Sidewalks That Look Good But Don’t Function Well

I spent a good portion of Saturday with the grand kids.  No, not mine, a friend’s.  But that required a trip to St Charles County.  I’m not fond of driving West of Kingshighway so you have to appreciate how adorable these kids are to get me out there.

Coming back to their house after lunch I snapped the above picture.  Many places don’t even have sidewalks and those that do, like the above example, just line the road and don’t actually connect to anything.  We passed a Wal-Mart (how predictable, right?) and I was pleasantly shocked to see the sidewalk connecting to the entrance – a proper ADA access route.

But for the most part the sidewalks just seem like decoration.  Something to give the illusion you could walk to a store.  But it is just that, an illusion of walkable.  As bad as newer development in the city is, St Charles is far worse.

I grew up in a 1960s area of Oklahoma City that is just as bad.  My parents moved there for the same reason people moved to St Charles, schools.  Except where I grew up I was in the same district as the inner city but on the edge in newer buildings.  We had no sidewalks. You only walked when the car broke down.  Why else would you walk?

Don’t worry, the grand kids are getting exposed to urban life where you walk to places.  Where you run into friends on the sidewalks rather than the mall parking lot.

Much like religion, I think it is good to expose youngsters to different perspectives and allow them to draw their own conclusions when they get older.   Just like many kids of the 50s picked the suburbs, todays kids will pick the core when they make their own living choices.  If I’m wrong let me know in 2030.

In the meantime if we go to the trouble to have sidewalks wouldn’t it be a good idea it they actually connected to places?

Wasted Space on Laclede

Going to class at Saint Louis University last Thursday I noticed an interesting gap in the on-street parking in front of the building on Laclede.

I’m standing at my car looking at what is now known as the “Laclede Classroom Building.”  This is a big gap in the on-street parking — enough for one or two cars.  By not having parking here the city is losing money.  “But that driveway!” you observe.  Oh yes, the driveway.

As the above image shows, the driveway has been abandoned by the new owner, SLU.  There is not even a service gate in the fence.  There is no reason anymore to prevent someone from parking on-street here.

These examples exist all over the city — circumstances change but management of on-street parking doesn’t seem to change.  I can think of several examples downtown where parking is not alowed at closed former drives.  We need some system of alerting the parking folks in the Treasurer’s office when a substantial permit is issued for a building.  This would prod them to evaluate the on-street parking & meter situation at locations like this where the situation has changed.

Downtown Retail Continues To Evolve

Tomorrow, December 13th, marks the one-year anniversary of the ribbon cuttings for Good Works Furniture and Flamingo Bowl (read post).  By May 2008, Good Works had already anounced they were closing (read post)!

I’m glad Flamingo is still around because I enjoy bowling.  In the hospital earlier this year they had me bowl using a Wii as therapy to work on standing.  I’ve got a bowling game on my iPhone, too.  But nothing beats the real thing.  I was left handed but I’ve practiced right handed darts, I need to try right handed bowling.

Earlier this week the well known CWE book retailer, Left Bank Books, opened a 2nd location at 10th & Locust.  A few months ago, Crepes In The City, formerly a weekend-only production inside The Washington Ave Post, opened their own location.  Change is inevitable.  Some places will close while others thrive and more give it a shot.

Downtown long ago ceased to be the retail center of the region.  The long shuttered St Louis Centre mall was a poor attempt to recapture that title.

As a downtown resident for over a year now I can tell you I’m generally pleased with the mix of retailers we have and as more buildings open up (now as rentals) we’ll continue to see retailers opening to serve the needs of immediate residents, locals, and visitors.

You Don’t Center Your Car on the Parking Meter

Parallel parking isn’t too difficult but you’d think it was based on how poorly some folks manage.

The Toyota Camry above was parked in such a way that the space for this meter looked like it was available. There was a car in front of this one too.  If I had a smart fortwo I could have fit in the space behind this car and the next.

“Don’t Go North of Delmar”

The year was 1990.  I was 23 and had just moved to St Louis from the Oklahoma area where I was born & raised.  The apartment manager on Lindell probably thought she was doing me a favor, instead she was doing the region a great disservice.  “Don’t go North of Delmar, ” she instructed.  The next day, out  of curiosity I went North of Delmar.  I didn’t get shot or even shot at.

That trip, and many since, reinforced my love of the city’s architecture and street layout.  I think it was on this first trip North of Delmar that I discovered Fountain Park, the police station on Page at Union (since razed) and so many wonderful streets long abandoned by whites out of fear of living in proximity to a black person.  Oh the horrors!

The apartment manager, I later learned, grew up near O’Fallon Park on the city’s North side in the late 30s-50s. North St Louis was no longer the place of her childhood.  In the first part of the 20th Century restrictive deed restrictions were placed on property to keep streets white.

The famous Supreme Court case Shelley v. Kraemer, originating in North St Louis,  in 1948 found that the restrictions were not unconstitutional but the using the courts to enforce them was. The began to open up previously all white areas to non-white persons.

Block by block over the next several decades white families began to sell, often in a panic induced by real estate agents engaged in “blockbusting.”  Panic selling reduced prices which meant more people would panic sell.  Falling prices also meant homes formerly unaffordable were now affordable to more people.  Had people not sold in a panic North St Louis might look very different today.

Delmar became known as a dividing line between the black North side and the white South side.

Of course there are whites North of Delmar and blacks South but you get the idea.  This “rule” gets passed on as young 23 year olds move to the city.  Well, they try to pass it on.  In 1991 I moved from Lindell to Old North St Louis — well North of Delmar.

Fast forward to the present.  Ald. Kacie Starr Triplett has introduced Board Bill 328 to honorarily rename  Delmar to Barack Obama Boulevard.  The street would still be Delmar — it would just have some additional signs added for the honorary designation.

I like the symbolism — Barack Obama being the one person in a generation that can bring white and black together.   He himself being the product of a white mom and black father.

Again, this is an honorary renaming only.  When Easton was renamed for Dr. Martin Luther King in the early 1970s they changed the legal name of the street.

So while I like the symbolism I wonder how effective, if at all, having this desigation will be toward breaking down the Delmar barrier.  Will people just start saying, “Don’t go North of Obama Boulevard?”