Urban Renewal Destroyed St. Louis’ Early Chinatown, Hop Alley

The other day I was reading a post by my friend Rick Bonash over on his blog STL Rising. The post was then called, “Busch Stadium Should Have Not Been Built” Here is an excerpt:

Busch Stadium should not have been built because it replaced a thriving Chinatown in downtown St. Louis referred to as “Hop Alley”. People don’t often think of St. Louis as a destination for Asian immigrants, but it did at one time have it’s own Chinatown.

Hop Alley was tiny compared to the Chinatowns of New York and San Francisco. I wasn’t around at the time, but from what I’ve read, it was real, and it was located at the site of the former Busch Stadium. When the stadium was built, a number of former uses were removed, to make way for the new ballpark.

Had Busch Stadium remained in North City at Grand and Dodier, Hop Alley in downtown St. Louis would have been preserved, and St. Louis today would be more urban and ethnically diverse. True fact? Maybe so? We really don’t know and we can’t say. That’s not our history, so basing arguments on the premise really can’t be proven either way.

As much as St. Louisans loath change, our history is one of steady changes. Today, we have a thriving Asian district along Olive Boulevard. It’s much larger than the old Hop Alley, running nearly from the city limits on the east to west of 170 in Creve Coeur and Olivette.

Busch II, our first downtown baseball stadium, was part of a wave of downtown redevelopment which included the Arch and many of the office towers downtown. From an academic perspective, one might ask, what would have happened if instead of downtown, the Cardinals chose to move to the western suburbs? That didn’t happen either, but it’s fun to think of the possibile outcomes. Some might suggest the Cardinals leaving St. Louis proper would have been good for the city.

They might argue that city leaders would then have been forced to consider a future without major league sports. Older buildings would have been preserved, so there would have been more rehab opportunities. Remember though, this was the 1960s, and historic preservation had not reached the economic leveraging potential we see today. So perhaps, the buildings demolished for Busch Stadium and other new construction would have been lost anyway. We don’t know.

After posting a comment that I agreed with him he lets me down with his response:

Sorry Steve,

The headline must have worked because it was intended to work as a misdirection. Personally, I’m very happy Busch II was built, and Busch III.

Last night, I didn’t have tickets to the ballgame, but stopped into one of the downtown restaurants (newly updated) for a beer after work. The place was packed with baseball fans.

The real point I was trying to make with the post was that as a community we need to move forward together rather than beat ourselves up over years’ old decisions.

Imagine if you were sitting at a table in the restaurant I was in last night, surrounded by baseball fans, and someone proclaimed, “they never should have built Busch Stadium downtown.” It would sound like crazy talk.

Think how the self-doubt discussions about St. Louis sound to newcomers. Not very good.

So after more than 30 years since we took homes and businesses from people we have a restaurant full of baseball fans as evidence of the success of the decision. The Chinese area along Olive appears larger because it is sprawled along the road in typical American suburban fashion.

I too had heard that the old Busch Stadium had replaced our Chinatown but now I was curious to know more so I turned to the Journal of Urban History and a paper titled “‘Hop Alley’: Myth and Reality of the St. Louis Chinatown, 1860s-1930s” by Huping Ling. In this well researched and detailed account of the place and how it came to be:

In the late nineteenth century, the booming city of St. Louis, Missouri, attracted many from different parts of the world.It is during this time that Chnese started to arrive in St.Louis. The first recorded Chinese immigrant was a tea merchant named Alla Lee, who is reported to have arrived in 1857 from San Francisco. By the end of the nineteenth century, the Chinese community in St. Louis had grown to about three hundred. This community was physically centered in “Hop Alley,” a seemingly mysterious place that inspired tall tales to he contemporaries and is little known to the present St. Louisans. Along Seventh, Eighth, Market, and Walnut Streets, Chinese hand laundries, merchandise stores, grocery stores, restaurants, and tea shops were lined up to serve Chinese residents and the ethnically diverse larger community of St.Louis, the fourth largest city in the United States at the time.

Tall tales indeed. Accounts indicated a national anti-Chinese bias with many thinking that while they were exotic they were inferior to the white man. This paper talks about the racial discrimination Chinese persons faced and how places were raided at the slightest hint of interracial relationships.

