1st, 2nd or 3rd?

Late in the summer of another year in St. Louis we just completed a week-long tour of two midwestern destination cities - Cleveland and Pittsburgh. St. Louis has made a local out of me, but with nearly twenty years of time here, it was time to clear my head and think about the motivations that keep us here in this place.

This was a father-son trip (recommended for those with teen sons that have outgrown the junior amateur athletics and scout aged things). Now we share interests in music, architecture, historic neighborhoods and local/ethnic food. Both Cleveland and Pittsburgh offer much to choose from in those categories.

Our trip started in Cleveland. We made the drive from St. Louis to Cleveland in about ten hours. Not one highway patrolman in sight, so traffic moved at 70+ mph the whole way. Midway through Ohio you enter the Great Lakes watershed and beautiful Amish farm country. Arriving in Cleveland you immediately get the impression that it is much more a smaller version of Chicago than St. Louis ever is. Note to self: We St. Louisans would be well served to stop the STL-Chicago comparisons.

Without a reservation, we got a great deal on the lakefront at the Crown Plaza hotel. Cleveland folks are super friendly and helpful. Our primary destination was the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but we arrived early enough to explore some of Cleveland and was directed by locals to the historic Tremont neighborhood. Tremont is a 19th century neighborhood, undergoing significant rehab and gentrification.

Tremont is beautiful, about five minutes from downtown, and full of hip restaurants and galleries. One interesting feature of the neighborhood is the way architects of infill new construction seem to have a lot of freedom of design expression. The new construction has urban scale but modern form. I liked it and recommend a visit to this neighborhood if you're ever in Cleveland.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was worth the visit. But after having made the trip once, I doubt we'd return to Cleveland for another trip the R and R HOF. After you've seen it once, it would probably be kind of boring. Maybe after another ten years or a major remake of the place. We would return sooner to attend a sporting event or tour more of the city's neighborhoods.

Pittsburgh and Cleveland are only about 140 miles apart, so the rivalry between cities is strong. After attending a baseball game at Cleveland's Progressive Field (a new downtown ballpark built in a decidely non-faux historic style), at about 9:00 pm we left Cleveland heading to Pittsburgh. Enter the land of the toll roads. What a strange life it must be for the workers collecting those tolls. I'm wondering, are those patronage positions?

For miles there was nothing but darkness. No street lights, no highway intersections with four corners of fast food and filling stations. Eastern Ohio and western PA are heavy rural. Where were the suburbs and sprawl? Maybe we were on the rural route? We'll have to make the trip again in daylight to see what we were missing, but I'm betting it was all forest and farms.

The lack of familiar settlement patterns continued until we were very near Pittsburgh. Highway signs for the Pittsburgh International Airport appeared before any gas stations or subdivisions. Where were the suburbs? We felt like we were riding in the twilight zone. Good thing we had spare change for the toll plazas and enough gas in the tank!

We finally found an offramp with services (restaurants, hotels, filling stations), about ten miles from downtown Pittsburgh. There was an inn with a room, so we checked in and got a good rest before our visit to Pittsburgh. Having heard lots of good things about Pittsburgh, this would be the main destination of our journey.

The next morning on our drive in to Pittsburgh we were impressed with the geography. What a hilly place. Mountains really. Steep ones. We kept getting closer to Pittsburgh, now there were offramps for the city and stadiums, but still no major developments along the road. Very open mostly. Then we came upon the "Fort Pitt Tunnel". We drove through the tunnel and on the other side the whole skyline of Pittsburgh appeared right in front of us. What a view and how dramatic! It was beautiful. And bridges and water everywhere. Pittsburgh claims over 400 bridges. Our plan was to drive around for an hour or two to get our bearings.

The place reminded me very much of eastern cities. Much older and smaller scale of buildings than St. Louis, and a very dense and impressive big city downtown. Regional attractions in Pittsburgh abound. Other than a quick game of catch at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers and a ballgame at spectacular PNC stadium, we didn't even make a dent in the downtown area. Neighborhood destinations filled our schedule.

We toured the Andy Warhol museum, a closed Catholic parish church which had been coverted to a micro brewery, the Carnegie natural history museum with one of the world's largest collection of dinosaur fossils, took a ride up one of their incline trains (awesome views of downtown from the top), checked out the "Strip" neighborhood (ate a Primanti's sandwich there), the northside and southside neighborhoods, and Heinz Chapel on the University of Pittsburgh campus.

The rivers, steep hills and historic neighborhoods, along with a strong eastern European influence in churches dotting the hillsides, make for very scenic landscapes, defined neighborhoods, and beautiful views. I expected to see more vacant steel mills but there really weren't very many, even though we did hear from the locals how the local economy still feels the sting from the loss of jobs in steel industry.

In both Cleveland and Pittsburgh we asked for recommendations about neighborhoods with nightlife and music, sort of like our Soulard or Loop areas. Recommendations were few and we didn't find much. Any suggestions would be appreciated, especially for Pittsburgh, since we definitely plan a return there.

There was a noticeable lack of cemetaries around Pittsburgh. We only passed one the whole time we were there. Maybe with the scarcity of buildable land, they're all along the periphery? Or maybe they've been relocated outward through the years?

Whetherwise, Pittsburgh was best. The news reported they were getting ready to have their first 90 degree day - in over a YEAR! With the reduction in industrial activities, the years of dust and soot are over and the skies were clear and blue.

It's easy to see how people would love living in both Cleveland and Pittsburgh. We heard from a person at the ballgame at PNC how many Pittsburgh families have over 100 years of local residency.

Given the competition among midwestern regions, there are lessons we can take from both Pittsburgh and Cleveland. All three regions, St. Louis, Cleveland and Pittsburgh, are about the same size (just under 3,000,000). All three suffered from white flight, struggling public school systems, and declines in their industrial jobs base. Yet all three are making turnarounds and getting national attention.

Cities of the midwest enjoy lots of advantages. They are drawing more attention from young people seeking creative, affordable environments. They have history and destination attractions of national significance. They are supported by educational institutions and interesting neighborhoods. Weather is seasonal and with A/C, summers are manageable.

St. Louis has better baseball than Pittsburgh or Cleveland, but I'd submit Cleveland and Pittsburgh have better stadiums. Cleveland has the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but I'd say St. Louis has a far better music scene. Cleveland and Pittsburgh have more the big city feel, but St. Louis's small town atmosphere makes it easy for people to get connected and gain a meaningful role in their communities.

