Loving Lindell Blvd!
Yet another long vacant building on Lindell – the Moolah Temple – reopened to the public yesterday. Once again, we have Amrit & Amy Gill to thank for their vision and hard work. In this age of ridiculously large multiplex theaters, the Gills and Harman Moseley are opening a single screen. The Post-Dispatch tells you what to expect:
What they’ll see is astounding, a theater space that is unlike anything else in town. It starts with the lobby, restored to its Moorish splendor after 20 years of slumber behind locked doors. To the right is the Moolah Lounge, a self-contained bar that Moseley hopes will attract a late-night clientele. Straight ahead is the ticket counter and concession stand, staffed by employees wearing conical red fezzes. And through the massive interior doors is the theater space, which is utterly unique from floor to ceiling. Six stories overhead is a barrel-vaulted ceiling, hung with chandeliers. Underfoot is carpet – rare inside a movie theater – and a flat-surface floor that leads to one of the largest movie screens in town. At 45 feet wide and 20 feet tall, it’s not exactly IMAX proportions, but it’s wide enough for Cinemascope.
BTW, I don’t like to Post-Dispatch stories online because they only work for a short period of time and I hate links that don’t work. So, not P-D links until they keep their stories online.
I tried to eat dinner at Nadoz in the Coronado last weekend but they were closed for a special event. The menu looks great. The new rush of activity along this stretch has been missing for decades and it is nice to see things happening. Saint Louis University (SLU) has been so busy fucking up the street grid, tearing down buildings and putting up fences they haven’t had the time, money or vision to do anything that actually makes a positive contribution to the city.
The Moolah is a major step forward and a very creative solution to the question about what to do with the building. The Biz Journal wrote a good story on the Gills & Moolah back in 2002. In August they wrote another story on a parking garage being built behind the Moolah to handle the extra crowds.
The Structural Engineers for the project go into great detail about what they had to do to make the project work. The city development website is rightly showing off all the activity in the city.
I personally can’t wait to see a film at the new Moolah. Bowling at the new lanes also will be fun. Great architecture and diversity of activities – a great combination. Now if only they had selected some simpler lights for the front of the Moolah I’d be completely happy…
– Steve
Yeah, SLU hasn’t done anything to make a positive contribution to the city. Maybe the university should have moved out west when it had the opportunity several decades ago.
Give me a break.
When I was a freshman at SLU in the early 90’s, the campus surroundings included a 1960’s era no-tell motel on Olive, a horrible Mercantile Bank branch at Lindell and Grand, an ugly high-rise housing development where the law school atrium now stands and of course, the remnants of Laclede Town. The area is a thousand times better than it once was, and SLU played a major role in its improvement.
SLU also assisted in the redevelopment of the Continental Building and continues to assist with the improvement of Grand Center.
While the university has torn down some buildings that I would have liked to have seen saved, it has also preserved the historic Queen’s Daughters building on Lindell (for the law school) and other historic buildings.
As far as “fucking up the street grid” goes, SLU was not a “real” campus until West Pine and Spring were closed off. I’m as much of a supporter of urban-style development as anyone, but a college campus is a totally different animal. SLU has done a great job of creating an attractive urban campus, and compared to many of its peers (other urban, Jesuit schools), its campus is easily one of the best.
The bowling alley is very good news to me. Now if we can only find someone to buy Western Lanes and keep it open…
I have worked for Harman Moseley before and likely will do so again, however briefly, when I return to St. Louis. I’m glad he does what he does.
Institutions of higher education that operate in cities have the opportunity to offer students a far richer learning experience by becoming part of the urban grid instead of cloistering themselves away from it.
While New York University exerts an enormous influence on its own neighborhood and those adjacent, it has chosen to define ‘campus’ less as a separate, roped-off area that interrupts the street grid than as a multi-block, multiple-use area in which many/most students live, work, study and socialize.
New York University sees the city as part of the educational experience. Which may be why NYU, according to a recent report, is the school most undergraduates most want to attend.
Likewise, Savannah College of Art and Design has done the same. Their campus is spread out across all of Savannah in former run-down buildings that they have chosen to renovate. There is a wonderful shuttle service that takes students all around savannah to get to class. Combined with the squares, it makes for a most excellent place to walk about. I think Dan’s point about the opportunity to offer students a far richer experience by being part of the city rather than roped off from it is well put.
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