St. Louis’ Dr Martin Luther King Drive 2022

Today’s post is a look at Martin Luther King Jr  Drive in the City of St. Louis — my 18th annual such post. As in the 17 times prior, I traveled the length in both directions looking for changes from the previous year.

Not much has changed since MLK Day 2021 but I’ll detail them later. First I want to address how the street gots it name, and when. After Dr  King was assassinated in Memphis in 1968 some cities began almost immediately to rename major streets in his honor. St. Louis took four years.

In 2017 I quoted the following 2013 post on Facebook:

Stl250
February 17, 2013 

This Day in St. Louis History, February 17, 1972:
Martin Luther King Boulevard is dedicated
A Board of Aldermen bill was passed that changed the name of Easton Avenue and portions of Franklin Avenue to Martin Luther King Boulevard. Alderman C.B. Broussard was a primary sponsor, and he announced that the change was part of a nationwide organized drive to rename streets in honor of the murdered civil rights figure.

Sounds good, but in fact-checking I discovered it is partly inaccurate. I should’ve checked the accuracy in 2017. “Dedicated” implies an event, media, long-winded speeches, and big scissors to cut a ribbon — which did not occur.

Here’s what really happened:

• February 18, 1972: A bill was introduced to rename part of Franklin  Avenue and all of Easton Avenue. (Post-Dispatch 2/19/1972 P7)
• March 21, 1972: Board of Aldermen gave final approval to bill 20-2 earlier in the day. (Post-Dispatch 3/21/1972 P27)
• Spokesperson for Mayor Cervantes said he would sign the bill the following week. (Post-Dispatch 3/31/1972 P19)
• Post-Dispatch editorial expressed “reservations” about renaming Franklin & Easton for Dr. King. They weren’t sure it was a worthy honor. They favored a new park or boulevard. (Post-Dispatch 4/2/1972 P108)
• East St. Louis mayor James E. Williams Sr. announced his city would rename the Veterans Memorial Bridge and Illinois Ave to honor Dr. King. This would mean a person could travel from the east limits of East St. Louis to the west limits of St. Louis on roads honoring Dr. King (Post-Dispatch 4/11/1972)

After the official change before businesses changed their letterhead, and the public continued to use the old names. Unfortunately it was only a few years after MLK was honored through East St. Louis IL and Saint Louis that construction began on a convention center, closing two blocks of King Blvd between 7th and 9th. D’oh!

Ok, let’s start on the east end and heading west.

Like previous years a few bright spots, mostly depressing decay.

— Steve Patterson

Loop Trolley and the Story of Joey Pennywise & Uncle Samuel Moneybags

Joey Pennywise sold widgets and wanted to increase sales. To do this Pennywise thought to buy 5 smart outfits to standout from generic & common widget salespersons. But Pennywise didn’t have the funds to buy the desired outfits.  Pennywise likes all things vintage and knows used outfits can be purchased much cheaper than those fancy new European outfits. Even after good cleaning and a tailor having to rework each outfit it’ll be cheaper ($3,700 vs $10,000).

This is where frequently generous uncle Samuel Moneybags enters the picture. Pennywise asks Uncle Sam for the money to buy five really nice game-changing used outfits. Uncle Sam grants Pennywise the requested $3,700.

All of Pennywise’s friends thought it would be better to get brand new outfits, even though they cost substantially more initially. They warned the continued cost to repair seams, replace buttons, fix zippers, etc would be easier to live with. Plus, they thought their friend should get something that’s fashionable now, not something worn many generations ago. Something better suited to the needs of the 21st century widget salesperson, not one from a century ago. The widget game just is different than it was more than a century ago.

After purchasing the used outfits Pennywise had them cleaned and altered to fit. Looked just like a widget salesperson from 1915. Additionally Pennywise got a new closet organizer to keep the outfits neat and ready.

Initially everyone was supportive, but Pennywise was often late to meetings because of wardrobe malfunctions. Plus walking in century-old shoes wasn’t nearly as fast as new sneakers. Still, sales the first few days were great, but then they dropped off considerably. Pennywise couldn’t afford to keep up with the expensive dry cleaning and fixing fragile threads. After failed attempts to get additional funds from uncle Sam, Pennywise reduced how often the vintage outfits were worn.  Until it was zero times per week.