Making lists makes news. But it's easy to find holes in the lists. So does it really matter whether you're first second, or third? I learned on this trip that we can learn a lot from our neighbors, and we need to always be doing more.

Fountain Park Partnership

Those interested in historic city neighborhoods have treasures awaiting them in Lewis Place, Fountain Park, and Academy/Sherman Park on the city's north side. The three neighborhoods are a short distance from the Central West End and Forest Park, straddling Kingshighway between Delmar and Dr. Martin Luther King and Union and Newstead. The neighborhoods retain much of their original building stock and have many unique structures.

Among them are the old street car rights of way including the Hodiamont Track and another to the north near Newberry Terrace and Kensington Avenue whose name I am still researching to learn. Some of the neighborhood's historic buildings were designed to hug the curving rights of way for the old street cars. Seeing the relationship between the buildings and the old rail lines conjures images of what St. Louis life was like during the street car days.

While these neighborhoods offer much to appreciate for their architecture, there are also opportunities for people across St. Louis to get involved to help strengthen these communities, and that is what this post is about.

First is National Night Out on August 4th, next Tuesday, beginning at 5:00 PM. From the neighborhood association's press release:

Neighbors of Fountain Park Association Will Celebrate National Night Out 2009 In Fountain Park

National Night Out (NNO) is a unique community event, celebrated in the United States and Canada, that focuses on prevention of crime and drug activity, and is held the first Tuesday of August every year. This year, NNO falls on August 4th.

NATIONAL NIGHT OUT is designed to:

Heighten community awareness of crime and drug prevention.
Generate support for, and participation in, local anti-crime programs.
Strengthen neighborhood spirit and police-community partnerships.
Send a message to criminals that neighborhoods are organized and fighting back.
Promote emergency preparedness awareness.

This year Neighbors of Fountain Park Association has partnered with other neighborhood associations and faith based groups to join in a peace walk through the community. The participants will assemble at the Fountain at 5:00 PM and return to the park for refreshment and an evening of fun and socializing.

For more information, contact Clint Potts, Neighbors of Fountain Park Association at (314)443-4081

The second opportunity is a back to school event. There are a lot of school-aged young people living in these neighborhoods.

Back to School Celebration

On Saturday, August 22nd, from 11:00 AM till 3:00 PM, neighbors will meet again in Fountain Park for a Back to School Celebration.

Centennial Christian Church with other community partners are sponsoring a fun day at Fountain Park open to all school-aged city kids to help them get off to a good start to the upcoming school year. There will be raffles for free bicycles, music, and backpacks filled with school supplies.

Last year the effort provided five free bicycles and over 200 backpacks. The tradition is continuing this year and donations of time, funds, and bikes or school supplies are welcomed. Contact person for this event is also Mr. Clint Potts, telephone number (314) 443-4081.

I have attended two of the organizing meetings for these events and can attest that this project is a community-driven effort. The first meeting had roughly ten attendees and last night's meeting had more than that. If you are interested in helping out, please phone Clint Potts at the number above or contact me directly on (314) 605-5811 and I will provide you with further details. Thanks.

South Kingshighway Community Development Ideas

With yesterday's news that the Avalon Theater is being offered for sale, the Southampton listserve has been abuzz with ideas about how to redevelop the vacant theater property.

Today, there is discussion on the list of forming a nonprofit organization to further target the revitalization of the Kingshighway corridor. The area being considered runs from the closed Don Brown Dodge dealership at Fyler all the way south to the Burlington Coat factory shopping center at Kingshighway and Christy Boulevards.

Perhaps interest in the fate of the Avalon Theater will be the catalyst to advance a renewed development effort in the area?

Avalon Theater For Sale: Asking Price $1,000,000

News of the long-vacant Avalon Theater on South Kingshighway being offered for sale is appearing in people's electronic in-boxes today. However, at an asking price of $1,000,000, some are wondering if the property will draw much interest, especially during this economic slowdown.

The effort to market the building does provide the opportunity to think about the challenges faced by the owners of vacant buildings, and what should be done to ensure their long term viability and reuse potential.

Too often, preservationists and urbanists learn of a building's fate after a permit for demolition has been issued. By that time, it is often years' past any serious thought went into how to reuse a building.

One reason for the significant amount of demolition in St. Louis has been the decline in population. A city of 350,000 does not need the built housing stock of a city that once housed over 800,000 residents. The vacant land we see today is evidence of this transition.

It is not unusual to see a neighborhood's vacant commercial, industrial, and institutional buildings last longer than the vacant residential ones, if only because they are perceived to have higher values by their owners than smaller residential properties. Still, without a viable use and operating income, they are caught in a cycle of decline.

If a goal of urbanists and preservationists is to see fewer buildings of architectural and historic significance demolished, what steps should we pursue to make that happen?

"Sustainable Cities Collective" features St. Louis blogger

The author of the St. Louis Urban Workshop site, Alex Ihnen, is highlighted in a nice "blogger of the week" national community development website feature.

South of Gravois, between Jefferson and Grand

Those boundaries describe a huge geography in the City of St. Louis. Included in the area down to Meramec is the largest national register historic district in the state of Missouri, the "Gravois-Jefferson Streetcar Suburb Historic District", containing over 5,000 historic buildings.

Beyond historic rehab, neighbors are working together on other community projects to build up the area. Here's a link to one important effort: Seeds of Change

St. Louis Arts and Crafts Society Open House

(Click on the image for a full size view of the invitation)

When: July 26, from 2:00 - 5:00 pm
Where: 700 Bellerive, St. Louis, Missouri, 63111. (located in beautiful Carondelet, off of South Grand, near Carondelet Park).

For more information, please call Patrice Petrich on 314-412-1382

Block party season

Summer and fall are the peak times for block parties. If you've never organized a block party, here are some helpful hints to get started.

You'll need barricades to close the streets, but don't plan to rent out a "porta-potty". With all the neighbors participating, they have bathrooms in their homes.

The earlier you start planning, the better your block party will be. Allow at least 60 days.

Work with your alderman to secure a block party permit. The permits are applied for at the city Street Department off of Hampton Avenue on the north side of I-44. Invite your alderman to attend.

Form a committee to help with closing the street and cleanup. A good block party takes alot of work. The more people helping out, the lighter the workload. Plus, this years volunteers make for a better committee and block party next year.

Take advantage of the event to get to know your neighbors better (obviously), but go further and start a neighbor/block directory. Ideally, a block captain would be involved. If your block doesn’t have one, consider volunteering.