So when the white men in charge of St Louis’ urban renewal program had finished decimating many poor black, Polish and Irish neighborhoods the next group would be the Chinese. In 1960 they blighted Hop Alley as part of the Civic Center/Stadium Redevelopment Area. Nearly 50 years ago.

The area included the homes and businesses of a large percentage of our Chinese population. Of course that also meant that 8th & Market had residential & commercial uses. We spent tons of taxpayer money to take property from people and then millions more to find ways to get people living downtown. Today the area around the former Busch stadium is about as lifeless as it could be — Bank of America, the vacant old American General HQ building, parking garages and the hotel that replaced the failed 1968 experiment with the Spanish Pavilion from the 1964 New York World’s Fair. Think about how dead the sidewalks are along Market, Walnut and 8th — we have urban renewal to thank for that. This redevelopment plan was so successful we had to blight the area again for the latest Busch stadium and the promised Ballpark Village.

What if Busch stadium had stayed on North Grand rather than wiping out an ethnic enclave? Hard to say, with so many other forces at play the northside still would have been hard hit by massive white & black flight. Other cities enjoy stadiums that are part of dense neighborhoods — that could have been the case here too. I just wonder what could have become of Hop Alley and all of downtown had urban renewal not taken out large swaths of land — taking with it homes and businesses. People move and so do businesses but when you wipe clean all history of multiple blocks at a time and then take a few years to build back a few single use buildings then you must accept that you’ve lost something along the way that no mirrored building can ever replace.

No matter how much we love seeing the Cardinals play we need to realize the cataclysmic change of urban renewal was a mistake. Displacing thousands of residents and business owners was wrong. I believe downtown would be better off today with this and other areas (Arch Grounds, Gateway Mall, Convention Center, etc) still intact. Without 50 years of big government intervention downtown could have naturally & incrementally evolved as it had done since St Louis’ founding.

Of course St Louis was not alone in this process — every city big and small were convinced by Architects & Planners that the only way to save cities was to rip then apart and rebuild.  Cities were willing to toss aside major areas in order to get their share of federal urban renewal dollars.  What we don’t have is a city that didn’t go for highways and urban renewal so we can see if the predictions of gloom came true.  At the time St Louis began its urban renewal madness we our population had peaked at around 850K and they were projecting over a million in the coming decades.  We are at 350K instead.

We do know that the Soulard neighborhood was targeted as a neighborhood to be completely razed and replaced with cul-de-sac streets and ranch houses.  The housing stock & street grid was said to be obsolete.  Today Soulard is very pricey and in demand.  Those obsolete structures have been updated with modern mechanical systems rather than being leveled.

As we label large areas for redevelopment today (such as Cortex) it is important to remember that all the prior clear-cut redevelopment areas have been uniform failures that often end up being blighted repeatedly in the hopes of finally getting it right.   All the housing projects have been razed and rebuilt save for the Pruitt-Igoe site which has sat vacant for 35 years now — longer than the buildings were standing! Mill Creek Valley was a failure too.  Each of these projects did achieve one goal  — forcing the poor to relocate elsewhere.  Government set lending policies that basically guaranteed to mortgage money in the core of regions.  The only money that could be had was for the raze and start over experiment known as urban renewal.

Without urban renewal to clear land the Cardinals would have been forced to stay on North Grand or flee to the new suburbs.  Either way they would have likely remained in the region.  And in either case a major section of our downtown would have escaped the wrecking ball.  Without urban renewal money, in fact, much more of our old downtown would still be in place today, most likely including Hop Alley.

It is not self doubt to recognize that half a century ago the entire country was fooled into thinking urban renewal programs that leveled 20+ blocks at a time was a good thing.  Even if we like some small piece of the result we still need to recognize the folly of the logic lest we continue to repeat past mistakes.

In the 1960s St Louis actually bucked a major trend.  Instead of locating the symphony in a new modern facility we renovated an old theater on Grand — The Powell where they perform to this day.  At the time the vogue thing to do was located all cultural & sporting venues in new modern facilities in downtowns.  The logic being that if you cram enough stuff into the downtown everyone will be forced to drive there eventually.    So the urban renewal programs moved out existing residents and their businesses  on the unproven hope that enough cultural/sporting venues would do the trick.  This was all unproven at the time but city after city did the same thing hoping the Architects & Planners were right.  They were wrong, oh so wrong.