Friends suggested Pennywise invest in the cleaning & repair costs, but there was no money left. So the expensive outfits hung in the beautiful new closet not getting used. Pennywise was still proud of the fact these outfits cost a fraction of what new outfits would have. The irony was lost on Pennywise.

Friends, miraculously all fans of Marie Kondo, said to wear them or give them up. “Sunk cost” proclaimed some friends advocating for getting rid of them. “They money has already been spent, spending even more isn’t going to change that,” they’d say. Over and over.

Meanwhile, Pennywise inherited a bunch of money from another relative, the family blacksheep Stanley K. Pennywise wasn’t sure if any of the new money should be invested in the vintage outfits taking up space in the closet. Pennywise surveyed friends and a majority said to use the funds for other needs, like sourcing better widgets. “Sunk cost!” Blah..blah…blah…

Then uncle Sam said if Pennywise doesn’t begin wearing the outfits soon they initial outlay would need to be returned. If not, small claims court to recover, no new requests will be considered. None. Pennywise depends on the generosity of uncle Sam,  but isn’t sure how to decide what to do.  The now-angry mob of friends begin chanting “SUNK COSTS!”, but this doesn’t help Pennywise reach a conclusive decision that will make everyone happy — especially rich uncle Sam.

Finally one friend (named Bla Gher) came forward, disclosing initial preference for more expensive modern outfits and opposition to vintage outfits, offered some additional accounting terms nobody had yet considered.

“Relevant costs” and Incremental analysis” Bla Gher said enthusiastically.  One friend in the group quickly stood and said “Sunk Costs!”  as others nodded in agreement without fully understanding any off the terms. Bla Gher explained that sunk costs are funds already spent that can’t be recovered, incremental analysis is a process of looking at all options and comparing the relevant costs — since sunk costs are, sunk, they’re not relative to the current discussion about figuring out what to do next.

Bla Gher repeated: the initial $3,700 cost of the outfits is no longer relevant to discussing future options.

Gher then outlined Pennywise’s possible options, all to be priced and evaluated:

1. Do nothing: Leave the outfits in the closet to collect dust. Don’t take any angry calls from uncle Sam, accept that previous generosity has just ended. Set aside $3,700 plus fees in case you lose in court.
2. Reduce sunk amount: Auction the vintage outfits, use that recovered money to remake the closet so it looks like it did before. Also sell all sewing machines, steam irons, bolts of fabric, buttons, etc.  And, like above, don’t take any angry calls from uncle Sam, accept that previous generosity has just ended. Set aside $3,700 plus fees in case you lose in court.
3. Double down: Rather than the small amount to cover cleaning and repairs for a short while, put $3,700 from uncle Stanley into adding more vintage outfits so Pennywise can be seen only in a vintage outfit. Seven days a week, morning to evening. For analysis purposes, estimate if this would impress widget buyers enough to justify the additional expense.
4. Mix & match: determine if anything, such as the closet, platform shoes, etc could still be used with those sexy modern European outfits. If so, Pennywise could expand the sales territory — serving the needs of more widget buyers and users. Funds to do this can come from $3,700+ of the money from uncle Stanley, and possibly more from uncle Sam! However, Joey Pennywise should no longer be involved in outfit decisions.

Bla Gher doesn’t know which of the above is the best option as the pricing and analysis hasn’t been done.

The End.

— Steve “Bla Gher” Patterson

Bla Gher concluded by saying until the above options (and any others) are impartiality analyzed there is no good way to know which option is best.

Some Highlights of 2021 in Saint Louis

It’s the last day of twenty twenty-one, so here’s a look back at the year in St. Louis. This isn’t a complete list, just some highlights — not in chronological order.

Many things from 2020 continued into 2021. The most obvious is the COVID-19 pandemic.  Hospitals were often operating beyond official capacity throughout the year. Last year’s debates about mask mandates were joined by debates about vaccines. In case you missed any of these debates don’t worry…they’re going to continue in 2022. Possibly 2023.