Organize the block directory so it’s voluntary, encouraging participation by providing everyone who participates with a copy. Sort it by name, address, email, and phone number. Then use the email addresses to update neighbors when things come up. Update the directory every year.

The fire department usually will send a crew and a truck for an hour or so. (Having food on hand keeps them around longer). The police canine unit is usually available as well. The dogs are beautiful and great with kids.

The best part of having a block party is closing the street to traffic and “owning” the block for kids to play, without fear of traffic, etc.

Send notices to neighbors at least 30 days in advance, listing activities, soliciting volunteers, etc, and asking them to park their cars off the street for the day. Remind them again a couple days before the actual date.

If you have questions or comments about organizing good block parties, post them in the comments section.

If you can green a highway embankment, why not the banks of the River Des Peres?

Drivers heading north and south on Interestate 55 through Soulard and Benton Park see grass covered embankments. Every spring the embankments bloom with thousands of bright yellow daffodils. Volunteers plant the flowers. City crews (or are they from MoDOT?) mow the embankments.

The steepness of the slopes on the I-55 embankments look close to the same as those lining the River Des Peres. Unfortunately, the banks of River Des Peres don't look anywhere near as nice as the embankments along I-55 from Arsenal to Gravois.

The ones along the River Des Peres are covered mostly by broken up shards of rock, not trees, green grass, and flowers. Is there anything from a landscape design or soils and erosion control standpoint that would prevent the banks of the River Des Peres from achieving a similar green appearance?

City of Webster Groves, Historical Society Sponsor Excellence Awards

In a celebration of one of our region's most beautiful areas, the City of Webster Groves and the Webster Groves Historical Society are sponsoring their 5th annual "Awards of Excellence".

Awards will recognize outstanding work in the areas of architecture, historic preservation, craftsmanship, and landscape design.

Applications are due September 4. For more information, call Jennifer Conrad on 314-963-5319 or visit the website.

Rock Show Tonight!

Adding to the atmosphere in downtown St. Louis, tonight is the July Rockfest at the Fubar club, 3108 Locust.

Doors open at 5:00 PM, there is an $8 cover charge, and STL Rising has a rooting interest in one of the bands - that's the young Matt B. on the right side of the photo, performing alongside his co-lead guitarist Ron, in their band "Headfirst" (click to enlarge the image).

Check them out tonight starting after 5:00 PM and help support our local music scene!

Greening the River Des Peres?

The River Des Peres is an unattractive drainage ditch forming the southern edge and entrance to our city.

It's upland areas are being improved with nice bike trails, bridges, and landscaping. But the banks down the side are bare dirt with no visual interest.

Long stretches of time pass when the river is nearly empty. During periods of heavy rain, it fills up and looks like a real river. Most of the year, however, it's somewhere in between with a fairly low waterline.

What is the possibilty of planting vegetation along these banks to make the area greener and more pleasing to the eye?

MLB descends on downtown STL

This morning there was a man pulling a suitcase down Olive, wearing an "MLB" logo emblazoned golf shirt. Yesterday, tiny front loaders were removing the hunks of broken sidewalk away from the edges of Ballpark Village.

The temporary Cordish signage surrounding the Ballpark Village site has been removed and an enormous temporary building has been installed. It's probably the hospitality area for media reps, team people, etc. Giant Allstar game posters adorn downtown buildings including the moribund St. Louis Centre Skybridge. There are banners everywhere and Allstar game themed arches for photo ops. It's a very festive atmosphere.

Even Papa Fabarres is getting into the act. Yesterday, they were moving furniture onto the sidewalk, so I asked them if they were closing down. Quite the contrary. The longtime downtown restaurant is opening an outdoor cafe area on the Olive side of the Railway Exchange Building (600 block of Olive) to sell lunches and cold beverages to Allstar visitors.

For the next few days, St. Louis is the center of the baseball world. Getting an Allstar game only happens once every fifty years or so, so St. Louis is working to put on a great event, and leverage this effort into marketing the community for future visits, corporate investment, etc. Mayor Slay is predicting that the overall St. Louis Allstar game experience will top last year's effort in New York City. Altogether, it's a $60-70 million dollar economic boost for our region.

What are your impressions? Will you come downtown to be part of the atmosphere? Anyone fortunate enough to be going to the actual game?

New link added to blog roll

For in depth articles with an arts focus, please visit 2 Buildings 1 Blog, now linked on the right side of the page. The site is a project of the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts.

Follow the site for future discussions about the role of community and the arts in neighborhood revitalization.

Impressive West County Stats

STL Rising doesn't write alot about the St. Louis suburbs, but something arrived in my in-box today that is pretty impressive.

A postcard advertising a shopping center for sale along Manchester Road included demographic information. People love comparing St. Louis to other regions, and these numbers make St. Louis look pretty good.

The stats below refer to population and income information for a radius centered on Manchester Road between Clarkson and 141. (According to the flier, the source of the following is the US Census.)

1 mile radius

Population - 9,114
Households - 3,374
Average household income - $76,871

3 mile radius

Population - 76,242
Households - 26,870
Average household income - $101,462

5 mile radius

Population - 150,397
Households - 55,013
Average household income - $109,612

With the low cost of living in the St. Louis metro, a lot of people are living a good lifestyle.

A book sale worth exploring

A Book Sale worth exploring at the Missouri History Museum Shop.

July 11, 2009 11am - 5pm

You’ll discover 43 titles about St Louis history, 1904 World’s Fair, ghosts, sports, architecture and more. Originally $14.95 to $35.00, they will be offered at $5.00 for hard bound copies and $3.00 for soft bound copies.

$5.00 SALE TITLES INCLUDE

A Century of Sports
Ghost Town: While St. Louis Sleeps
The St Louis Hawks
Parkview: A St. Louis Urban Oasis

$3.00 SALE TITLES INCLUDE

City of Gabriels: The Jazz History of St. Louis
St Louis Baseball Fan Sudoku & Word Search
St. Louis Watercolor: The Architecture of a City
Bringing Science to Life
1001 Things to Do In & Around St. Charles
Tales from the Coral Courts
Days & Nights of the Central West End
Hermann Haunts
So, Where Did You Go To High School?
Under Three Flags: Exploring Early St. Louis History
Johnny Rabbits Amazing St. Louis Trivia Game
The Queen of Lace: The Story of the Continental Life Building
Still Shining: Lost Treasures from the 1904 World’s Fair

Booklovers are sure to uncover a great summer read!

Arrive early for the best selection.

See you there!