Rick is right that we have what we have today and we must move forward.  In moving forward we must recall these past mistakes and not repeat them.

Wheelchair Access and the Arch Grounds

Last week I showed the image below, the starting point of Market Street and for many a primary walking route to access the Arch grounds.  Well too bad for those of us in wheelchairs, walking with a cane or just pushing a child stroller.

A block South of Market, at Walnut & Memorial, is the same situation.

The place to cross Memorial is at Chestnut —if you know about it and if you are brave enough to do so.  Above I am about to cross Memorial heading West after leaving the Arch grounds. We can see a pedestrian stepping up the unusually high curb.  To the right is the makeshift accessible route.

As you can see we are given a few feet of pavement and zero protection from motorists.  Traffic on Chestnut is one-way Eastbound — toward me in the above image.  I’m not feeling overly accommodated at this point.

The other way in/out of the grounds is at Washington Ave — a good distance out of the way depending on your point of origin or your destination.  Meanwhile civic leaders and politicians are arguing over who has design control of Memorial and discussing how it will literally take an act of congress to do a lid over the highway.

What needs to happen is quite simple — accept the highway as a given.  Realize we have acres of unused plazas already nearby.  Nobody wants to sit out on a lid over the highway next to blank walls of the buildings facing the arch.  Create safe & attractive ADA-compliant  crossings at Chestnut, Market & Walnut.  Populate each intersection with a street vendor selling water, hot dogs, pretzels and such.  Get it done sooner rather than later.  In the meantime get some of those MODot vertical sticks that help visually separate a traffic lane from what they are counting as an accessible route.

Valet Parking Sets Wrong Tone For Downtown

For a good decade now downtown boosters and city leaders have talked about creating a 24/7 downtown. Large doses of valet parking isn’t going to get us there.

I’d argue that too much valet parking sends the wrong message — these are expensive places and unless you can afford a few bucks to avoid walking a block then perhaps you should just stay away.

Now in the last six months or so the valets have been pretty tame compared to a couple of years ago when they’d cone off entire blocks for their use only — adding to the perception of a parking problem downtown.

Those of us that live downtown don’t need valet parking because we are likely to be on foot (or wheelchair). Even those that arrive by car should be encouraged to park & walk. Some in the party like me and unable to walk to far, just drop them off and then find a spot. We need people walking, not just doing the valet thing at the front door.

I personally tend to think of places with valet parking as being too hoity toity for me. Thus I tend to think of other places when contemplating dinner. If others out there have the same tendency then our downtown restaurants that do valet might suffer because their valet service sent the wrong message about their prices.

Image: Signs and cones illegally placed in the street on a slow Sunday afternoon at Lucas Park Grille located on Washington Ave at 13th.

Do We Even Want to Keep the Rams, Can We Afford To

I’ve never been to a football game of any sort. That is saying quite a bit considering I did my undergrad work at the University of Oklahoma where football is seemingly important to everyone. Upon finishing at OU I moved to St Louis in 1990 just in time to catch the city trying to win an expansion team and finally getting the Rams from LA a few years later. I’ve never been to one of the few home games because frankly the sport bores me greatly. Baseball is an interesting game to watch in person, football is not.

Still I recognize the many fans the sport has. I also recognize what major sports can do for a region. Although we must accept the long standing history the baseball Cardinals have in St Louis. The Rams, I’m afraid, do not have the same strong ties to St Louis or the taxpayers, er, the fans.

Out of desperation in the early 1990s we gave the Rams a sweet deal to lure them to St Louis — that over the 30 year lease on the then new dome we’d make sure it stayed in the top 10% in the NFL, reviewed every 10 years. If we don’t keep up, the Rams are free to graze in other pastures.  As the Post-Dispatch reminded us recently, the last review point, at the 20 year marker, is in 2015 — just seven years away.   The P-D also had a rundown of some new stadiums coming online.  They are, in a word, expensive.  Try a billion dollars.

Last time the city, county and state all found a way to fund the dome (even without a team).  But the billion dollar question is this — at what point does keeping the Rams in St Louis get too expensive?  At what point does the cost far outweigh any real or perceived benefit the community gets in return for the investment of public dollars.  A billion dollars can do a lot for a region if leveraged properly.  I’d personally put the billion into a low cost per mile streetcar system and run it through an area prime for new construction with new zoning with some hefty density requirements.  I think  dollar for dollar return would be far greater and longer lasting than with a new football stadium.