Some downtown St. Louis nightclubs were forcibly closed after repeatedly violating Covid health orders, another after frequent violence in and around it.

St. Louis held its first nonpartisan preference election in March of 2021, with the top two primary candidates in each local race going to the general election. Treasurer Tishaura Jones and alderwoman Care Spencer, both progressives, came out on top in the 4-way primary. Jones was elected mayor. Mayor Jones vetoed development legislation that included too many tax incentives. In the 5th ward aldermanic race newcomer James Page defeated incumbent Tammika Hubbard.

In the Delmar Loop shopping & entertainment district the Loop Trolley was dormant the entire year, ceasing at the end of December 2020. An effort to get funding failed and the feds want a refund if the vintage trolley cars aren’t rolling by the summer of 2022. Also in the Loop, the Tivoli Theater sold to a church.

Saint Louis University announced plans to sell a parking lot on Grand at Lafayette to QuikTrip. The city had foolishly granted SLU development rights for the area.

Three Illinois metro-east cities merged: Alorton, Cahokia, and Centerville became Cahokia Heights. The region still has far too many separate units of government.

Tower Grove Park announced plans to daylight a stream that have been in a culvert for decades.

Missouri’s gas tax increased — a first in many years. Missouri still has low fuel taxes.

Larry Giles, founder of the National Building Arts Center, died.

Afghan refugees arrived in St. Louis, hoping to restart their lives here.

This year was the 40th anniversary of the movie Escape from New York — filmed in St. Louis. The film, starring Kurt Russel, used the St. Louis streets around vacant warehouses, a vacant Union Station, and a closed Chain of Rocks Bridge as the setting for post-apocalyptic New York in 1997.

BJC slowly dismantled Queeny Tower to make room for a new hospital building. The building couldn’t be imploded due to proximity to other hospital buildings. Construction on a new Siteman Cancer Center building began on another part of the Washington University in St  Louis medical campus.

Stalemate over funding of convention center expansion. The old parking garage at 9th & Cole has been razed in preparation for the planned expansion. Bob Clark, Clayco CEO, advocated tearing most of the existing dome & convention center to start over from scratch.

Metro introduced WiFi on transit vehicles. Metro also reduced service due to the pandemic. The CWE MetroLink station reopened, it was rebuilt  — moving the elevator and creating a staircase twice as wide as before. New electric articulated buses began service on the busy #70 Grand route.

Target announced another city location, to be part of a new apartment building on Grand near the MetroLink station. Three new apartment buildings have taken shape around the Forest Park MetroLink station — one replaces the old park & ride lot in place since light rail began in 1993.

In the Fall of 2021 the St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran a story about how it could access the social security numbers of educators on a state website. Experts determined the database had been misconfigured, but Governor Parson doubled down on his baseless claim a reporter hacked the Department of Education website. Technology experts and us lay people got a good laugh at his foolish statements, while shaking our heads in disbelief.

St. Louis & the NFL reached a settlement on the departure of the Rams. City, county, and sports commission have yet to divide up the net proceeds.

Legal Missouri 2022 kicked off its campaign to collect signatures to get a question on Missouri’s 2022 ballot. If approved it would legalize the recreational use of cannabis, automatically expunge low-level possession records, and establish license only available to Missouri residents in disadvantaged areas — allowing others to get in on the ground floor of the lucrative cannabis market. Signatures are being collected now through mid-May 2022.

Very recently a tornado hit an Amazon Fulfillment Center in Edwardsville IL, killing roughly 6 workers. The same storm later hit Kentucky and other states.

A campaign to distribute $500 to city residents still impacted by the pandemic began earlier this month.

On a personal note, I’m just thrilled to still be here. In the fall of 2019 I was diagnosed with stage 4 kidney cancer so I didn’t know if I’d live to see the end of 2020, much less the end of 2021. In June I was featured on four posts on the Humans of St. Louis.

Looking forward to summarizing 2022 a year from now, seeing a MLS soccer match in 2023. Have a safe evening and happy new year!

— Steve Patterson

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A Tour of City Foundry St. Louis, the Food Hall, and Fresh Thyme Market

Today’s post is a look at City Foundry St. Louis, a new retail & office development in an old foundry along Forest Park Ave., between Spring and Vandeveter.