Building on Citygarden's success

So far, Citygarden has been a huge success. I make a point to go by the garden as much as possible. Today around noon it was more packed than ever.

Today's Post Dispatch had a photo of two smiling children playing in one of the fountains. It was a cute photo, and the kids were obviously having a good time, but I wondered if playing in the fountains is permitted? Are there limits?

The same question came up the other day in Forest Park. There were families of kids playing in the new fountain at the bottom of Government Hill (across from the Boat House Lake). Is that permitted too?

What happens if homeless people start bathing in the fountains of Citygarden? That would no doubt be a problem. Maybe there's an age limit for people going into the fountains, say around age twelve? If anyone knows the story on this, please reply in the comments section. Thanks.

Back to the good stuff. Seeing the throngs of people flock to the wonderful environment of Citygarden makes me think, there has got to be a way to have similar success in remaking the connection between downtown, the riverfront, and the Arch grounds.

Imagine if we could create the buzz of excitement for our downtown/Arch/riverfront connections area that has happened at Citygarden. The recipe at Citygarden includes public art, water features, and an inviting public space ready to explore.

Is such an outcome possible for our riverfront/downtown/Arch connection area?

"Pulitzer's Ghost"

An interesting comment was made in the "Ever saw a brick street" thread by a new commenter for the STL Rising blog, "Pulitzer's Ghost".

"Re: "How is it possible for someone to live in the same community for forty-something years, and never traveled around enough to see some of our most interesting sights?"

That's one of the things that, to me at least, is so interesting and maddening about St. Louis: The term St. Louis means radically different things to different people, based on where they were raised.

I grew up in Florissant and we went to a trivia night at the Letter Carriers Union Hall on Broadway a couple years back. One of the categories was "St. Louis" and we didn't get a single one because to the people writing the questions, St. Louis = South St. Louis."

What a great observation! "Pulitzer's Ghost" is on to something. St. Louis does mean different things to different people. Thanks, Pulitzer's Ghost, for the comment! (Great pseudonym name too...)

Citygarden debut

Tuesday, June 30, Citygarden makes its debut as the newest amenity in downtown St. Louis. The project, funded by the Gateway Foundation, has enjoyed stellar early reviews.

Coupled with the newly opened Old Post Office Plaza, downtown St. Louis is providing more reasons to linger after 5 PM.

The new Citygarden, a sculpture park, will offer dining and views along Market and into the attractive landscape.

UPDATE

Mayor Slay dedicated Citygarden today. A few highlights and interesting facts about the project:

The general contractor completed the project on time and on budget.

Citygarden is the only place of its kind in the United States, a completely free and open to the public downtown sculpture garden. Other cities have downtown sculpture gardens, but they are behind walls. Ours is a true front yard to downtown.

The garden has numerous water features, a gourmet restaurant with indoor and outdoor dining, and multiple lighted video displays.

The design of the garden is based on St. Louis and Missouri. Limestone walls give reference to the natural limestone bluffs above Missouri rivers, and a low-slung, gray-stone serpentine wall reflects the rivers as seen from the air.

Walkways are located at the sites of historic downtown alleys, and a mound feature is a reference to St. Louis's history as the location for a major Native American community.

Citygarden is a jewel for our city and region, and complements our existing wide array of arts and cultural institutions.

Ever saw a brick street?

I was at a party over the weekend with lots of lifelong St. Louisans. We got on the topic of neighborhoods and I mentioned how I loved the brick streets in some parts of the city.

A person in our group thought I was talking about cobblestones. "No", I said, "actual brick, the whole street is made of brick." There are many, many blocks like this, if not miles of brick streets running through St. Louis neighhborhoods.

The person was amazed. He had lived in St. Louis his entire life and had never seen a brick street. I was amazed too. How is it possible for someone to live in the same community for forty-something years, and never traveled around enough to see some of our most interesting sights?

Street wise

Last night the Partnership for Downtown St. Louis held a planning open house at the Old Post Office. The Partnership organization is updating the plan for downtown to position the area for continued growth and improvement.

Scanning the various display boards, I saw that the idea of "Arch camp" made the list of possibilities. I didn't see anything relative to improving the connections between downtown and the riverfront/Arch grounds other than a general reference. If you made the meeting and noticed anything along those lines, please comment.

One of the tables offered a place for particiants to suggest new ideas/comments. I suggested adding more water features downtown. In hot St. Louis summers, just the sound of running water is refreshing.

Standing at one of the boards, I bumped into an old friend and downtown building owner/business man. He's combination investor, artist, and creative tour de force. I asked him if he'd thought about the idea of making more streets in the core of downtown two-way. He said he had and that he liked the idea.

I've always thought about the idea of two-way streets from a traffic flow/pedestrian friendly amenity standpoint. Two-way streets slow down cars and spread out traffic patterns. But my friend had a completely different take. Over the years, he has noticed how the direction of downtown traffic, especially on the east/west running streets, helps or hurts retail trade.

Looking at the area between Market and Washington, he's observed that the shops and restaurants located on inbound/eastbound streets (Chestnut and Olive) outperform the storefront uses on outbound/westbound streets (Pine and Locust). Washington Avenue is two way, as is Market.

I never thought about it before, but my friend might right. Maybe businesses along the outbound streets suffer since they are located on the "getaway" streets, while business located on the inbound streets do better since they are located on the "arrival" streets? Having more two way streets might help balance out that differential.

City proposing a vacant building registry

A four-hour long committee meeting of the Board of Aldermen ended yesterday tabling action on a proposed vacant building registry.

The registry will require owners of vacant buildings to register their properties with the city of St. Louis. A fee schedule for owning vacant buildings is under consideration.

Apparently there is some resistence to the bill, although it has a large number of co-sponsors. The main sponsor is Alderwoman Kacie Starr Triplett, 6th ward.

Knowing how to contact owners of vacant buildings is vital. Getting those owners to either maintain or sell them is the next step.

Vacant building watch: NE Corner of Arkansas and Wyoming

Last night we ate out at one of the fine dining establishments on South Grand near Tower Grove Park.

After dinner, we took a circuitous route home through side streets and alleys. Along the way, we passed an impressive building, vacant, located at the NE corner of Wyoming and Arkansas in the Tower Grove East neighborhood.

Most (if not all) of the windows were out of the building. Some of the openings appeared to be boarded. It was after 5 PM and there weren't any workers on the site.

Does anyone know if this is a building under rehab or an abandoned property?

What good is vacant and deteriorating?

