Theater of the Bizarre

I could write today about the bizarre dream I had last night about a privately run swimming pool in nearby St. Louis County. In the dream, as a condition to gain pool membership, applicants must go to "Tommy Bahama's" restaurant (where 200 pound roasted turkeys sit uneaten on four foot plates), and tear in half three sandwiches. Once you've torn in half the sandwiches, they put a trophy on the wall with your name on it, entitling you to join the pool.

But instead, equally bizarre, another idea dawned on me. In thinking about all the hard work it is going to take to build a coalition of good people in support of a development effort to connect downtown, the Arch and riverfront, I thought about how public opposition might push back.

Here this coalition gets created, develops professional presentations and structure, and goes on the road to make the case for the plan. People start taking notice. Audiences are had with news agencies and community leaders. The idea starts gaining traction.

Fearing a change in their driving routines, drivers from all around the region start getting nervous about the possibility of losing their freedom to speed through downtown via the depressed lanes. They come from out of the woodwork, carrying signs and showing up in angry mobs at meetings. They are demanding nothing be done to change the interstate or add one-minute to their commutes. These people are as ferocious as a mother bear separated from her cubs.

Maybe getting permission to join a private pool by tearing in half sandwiches is more likely than reworking an ugly interstate highway cutting off downtown from the Arch and riverfront?

Arch, Riverfront, DT Advocates Need to Organize

With momentum building around the concept of reestablishing downtown, the riverfront, and the Arch grounds as the focal point of the urban core of St. Louis, it is time for supporters of such an effort to organize into a formal association or coalition in order to give community voice and energy to the cause.

At present, there is no such entity. There have been lots of meetings, and good ideas offered, but there is no organizational structure in place to drive this process forward. A well organized group, made up of a diverse, talented, and committed group of individuals, could make a major impact on this effort.

A good place to start would be to call on the individuals attending last night's Landmarks Arch charrette. There was no sign up sheet, but the attendees were all good candidates to move this project forward. If you are interested in joining such an effort, please email me at rbonasch@sbcglobal.net and we will add your name to the list of interested supporters.

Accident(s) Waiting to Happen

Critics of STL Rising will often point out that we here are too positive, optimistic and even pollyanna about St. Louis. We accept the criticism. In order to offer a little balance to our usual total homer stance when it comes to things St. Louis, today we draw attention to a very unsafe traffic condition on the city's streets.

Westbound drivers on Dr. Martin Luther King Boulevard, headed towards Vandeventer, are easily confused by the street layout and stoplight locations in that area. A dangerous intersection exists just east of the main north/south Vandeventer intersection at Dr. Martin Luther King and "North Vandeventer", a spur-like short street located at most 100-150 feet east of the main north/south Vandenventer alignment.

The problem is, both intersections have stoplights, and at times, the main Vandeventer light is green while the much less visible "Vandeventer spur" light is red. More than once I have been riding in westbound cars on Dr. King which inadvertently missed the Vandeventer spur redlight, instead seeing the green lights at the main Vandeventer intersection. Had cars been crossing MLK on the Vandeventer spur at the same time, serious collisions might have resulted.

The problem is easily fixed. By abandoning the short block of North Vandeventer, and dedicating the vacated street right of way to the adjoining property owners, the intersection would be eliminated, while adding more land to the city's tax base.

All traffic would then be directed to the main Vandeventer and Dr. Martin Luther King intersection, no more confusion for drivers, possibly some lives saved, injuries avoided, and property protected.

New Links

Thanks to a tip from a Washington University graduate student in architecture, we are happy to add the following permanent links to the site:

Freeways Without Futures

Removing Freeways - Restoring Cities: The Movement Has Begun

The Highways to Boulevards Initiative

America's Institute for (Insert Name Here)

With the Danforth Foundation continuing its pursuit of a major new downtown attraction at the Arch grounds, STL Rising has a suggestion to add to the conversation. Given the ongoing redevelopment of the City of St. Louis - and the industrial midwest - what about establishing a national institute for community renewal, and headquartering the project right here in St. Louis?

When it comes to community redevelopment, St. Louis is a national leader. In the Arch, we have one of the most dramatic redevelopment projects ever. And while St. Louis is a pioneer in the area of redevelopment, we still have a lot of work to do. The institute could become a working center to promote the best in redevelopment practices, with St. Louis serving as both host city and implementation practitioner.

One possible location for the institute is the Bottle District site on the north side of downtown. If I-70 were removed through downtown (another ongoing renewal program - and emerging best practice), the Bottle District site offers unobstructed views of the Arch - possibly from multiple floors of a new dramatic, "green" building. Imagine conference rooms with windows facing downtown and the Arch.

Thinking outside of the box...literally...perhaps the project could be an expansion of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial and tie in with the Danforth Foundation's plans? This way, the new attraction proposed by Danforth would not alter the landscape of the current Memorial, yet would still be an intergral part of the national park. The park would be crossing I-70 (or perhaps a new Memorial Drive) into downtown!

Such a facility would have natural ties to business, government, and academia. Local universities and national corporations would have much in common with the institute's mission. For government, smart redevelopment is an ongoing challenge and national priority. The institute would provide an important public purpose and service.

The site connects to downtown, the riverfront and Metrolink, giving it excellent locational advantages. Architecturally, such a facility would be a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate the creative reuse of an abandoned industrial site.

As an institute for community renewal, the facility would have long term significance, since we will always be looking for new and better ways for solving the challenges of community redevelopment.

There would be opportunties to explore social issues, community design approaches, legal and organizational models, and historic preservation and green building techniques.

Imagine entering St. Louis from the north side of downtown. Somwhere around Cass Avenue, I-70 gracefully transitions into a major urban boulevard, with the skyline of downtown in the background. As you approach downtown, one of the first buildings you see is a beautiful, modern institute, built of steel and glass, home of America's "Institute of _________". What a welcome center that would be!

First off, the center needs a good name...