The second question I have is this — assuming we think the Rams are worth keeping and that building a new billion dollar stadium is just par for the course —  where should it be built and what do we do with the old dome?  Baseball fits nicely into an urban context but football fans have the tailgate tradition that requires acres of surface parking.  For this reason I don’t think football belongs in a downtown setting, especially given the few times per year they play home games.   Locating a new dome on the East side of the river could be a nice gesture toward the idea that we are all part of the St Louis region.  There is also plenty of land available, transit access and by then a new bridge across the river for fans that can afford tickets and gasoline.

Another option is to place the new dome near downtown — in the old Pruitt-Igoe site.  Tie in a downtown streetcar circulator system running to the new dome and we might just get new development along the line.  The area around the new dome wouldn’t become village probably but the zoning of the area we set the stage for what it would become.  The village might end up being on the way to the dome.

Other options include far flung suburban locations along an interstate highway. Ug, boring.

And finally we have the issue of the abandoned dome.  Do we keep it around as addition space for the convention center?  No, get rid of the big thing so we ca repair that part of downtown — restoring streets lined with buildings oriented to the street.  Currently the convention center and dome acts as a large barrier between downtown and the residential areas to the North.  We need to do what we can to reconnect the city to downtown.

To recap the questions are as follows:  Is it worth a billion dollars to the region to keep the Rams in town?  If yes, where should a new dome be built?  And lastly what do we do with the old dome?

Have Wheelchair, Will Travel

Before my stroke I would walk the 10 or so blocks from my place at 16th & Locust over to City Grocers at 10th & Olive.  While I am able to walk again thanks to a couple of months of physical therapy I can really only handle short distances at a time.  As an example walking to a  seat at the Chase theater after getting dropped off at the Lindell entrance was pushing my limit.

This is why I’m so happy I’ve got an electric wheelchair — it gives me mobility that I thought I wouldn’t have.

Over this past weekend a friend and I  walked across the Eads Bridge.  OK, she walked and I wheelchaired.  What a great bridge — connecting two parts of our region for pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists and those using light rail.  The bridge make it easy for me to wheelchair all the way to Illinois!

On the Illinois side is a ramp from the top down to the MetroLink level.  A couple of short elevator rides and we we back on the platform for a train to take us back to Missouri.

What I found is my wheelchair tourism is that I can get pretty much anywhere.  Sometimes the direct route is not an option —  such as the above to the Arch Grounds.

A block South at Walnut the situation is just as bad — the crosswalk lines lead directly into a high curb.  I think if I try back by Washington Ave I can get to the grounds but encountering obstacles such as the above can prove frustrating.  At these times the last thing you want to do is travel several blocks out of the way with the hope of stumbling upon an accessible route.

For years now the “lid” project has been discussed.  The latest problem is the who has design review over the area. I say forget the lid and all the useless plaza concepts and just fix the sidewalks to make them accessible sooner rather than later.

Interestingly one of the benefits of being limited by the wheelchair is it forces me to explore my local environment, such as the ‘Meeting of the Waters’ sculpture & fountain by Carl Miles in Aloe Plaza across Market from Union Station.

Union Station is remarkably accessible given that the renovation happened prior to the passage of the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act).  Perhaps the building code of the day mandated a certain level of accessibility?

Given this freedom to explore (on dry days at least) I’m considering my other options.  I’m so close to MetroLink that I could get to places such as the loop or Clayton easily.  I could use a few items from Trader Joe’s and via Metrolink can get close easily & quickly.  The problem is the shopping center is one of those that assumes everyone drives a private automobile.  Although a sidewalk runs along Eager it doesn’t connect to the shops (at least to my recollection).  Ditto for crossing Brentwood and making it to Whole Foods.

The Central West End is certainly an option too.  As soon as I figure out how to get on & off the bus with a wheelchair that will give me many more options.  I think I need to get to Loughborough Commons in the chair so I can evaluate their after the fact accessible route.

While you might see people in wheelchairs and feel sorry for us don’t.  To me the wheelchair represents freedom and mobility.  Without the chair I’d be stuck at home.