The fate of the San Luis boiled down to two choices: preserve a vacant, deterioriating building or demolish it for a new parking lot.

From a city wide standpoint, our approach to dealing with empty deteriorating buildings is an ongoing challenge. Neighbors do not like deteriorating buildings in their neighborhoods. Preservationists do not like demolition after neglect.

The challenge is how to get unmotivated property owners to dispose of or maintain properties that they do not want to operate or maintain? There are plenty of examples of buildings in this state. The NorthSide area has lots of them. The San Luis is one. The Avalon in South City is another.

Our choices should not be limited to vacant and deteriorating or demolition. Urbanists and preservationists should work with the community at large to develop stronger tools to ensure good building maintenance and operations.

Add some shrubbery?

Nearly every work day my entrance into downtown St. Louis is on Memorial Drive above the depressed lanes, in front of the Arch grounds.

It's a very routine trip. Almost all the cars do the same thing, day in and day out. They merge to the left, then turn left onto Market or Pine. It would be the perfect situation for the magnetized, computer-operated cars of the future.

The pattern is constant. As is the landscape: hard concrete, metal rails, chipped and worn curbs and faded paint. It's a dreary vision as you enter downtown.

The area is devoid of living color or life in general. The occasional jogger or dog walker looks out of place. Even if we never see a new Memorial Drive or removal of the depressed lanes, what a difference it would make for there to be vegetation in the area.

Granted, there's no place now to plant anything. But picture the area with trees, flowers, sprinklers, fresh pavement, attractive signage, and an overall landscape plan that remade the area into an inviting place.

Maybe that's something we could do with a manageable cost and immediate benefits.

Enterprise Leasing's "We Car" program

My office is on the 16th floor of a downtown office building, close to two different Metro stations. Down on the street, there's a Toyota Prius parked in a specially reserved space. Both the car and the parking space are marked with the decal "We Car". Around the corner, there's another one.

Apparently they're part of some sort of car sharing program. Yet I've never seen anyone ever driving the cars. Does anybody know about the program? How do you get in on it? Could I ditch my car, ride Metro downtown, and then have the We Car avaiable for trips during the day out of the office?

St. Louis area leads way in "Keep Kids Alive - Drive 25" program

(From Tom Everson, Founder of "Keep Kids Alive - Drive 25")

Dear Friend in Safety,

This note is about being “Motivated in Missouri.” The story of the growth of KEEP KIDS ALIVE DRIVE 25 in Missouri is a result of many motivated residents, law enforcement agencies, public works departments, neighborhood/homeowners associations, and businesses that have lead the way over the past 10 years.

Your efforts have made, and continue to make, a difference in keeping us all safer on neighborhood streets, and beyond.

Following are examples of those who are “Motivated in Missouri!”

The City of Hazelwood (Police Dept.) is the first community in the U.S. to enact a “KEEP KIDS ALIVE DRIVE 25” ordinance making residential streets “double fine” zones for speeding. The City of Wildwood is the 2nd to enact such an ordinance in conjunction with their campaign.

The City of Florissant (Police Dept.) was the 1st in the State to enact a citywide KEEP KIDS ALIVE DRIVE 25® campaign.

Vicki and Gordie Faust of Lees Summit have been leading advocates for the campaign in memory of their 9 year-old son, Justin, who died as a result of being hit in November, 2004. Learn more on our "Run to Remember" page.

Our 1st “Memory Marathon” to remember all children who have died in traffic incidents was the 2007 St. Louis Marathon. Ford Motor Company Fund came on board as our 1st Corporate Sponsor to assist us in our mission.

The City of Raytown was the 1st to invite the local Hy-Vee Grocery Store to serve as a corporate partner with their campaign. The City of Belton invited their local Hy-Vee to participate as well.

The Southampton Neighborhood was the 1st in St. Louis to enact the campaign. They were followed by the St. Louis Hills and the Princeton Heights Neighborhoods.

St. Peters (City), O’Fallon (City), St. Charles (Neighborhoods), Fenton (Neighborhood), Kirkwood (Neighborhood), and Lake St. Louis (Neighborhood/City) have all initiated the campaign over the past several years.

For more information about bringing the Keep Kids Alive - Drive 25 program to your community, visit the organization's website here:

Keep Kids Alive - Drive 25

St. Louis and urbanism

Is St. Louis ready for urbanism? Does the answer vary by neighborhood? Do people even agree on what "urbanism" means?

We are an old, brick city, with high density in lots of old city neighborhoods. Yet we are also fiercely independent and generally not comfortable with a centralized planning system. We like neighborhood control. It's part of our tradition.

Being central city makes us urban. Some say being racially diverse makes us urban. Should we expect more? If you think so, how would you make it so?

St. Louis Post Dispatch: start the Arch design competition

Post Dispatch to St. Louis urbanist and design community: Let's get going on the design competition!

(...while we're young already!)

Is it fair to describe the Arch design competition as an urbanism project? Or is it much bigger than that? What are the competing interests?

Based on varying points of view, what does a winning design look like?

Maryland Plaza revisited

The Central West End is a beautiful place, and I think Maryland Plaza is one of the nicest spots in the entire region, if not country.

Months ago, we did a post that touched on the use of cobblestones in city neighborhoods. There was a suggestion to remove them from Laclede's Landing.

In Maryland Plaza, cobblestones have been replaced by smooth stone. I like the new street, but someone commented in defense of the old cobblestone streets. Read their comments here:

Commenter from NYC makes the case in defense of the old Maryland Plaza cobblestones...

S. Kingshighway Planning Lab

The downturn in the US auto industry has created an opportunity for new development along S. Kingshighway, putting closed auto dealerships up for sale. What would you like to see happen?

Let's use this post as a virtual auction and planning exercise. Name your price and then describe what you would do with the property. We'll start off with some basic assumptions. Let's say the property consists of the following:

3.5 acre site on a heavily traveled commercial corridor in vibrant South St. Louis City, ample surface parking available in front, side and rear.

20,000 square foot showroom building, includes 6,000 square feet of executive/sales offices.

40,000 square foot, high ceiling, concrete floor, shop area.

Buildings recently renovated, all in good to excellent condition.

Some would start the bidding at $1.00. They wouldn't plan to actually build anything though.

They would simply tie up the property and seek another developer to buy it. Call it development in a sort of speculator, ebay sort of way.

Many investors would be willing to pay up to $100,000 for such a bottom fishing, speculative opportunity. So let's say the real planning and development ideas must start with a minimum bid of $100,000.