Almost 100 years ago, the Century Electric company purchased the Midtown St. Louis property now known as City Foundry STL. At the time, Midtown was a manufacturing hub for the city, thanks to its proximity to the Wabash Railroad line, which cuts across the City Foundry STL Property.

Century Electric was one of the top 3 manufacturers in the city, manufacturing motors and generators that were sold internationally. In fact, Century’s motors helped spark the development of small household appliances.

While the foundry changed owners over the years, and the products produced there changed, one thing did not: nearly 24-hour-a-day work continued on the site until 2007.

Today, this 15-acre site is being reimagined as City Foundry STL, with first-to-the-area makers and merchants moving to the complex. We can’t wait to for you to be a part of the next chapter of this storied creative complex. (City Foundry St. Louis)

First, a definition:

A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal into a mold, and removing the mold material after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals processed are aluminum and cast iron. However, other metals, such as bronze, brass, steel, magnesium, and zinc, are also used to produce castings in foundries. In this process, parts of desired shapes and sizes can be formed. (Wikipedia)    [An aside: a segment from a 1997 Simpsons episode comes to mind]

I’ve lived in St. Louis for over 31 years now, but don’t recall the name Century Electric. My memory of the foundry was the smell making automotive brake parts for Federal-Mogul. My post from last month: A Look at City Foundry St. Louis…in August 2013.

The 1909 Sanborn Fire Insurance maps show a few scattered wood frame buildings in this area, not a foundry. City records list four buildings on the site:

• Manufacturing 1932: 146,015 square feet
• Warehouse 1937: 66,197sf
• Warehouse 1953: 38,640sf
• Manufacturing 1982: 5,760

Let’s take a look, getting into some history along the way.

I wanted to know more about Century Electric so I began scouring the Post-Dispatch archives online via the St. Louis Public Library. Here’s a bit of what I found in a Post-Dispatch article from December 25, 1949, P61:

• Century Electric organized 1900, incorporated 1901
• first workshop an old church at 1011 Locust
• first working motor tested on thanksgiving day 1903 — sold to Rosenthal-Sloan Millinary Co.
• products shipped to 90 foreign countries
• first to offer repulsion type motor in small sizes
• a century motor was in the first successful home refrigerator
• manufactures everything except the wire
• foundry address is/was 3711 Market Street — before I-64/Hwy 40 went though.

Let’s resume the tour.

Let’s go out to Forest Park Ave and approach from the west.

One last exterior area to show you, the building on the SW corner of Forest Park & Spring avenues. It began as the new offices of a local grocery chain, so using it for a new grocery store is very fitting. From the Post-Dispatch July 18, 1937:

Let’s go inside Fresh Thyme, later we’ll go into the Food Hall.

Fresh Thyme Market has other locations in the region, on both sides of the river. The grocery chain in based in suburban Chicago (Downers Grove, IL). The large chain Meijer is an investor, their nearest location is Springfield IL. So you’ll see some Meijer products on shelves.

On opening day I planned to get a package of Meijer frozen tuna steaks that I priced on the Fresh Thyme’s website (Kirkwood location). At this new location the very same item was 50% more than in Kirkwood. WTF!?! I ask the manager why the price is so much more. The answer was unexpected. The Fresh Thyme Market at City Foundry STL isn’t part of Fresh Thyme’s system, including pricing. Fresh Thyme investor Meijer is a partner on this location, so the pricing is based on that.  The manager told me they’d match the significantly better price at checkout. To this day if you do a search on the actual Fresh Thyme website for the nearest location it won’t find the City Foundry location. It’s not on the Meijer website either. Very weird.

Other than the frozen tuna steaks the prices I’ve checked have all been reasonable, their milk price is the best I’ve seen anywhere in the region. We’ve been back numerous times, a welcome new addition. Now if they’ll just stop filling the ADSA-compliant accessible route with extra shopping carts.

