This is my 15th annual look at St. Louis’ Dr. Martin Luther King Drive, but my first as a resident living North of the street named for the civil rights leader.
It’s hard not to get depressed by the lack of investment in this corridor.
— Steve Patterson
The City of St. Louis stretches a long distance from the Northern-most tip to the Southern-most tip, following the curve of the Mississippi River.
St. Louis radiated out in all directions from its starting point on the riverfront, but the most coherent and focust development happened along a spine running due west from downtown.
Starting with Market Street, then changing over to Olive and then Lindell, a loose axis developed over the course of the 1800s. Along this axis would rise many city landmarks – its two most prestigious universities, its entertainment district, its most fashionable neighborhood, and its largest park. A second skyline developed in Midtown. The axis is symbolically capped by Washington University’s Brookings Hall, which visually terminates Lindell just beyond city limits. (Built St. Louis)
This pattern continued into St. Louis County, from Clayton to Chesterfield.
Today’s non-scientific poll applies to both St. Louis city & county.
This poll will automatically close at 8pm tonight. Wednesday I’ll share my thoughts and the results.
— Steve Patterson
The St. Louis Board of Aldermen will meet at 10am today, their 29th meeting of the 2018-2019 session.
Two bills were introduced last week that weren’t on version 1 or 2 of that agenda. See BB 220 (Redevelopment Plan for 5467-5559 Delmar) and BB 221 (Redevelopment Plan for 5539-5551 Pershing)
Today’s agenda includes ten (10) new bills covering a wide variety of issues:
The meeting begins at 10am, past meetings and a live broadcast can be watched online here. See list of all board bills for the 2017-2018 session — the new bills listed above may not be online right away.
— Steve Patterson
I left our new apartment briefly Friday morning, before the snow arrived, using power wheelchair. I didn’t leave again until Sunday morning, driving our car this time.
On Sunday we went to Creve Coeur, Brentwood, and a few other places. By then roads were generally acceptable, but I can imagine how bad they were Friday night. I saw the news reports of motorists in traffic for hours/overnight.
Not experiencing the worst conditions, I was a “slight disagree” on the recent non-scientific Sunday Poll:
Q: Agree or disagree: Given the amount of heavy wet snow we received, state/county/local road crews did the best they could.
A little more than half think the crews did a good job considering. Agreed, in general I think the people behind the wheels of the snow plows do a great job at a thankless job. It’s their bosses that don’t always get it right.
Yesterday we drove to IKEA and leaving I noticed they hadn’t cleared the public sidewalk, nor their accessible routes from the public sidewalk to the entrance — they’d piled snow on them!
More snow expected this weekend.
— Steve Patterson
A week ago I shared that we moved, leaving the Downtown West neighborhood. I’m happy to report that I’m once again living north of the Delmar Divide. I’ve told the following Delmar Divide story before, but it has been a while, so it’s worth repeating:
When I first moved to St. Louis in 1990 I rented an efficiency apartment on Lindell in the Central West End, I was 23. The apartment manager was a childhood friend of the mom of a friend I’d met in college, the two women grew up in the 1950s near O’Fallon Park in North St. Louis. The manager, looking out for her young new tenant from Oklahoma, advised me: “don’t go north of Delmar.”
I’d just moved to St. Louis after falling in love with the street grid, substantial architecture, and tremendous potential — I had to see this forbidden part of the city where I shouldn’t go. I fell in love all over, marveling at the beauty being abandoned.
After 6 months in the CWE I moved to a 3-room flat in Old North St. Louis (then called Murphy-Blair). I still have friendships with neighbors from time, and lots of fond memories.
Years later I’m living in my 7th St. Louis neighborhood:
My friend Mark Groth blogged about the Neighborhood in March 2010, with lots of photos showing the various developments. He concluded his post this way:
Frankly, this is not a neighborhood that overly inspires me, nor one I would take someone from out of town to showcase the city. I’m just not into 1980’s architecture. However, if you are interested in the history of public housing and government subsidized housing, check out Columbus Square. It has a long history of being home to slums and crime; but, it’s a long way from a slum today. Maybe Columbus Square will actually be a nice doorstep for north city and the site of more positivity and investment for the near north side in the coming years. (St. Louis City Talk)
Ouch, but I agree.
Still, I love exploring new neighborhoods. It’s one thing to go down an unfamiliar street occasionally, but its another to get an opportunity to immerse oneself in a new experience. In future posts I’ll talk about why we moved and why we selected the housing we did.
It feels very good to again be living North of Delmar.
— Steve Patterson