Name your price, but remember, you must also state your plans for the property.

Let's see how high the bidding gets, and what creative ideas emerge for the property's reuse.

Tornadic dreams

Living in a place prone to wild weather can yield some wild dreams. Yesterday's storms wreaked havoc on my dreams last night.

Driving to a mid day meeting, I was caught in the powerful storms that blew through town. From the conference room, we could see the darkening sky, and fingers of the thunderstorm reaching down out of the clouds. News reports described heavy damage to some buildings around town.

Dreams last night brought those storms back to life. I dreamt that our neighborhood was hit, and that I was caught in the path of another tornado while walking near the intersection of Jefferson and Chouteau.

In the dream, I found a big drainage inlet to climb into for protection. The best protection was when instead I woke up at about 3:00 AM and the weather outside was just fine.

It has been about fifty years since the city of St. Louis has been struck by a serious tornado. Given the time between recorded serious tornados strikes in St. Louis, we are overdue for another touchdown.

Tornados are strange events in the way they come so quickly, wreak major devastation, and can be followed within minutes by tranquil weather and bright sunshine. They're surreal and powerful, sort of like dreams.

Why blog?

It forces you to wrk on your edting.

Cobblestones Rising

One of the cool things about living in an old city like St. Louis is digging stuff up. There are lots of interesting things below the surface, and you never know what you might find.

This month the city is doing lots of street work in downtown. They are using those big pavement grinders to lower the surface of the street to prepare for new pavement. They have to do this, because othewrise, if they just added new pavement over the old, eventually, the surface of the street would be up over the top of the curbs. So they have to grind down the street. And when they do this, they expose the old street surface of downtown from 150 years ago. Here and there, like poltergeists, the old cobblestones are popping through.

This week, you can see cobblestones near the Old Post Office and the new Busch Stadium. I wonder how much of the city originally had cobblestone streets? The labor involved in building a street one stone, or, as in other parts of town, one brick, at a time, put lots of people to work. It must have been an interesting, busy scene. I've also heard that in some places, oiled blocks of wood were used to build alleys. Apparently, there's one near the intersection of 11th and Locust.

You never know what you'll find when you start digging below the surface. A few months ago, I was on hand for a soils exploration on a vacant lot planned for new construction. Under the ground was the debris from a demolition carried out decades ago. A back hoe was digging trenches. They needed to go deep enough to get beneath the debris of the old demolition.

The tractor dug down to virgin soil. The trenches ended up about 8 feet deep. By the way, for the urban agriculture enthusiasts, the soils were excellent. Eight or so feet of dark, rich, top soil; we never found the bottom of it. There is something wonderful about the smell of good quality soil. It's a beautiful thing. It can make you feel good inside.

The tractor operator was skillfull and carefully pulled out huge stone parts of the old building and mass amounts of brick from the ground. There were also lots of unbroken bottles, even through the swishing around of tons of earth at the end of the tractor boom. The bottles glided smoothly with the earth behind the force of the tractor, like they were floating in water. A small bottle appeared, still with a glass stopper in the top. We climbed down into the trench and pulled out the little bottle. The contents were still inside.

The bottle had been buried with the debris of the old house for some thirty years. We opened it up. It was a spice bottle. When the top came off, the fragrant aroma of cloves was strong. I thought after such a long time, the contents would have dried out or turned to dust. Nope. The cloves were preserved and their scent was fresh. It seemed like you could have taken the bottle home and cooked with those cloves the same night.

Then I thought about what it must have been like the day they buried the house underground, kitchen spices and all, and covering it over with a foot or two of earth. They probably didn't think much about it. Strange.

Information is power

Usually, I wouldn't post scanned images of our household mail to the STL Rising site, but the mail we received yesterday from AmerenUE is worth more attention.

Ameren is sending a report to all its ratepayers breaking down energy usage and charges by month for the past three years. It also contains practical recommendations for lowering energy use. I bet you didn't know that it costs four times as much to operate a 60-inch plasma television than it does a conventional 28-inch tube set?

Here's our personal household energy report for the period January 2007 through March of 2009:



And here is where Ameren offers some ideas for reducing energy costs:



Ameren has faced criticism in recent years for its handling of major power outages as well as its tree trimming practices. When they do a good job, they deserve credit. Kudos to the company for its work educating the public on important energy efficiency information.

Downtown scenes

With warmer weather, there are usually interesting sights to see downtown. Today, in no particular order, a few come to mind.

The windows are being installed in the Roberts Tower. They are in about a third of the way up the building. Looks good.

Shade trees along Washington Avenue have grown to the size where they are providing real shade. Walking back from a meeting, I took a turn down the sunny side of the street to enjoy the shade of the trees on the sidewalk.

A man was walking around the Ballpark Village site wearing a Depression-styled sandwich board sign. It said "No More Bars".

Lastly, a row of cars, motorcycles, and RVs were all parked on Memorial Drive in front of the Arch. Tourists probably. Traffic was moving around them with no problem, but there was a city police officer writing them all tickets.

Maybe its time to consider street parking on Memorial Drive during non-peak traffic hours. Given how seldom people park there, and the revenue potential from parking meters, it could be a good money maker. $1 for every 15 minutes?

Doubling Downtown

What would it mean to St. Louis in the developable sites in the core of downtown doubled, if downtown formed a frame around the Arch grounds, and if connections throughout downtown and with the riverfront were substantially improved? What would change like that look like?

STL Rising launches new "NorthSide Blog"

The "NorthSide Blog" will be dedicated to discussions about the proposed "NorthSide" project, planned for the near northside of St. Louis, adjacent to downtown.

The first topic for discussion is: What do you think of the proposed name of the development, "NorthSide"?

Follow the project and join the discussion at northside-stl.

Targeting the hole in the donut

One of the negative descriptors for St. Louis over the years has been that it's like a donut: hollowed out in the middle. That description hurts, but there is some truth to it. Ground zero for the hole in the donut is where Paul McKee has set his sights for redevelopment.

There has been a lot of speculation for years about McKee's plans. The only thing known for certain is that his companies have bought up a lot of land inside the hole in the donut.

In that area, there remain some long time residents, a collection of historic buildings, the original city street grid, and lots of work to be done. Given the long time disinvestment in the area, it doesn't fit the traditional CDC driven model of community development.

There are community development corporations with capacity working in adjoining neighborhoods, such as Old North St. Louis Restoration Group. However, at the center of the "Blairmont" area, they are hard to find. There's not much left, especially in terms of "critical mass". Nonetheless, there are lots of organizations and other constituencies with an interest in what happens.