Moving on, let’s visit the Food Hall.  First, a food hall is not the same as a food court:

Here are 4 things about food halls and what makes people love them:

• Food halls are usually a collection of small, locally-developed restaurant concepts or outright new creations that come from the minds of local chefs or start-up entrepreneurs and restauranteurs. They offer an assortment of unique food and beverage items that are usually cooked from scratch (prepared from raw ingredients vs. shipped in partially or wholly made) or nearby in a commissary (but still from scratch). On the other hand, food courts are usually filled with national chain restaurants that offer little scratch cooking and little-to-no brand cache.

• Food courts will typically feature a cast of usual players like one or two Asian concepts (with one or both of them serving a version of Bourbon chicken), an ice cream place, a pizza place, a burger chain or two, a Latin concept, a hot dog concept, a cheesesteak concept, and maybe a cookie place. The dining options in a food hall are more in line with a collection of food trucksat a food truck park than the food found in a food court, with ethnic favorites like Vietnamese bao buns, Cuban street sandwiches, wine and cheese, Italian sandwich or pasta shop, local ice cream or gelato, chocolatiers, or Napolitano style pizza (vs. Sbarro’s par-cook-n-reheat slices), southern fried chicken sandwiches, and just about anything you can imagine.

• Food halls are aesthetically pleasing, often in turn-of-the-century warehouses, train stations, or old mills with high ceilings where the building’s history is partially or mostly preserved. Ponce City Market was originally a Sears & Roebuck distribution warehouse. Chelsea Market in New York was a Nabisco factory where the Oreo was invented. Quincy Market in Boston is one of the oldest food halls in America (it was a food hall before folks started calling them food halls) and sits next to historic Faneuil Hall…it was designed from the beginning (1824-1826) to be a marketplace. In a food hall, the charm of historic significance combines with the unique food offerings and the novelty of reclaimed industrial space to form a city’s social nucleus, while food courts are really little more than uninspired feeding pit stops for mall shoppers.

• Food halls are destinations. Retail stores are few and are injected to add interest and shopping-as-entertainment to the food experience, but they must convey a consistent lifestyle “voice” to their visitors. Anthropologie, Lululemon, or Madewell are common national retail supplements. Food courts are designed to keep shoppers shopping so they don’t leave the mall when they get hungry… the food supports the shopping, not the other way around like in a food hall.

Ready?

Concluding thoughts on City Foundry St. Louis

I was very happy & curious when I first heard the developers planned to keep the old industrial buildings rather than scrape the site clean. Overall I’m pleasantly surprised by how they’ve turned an old dirty industrial site into a retail & office destination. If you haven’t been I recommend visiting.

Transit users can take MetroLink to either Grand or Cortex, the nearest bus lines are the 42 & 70.

— Steve Patterson

YouTube Channels To Learn About Urbanism, Transit, Climate, Etc.

These days urbanists wanting to communicate with the masses are more likely to use video, compared to written text and static images. Video is a great medium. Of course today YouTube is the video streaming service that pops into your head first.

YouTube is an American online video sharing and social media platform owned by Google. It was launched on February 14, 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is the second most visited website, right after Google itself. YouTube has more than one billion monthly users who collectively watch more than one billion hours of videos each day. As of May 2019, videos were being uploaded at a rate of more than 500 hours of content per minute. (Wikipedia)

When I began blogging on 10/31/2004 YouTube didn’t exist. Seriously. YouTube first began three and a half months after I started this blog.

My first video posted to YouTube was June 20, 2006 — five months before Google bought YouTube. If not for my February 2008 stroke I might have shifted to video as my primary medium. Can’t go back and change history, it is what it is.

Thankfully there are lots of channels of interest to this urbanist.

Today’s post is a list of YouTube channels I watch regularly, with two sample videos from each. These are in random order, not ranked. The style of each YouTuber is unique, some contain a few words that might offend.

Not Just Bikes:

Alan Fisher — The ArmChair Urbanist:

CityNerd:

City Beautiful:

Climate Town:

RM Transit:

Practical Engineering:

It’s History:

TED: (varied topics, not just urban-related)

UrbanReviewSTLdotcom: My first YouTube video, below, was posted on June 20,2006 — before Google announced it was buying the platform!

As I find more great channels I might add them to this post, if you know of any include in a comment under the post on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.

— Steve Patterson