No Free Zoos

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

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

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

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

Cardinal Red

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

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

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

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

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

Turtles Rising

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe she can't read?

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

Alley video cameras?

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

No more electronic voting for me

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

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

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

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

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

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

Downtown Then and Downtown Now

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Old Post Office Plaza debuts this weekend

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

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

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

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

Building better neighborhoods one block at a time

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Metro's Top Ten List for March 30, 2009

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

Number Ten: No comfy train waiting at the platform

Number Nine: A banner day for cab drivers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Park East Freeway to McKinley Boulevard

A Milwaukee case study in freeway removal....

Freeway razing sets stage for $250 million in development

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

Congress for New Urbanism summary

Man, this looks familiar...

Fountain Square

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

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

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

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

STL to star in Hollywood movie

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

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

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

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

Older North

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

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

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

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

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

Bevo Mill - For Sale or Rent?

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

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

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

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

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

Grounds For Action

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

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

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

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

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

Deadline Approaching to Submit Comments on Future of Arch

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

More information can be found here:

NPS Update on Arch Planning Process

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

Arch Connections Group Gets New Name

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

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

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

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

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