The hole in the donut creates an opportunity. The challenge is how we remake the area. Not just physcially, but by what means and through what community model.

The Tin House

One of the best things about blogging is the comment section. You never know where someone might be reading and commenting.

This weekend, STL Rising received a comment from Australia on an old post we did about trivia nights. The reader was googling about organizing trivia nights, and found us here in St. Louis. Turns out trivia nights are popular in Australia too!

Based on her bio, the poster is a journalist, teacher, and broadcaster living in New South Wales, Australia. She blogs at the tin house, where she writes about simplifying life and sustainability, principles we can share here. You can read her comment about trivia nights here.

The Tin House looks like a pretty cool site, so we've added it to the links. The latest post there is about community work.

Macklind Days

With a few hours of yard work done, and in between our next scheduled plans, we remembered that yesterday was "Macklind Days". We were thinking of going to get something to eat, so why not check out the options at the neighborhood event?

Organized by the Macklind Avenue Business District, Macklind Days brought together neighbors, local businesses, the curious, and by estimates well over 2,000 people to enjoy music, art, food, and friends all within the confines of a 1920s-30s vintage neighborhood commercial district.

Macklind Avenue starts near the Science Center and Forest Park, and runs south through the Hill, Tilles/Lindenwood, Southampton and Princeton Heights neighborhoods. Along the way you pass historic architecture, a neighborhod recycling center, the impressive Buder School (replete with upgraded playground), and in Southampton and Princeton Heights, you experience what is becoming one of the region's fastest rebounding pedestrian-scaled, neighborhood commercial districts. It's no wonder, within a couple of blocks on either side of the Macklind corridor, there are enough residents to make up a small town, with Macklind the local "main street".

Festival organizers could not have been happier with the weather. It felt more like fall than late spring. The air was clear and cool without a hint of humidity. EcoUrban, Manzo's, Onesto, Macklind Deli, along with a number of other southside businesses and organizations were represented. There was a large, professional sound stage with a full day's lineup of performers. Games, people walking dogs, visitors of all ages, were all around, affording many chance meetings for friends new and old.

Pete Manzo, owner of Manzo' Market (makers of arguably the finest salsiccia sausage in St. Louis) told me the event was many months in the planning and a substantial financial commitment on the part of organizers. To keep the project going, they will be looking for corporate sponsors for future years. Given the excellent PR for the neighborhood, I suggested they do it twice a year. With the amount of work for volunteers, Pete wasn't convinced about that idea. Yet, with the fun atmosphere and community building opportunity realized, building on the success of this first event would be a great goal for neighbors, local organizers, and the business association alike.

The Macklind Avenue Business District is a membership association. I will do some more research on the organization and update the post accordingly. If a 501.c.3 nonprofit, charitable contributions to fund future Macklind Days events would be tax deductible. In the meantime, congratulations to all the organizers for a great event!

One final note...the stretch of Macklind between Manzo's and Southampton Presbyterian Church is coming along nicely. Manzo's is a mainstay, along with EcoUrban, Big River Running Company, Macklind Deli, and the wonderfully rehabbed home office of Rainieri Construction (note to Landmarks Association that the Rainieri building at Macklind and Nottingham would make a great "most enhanced" candidate). However, in the middle of the block, south across the alley from Manzo's and across Macklind from EcoUrban and the Mack pub, there's one building left in need of TLC.

The building is solid, but over the years, it has suffered from inappropriate alterations, especially in the form of filling in sections of the original window and door openings with vinyl siding. The building appears to have 4-6 small bays, and, if historically rehabbed, would make a fine addition to the charm and walkable destinations within the Macklind Business District. Presently, the vacant bays all have little "for lease"signs in them.

Without an income, the owner has little incentive to improve the building. Southampton, not yet on the city's list of national register historic districts (but surely eligible) doesn't qualify for historic tax credits. So the pretty building with its terra cotta ornamentation, and strategic location in the heart of the Macklind Avenue Business District, sits looking quiet and tired. A challenge for neighbors is how to nudge the building owner to make progress with the building as part of the long range community efforts in Southampton. Maybe events like Macklind Days are part of that equation!

Oh, and as far as that bite to eat...for about a year now, Manzo's has been serving hot sandwiches. We had one of their signature Italian beef sandwiches: beef sliced very thin, piled high on a hoagie roll, adding aus jus and pepperoncini, then washed down with a sampling of Schlafy. We dined at one of the sidewalk cafe tables in front of Manzo's Market. Excellent!

Business Unusual

So far, the general public has not seen a rendering of Paul McKee's plan for the north side. However, from word that is coming out, the project sounds like it is a monumental undertaking.

During a time of a national economic slowdown, with very challending financing markets, Paul McKee is proposing a revolutionary community development project for the City of St. Louis. From what it sounds like, the project is a city of the future.

It is being called transformative in the way it takes an area that has been largely neglected for half a century, and replaces it with a highly green, mixed use community. If the project succeeds, the narrative of St. Louis changes.

A project of this scale builds on themes promoted by the Obama administration and the nation's economic stimulus effort. There will be jobs created, and they will be green jobs. The opportunity exists to develop new, green infrastructure, lowering utlity costs across the grid of the redevelopment area.

While the plans are grand, and if successful remake St. Louis, are they on a track to make the chances of success the highest? Is there a way to improve those chances?

Does it makes sense to consider the formation of a blue ribbon panel of community development experts and city residents, to serve in an ad hoc capacity strictly for this project? The committee could include people from the areas of green building, community development, economic development, historic preservation, community representation, and transportation.

The committee could be established with no official power, but rather to serve as an initial advisory group to help build broad based community support for the project. With the right group, such a committee might bring added value to the overall design of the community.

Here's an example of a similar effort in Dallas:

Trinity River Corridor Project

The Trinity Commons Foundation - created to fully realize the vision of the Trinity River Corridor Citizens Committee

If Blogs United

What would the top issues be? Here's a list of possible items...

The schism over the San Luis

Reconnecting the Arch/downtown - A lid or?

Form-based zoning

Empowering city planning efforts

Historic preservation, tax credits

Downtown development, public financing incentives

Public school reform

What does this list suggest? Urban blogs must be dominated by city planners and architecture enthusiasts, because most of the stuff on this list is built- environment related.

Outside of the built environment, what are the other top issues that might be addressed?

Arch camp?

One way to enliven the Arch grounds would be to allow camping. In Europe, camping is a popular way to travel. It's fun and relaxing. Would you be interested in being able to camp at the Arch?

How much would you pay for an overnight campsite? What amenities would you want? Allowing camping on the Arch would be a low cost way to create a fun and unique downtown tourist attraction.

Imagine if camping were allowed at the Arch, and on Friday and Saturday nights, there were historic re-enactors who would come around, telling stories of life on the old riverfront of St. Louis.

Campers would sit near a campfire, the actors would tell a story, families and friends would listen, maybe sing some songs or roast some marshmallows, enjoy refreshments, and spend quality time downtown on the riverfront.

What do you think? What would it take to get something like this going?

Overgrown, dead vegetation a major eyesore

At STL Rising, we like to highlight the positives. Seldom do we focus on negative aspects of neighborhood life. However, as we are in the height of spring, with the summer growing season right around the corner, the subject of neighborhood greenery comes to life.

Street trees are a wonderful asset. On the other hand, unmaintained, overgrown, or dead vegetation is the exact opposite. Nothing can make a block look more neglected than poorly cared for plant life. And when plants go unmaintained for years, the cumulative appearance of years of neglect magnifies the eyesore.

There are places where wild trees have grown up in fence lines, enveloping the wood or metal fencing, then growing to maturity, only then to be cut down, perhaps with blocks of dead tree trunks left suspended in the air, floating in the overgrown fence parts.

To beautify neighborhoods, we need to make an effort to clear neighborhoods, alleys, and public rights of ways of these forlorn trees and plants. Operation Brightside Blitz Days are happening now across the city. This is the time of year for clearing away unwanted vegetation and junk.

New cases in urbanity

Even in this slow economy, development projects are still happening in the urban core of St. Louis City. I saw three under construction just yesterday.

The first one was the new shopping center being built across the street from the City Hospital condo development. Foundations are being framed, a sign with a rendering of the total project is erected, and the project has financing.

The second was at North Florissant and Cass. It's a nearly completed multi-tenant neighborhood shopping center serving the near northside. Guessing, it looks to be about a 30,000-40,000 square feet.

The third was the new CVS pharmacy going in at Gravois and Germania. The store is replacing an abandoned Amoco/car wash. It appears that it will also take down four houses, relocate utilties, and involve an alley vacation.

I titled this post, "New cases in urbanity" because all three of these projects involve building on previously developed city locations. They are all urban core developments, neighborhood serving, being carried out by private developers in established neighborhoods. They are getting it done!

Kudos to the investors, neighborhoods, and all involved for bringing these projects online!

Good dog!

Yesterday's wonderful news that the three year old lost boy had been found safe was great relief. As details of the story started coming out, apparently two dogs played a big part in the boy's rescue.

On what was probably the last day of hope for finding the boy alive, a construction worker, who was home for the day due to rain, decided to enter the search. He didn't spot the boy, but he saw two dogs standing in the forest. He approached the dogs and found the boy being protected by them. And according to the news, these dogs didn't even belong to the boy. They belonged to a neighbor.

If memory serves, wasn't there a similar story last year? A boy was lost for a couple of days, and when they found him, he was with a dog that had stayed by his side?

We have always been around dogs, but I don't think I've ever had the appreciation for dogs that I have now. We have one and her degree of loyalty and love of children amazes me. It seems the tinier the person, the more she gives her love to them. It's like she makes them her people.

Congratulations to everyone involved in rescuing this young boy, and thank you to the people who care for the two dogs that were there when this little boy needed them most!

Best Spring in 20 years?

St. Louis is known for having some rough transitions from winter to summer. Sometmes it seems Spring only lasts around a week. We can go from the 50s to the 80s with nothing in between. Not this year.

The Groundhog was wrong. Spring came early and has lasted. No violent storms (yet). No heavy rain. Mild temperatures. Flowers came early and have lasted longer than usual. This Spring is one for the books!

A plug for the neighborhood

We're trying something new this year...a community yard project. Here's an email that went out over our block email list:

Dear Neighbors –

Is the soil under your lawn so hard it feels more like concrete than earth? Does your grass struggle to grow and then go downhill from there? I know ours does. Mike Miller from the KMOX Garden Hotline says the best thing we can do in St. Louis to improve our lawns is to core aerate the ground once or twice a year (mid spring and fall). Core aeration is the process of removing little plugs from the ground to improve air flow into the soil and root system of the lawn. When the process is complete, your lawn looks like it has hundreds of little wine corks laying on the ground.

Home Depot rents core aeration machines for $80 per day (24 hours). We’ve set this Friday/Saturday as the day to rent the machine for our block. We’ll either divide the cost by participants, or collect $10 per household. Any surplus funds will be applied to 2009 block party expenses. It should take about 45 minutes to an hour to do each front yard. If we pick up the machine around 5 pm Friday, some of us can get stated Friday evening, with the rest using the machine on Saturday.

Note: Home Depot will not make reservations. They rent the machines on a first come, first served basis. The man in the rental office said that if we came by Friday around 5, we should be able to get one of the machines.

The block captain will sign for the machine and handle the funds. We will need some help picking up and returning the machine. It takes two people to load and unload it, and we will need someone to donate the use of a pickup to help with delivery and return. If you have access to the use of a pickup Friday after work and Saturday around 4:30, please volunteer. Without a truck, the project won’t happen. We need your help. Please volunteer if you can help in this regard.

The last thing is, it would be great if we had an idea of when you’d want to use the machine. (Friday evening till around 8 PM, Saturday morning – from 7:00 AM – noon, or Saturday afternoon till 4 PM.) If we could have interested folks sign up for one of those three time slots, we’d be able to make the most efficient use of the machine.)

After core aerating your lawn, it’s a good time to put down new compost/soil supplements, and new grass seed. If this project works this first time, we could try again in the fall and continue it as a block tradition. If we stay with it, our block could have great lawns in the coming years.

Thanks for your help and here’s to good gardening

Now while this yard improvement project will be a good community building effort (we've already got about ten neighbors signed up and an offer of a donated pick up truck), I have to ask the question...where are all those industrious snow shoveling/lawn maintenance people?

In all our years living in the City, we've had twice yearly deliveries of fire wood, mulch haulers offering to mulch our yard (with the free mulch from Carondelet Park - maybe, fine by me, that mulch pile looks like Mount Everest), snow shovelers offering to shovel our walks after every deep snow, but never anyone offering to aerate our lawn. An enterprising person could make money by the wheel barrow load if they offered to aerate your yard for $20-$25.

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.