August 1, 2014Downtown, FeaturedComments Off on Planters Need Constant Watering
If you’re downtown mornings you might see the various plants getting watered.
Parks Dept employee watering plants along Washington Ave @ 9:30am on July 29th, 2014
It takes a lot of water to keep all the planters along Washington Ave. looking their best. You’d never be able to do it trying to connect a hose to fire hydrants or buildings on each block, so a truck with a water tank is used to get water to each planter. I especially like the long hose attachment that allows them to water the hanging baskets.
The long-desired “lid” over the depressed section of the highway is now taking shape.
Lid over the highway underway, July 18, 2014
Once completed you’ll enter the museum on the opposite side, through an opening in the grass mound. See the drawing below:
This should be the view in October 2015
Orienting the museum toward the city is the correct thing to do, just as making the highway a boulevard in the future. The lid will allow visitors to cross a boulevard at the center, my primary objective is to remove the elevated section north of Washington Ave/Eads Bridge. This stretch was known as I-70 for decades, but once the new Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge opened it was renumbered I-44.
This elevated highway divides the historic Laclede’s Landing from downtown.
Though many of us would’ve like this to have been concurrently planned, we’ll just need to keep pushing.
Please vote in the poll, located in the right sidebar
A couple of weeks ago you may have seen this story:
St. Louis Health Department Director Pam Walker said Saturday night that she would attempt to ban horse-drawn carriages from city streets.
Walker’s vow followed an incident in front of the City Museum downtown on Saturday night. Walker, who lives in a building adjacent to the museum, was walking her dog just before 9 p.m. when she spotted what she said was a horse “showing classic signs of heatstroke.” (stltoday)
The poll this week asks if we should ban horse-drawn carriages, I’ve provided a variety of answers but you can also supply your own. The poll is at the top of the right sidebar (mobile users need to switch to the desktop layout).
For the most part a police headquarters isn’t much different than any other office, so reusing a 1990 office building makes perfect sense. During the open house last Saturday I saw every floor of the new St. Louis Police headquarters, it seems like the space worked well for their needs.
Vacant 1915 Olive in December 2010Saturday morning before the ribbon cuttingThe open house began while the festivities were still going on outside. We started at the top, 7th floor, and worked our way down floor by floor.The new office of Chief Sam DotsonView looking north on 19th Street from the 5th floorThe only clue this isn’t most offices is the bank of holding cells and nearby interview rooms.
It’ll take a few weeks for police and civilian staff to get relocated into the new building. Hopefully having the long-vacant building occupied again will lead to nearby storefronts getting new businesses. The police are leaving their old headquarters built in 1927 because renovating it for their continued use would’ve cost considerably more. Besides, they couldn’t have stayed during renovations.
The electric power downtown never goes out because the lines are underground and not subject to storm damage like overhead wires, or so I thought. But Wednesday night many downtown did lose power, we didn’t thankfully. Old infrastructure was to blame. Though not the cause of Wednesday’s outage, the substation at 13th & Cole, built in 1948, is ready to be replaced.
A 1951 photo of the 1948 substation at 13th & Cole. To the left you can see the 1947 building that housed KWK Radio & KWK-TV (precursor to KMOV). In the background is the Shrine of St. Joseph. The high rise Cochran Gardens public housing project began a year later. Source: Ameren
Ameren has been planning to replace this substation for years, in January I unknowingly posted two pics related to their effort.
On January 3rd I posted about ongoing utility work downtown, this at Washington Ave around 16th. Click image to view post.Then on January 20th, as part of my annual post on Dr. Martin Luther King Drive I posted this image from December 2013, the site at 1901 MLK was purchased more than a decade ago. Click image to view post.
In late May my friend Kent Martin from Ameren’s communications department emailed me a pitch about their work to replace an old downtown substation and update the underground power grid. Seeing the 1951 image shown above I was interested, but busy prepping for my June 8th wedding. I wanted to see the old substation in person so we emailed back and forth but we couldn’t find a time to meet. Finally we agreed on Wednesday morning, but then postponed to Thursday morning so he could get one of Ameren’s Chevy Volt electric cars to pick me up, plus the weather would be nicer.
I’d gone by the old substation in my wheelchair Tuesday morning, and hours before the outage, I drove my husband by the old and new substations on our way home from dinner. Sitting on our balcony later we noticed the street lights on Locust go out. We still had power but soon a message was posted online about a power outage downtown. I thought I knew the problem, but it turns out a combination of problems at other locations led to the outage.
Still it drives home the point the infrastructure is old. How old? Over a century in some places!
This photo of 8th & Olive shows the mass of overhead wires on Olive (look closely). The photo is marked as 1889, but the tall Union Trust wasn’t built until 1893. The 1896 Chemical building isn’t built yet so that narrows the age of the photo. Source: AmerenAs early as 1904 the mess of wires downtown were being buried beneath the streets & alleys. The exact date & location of this photo is unknown. Source: Ameren
I had no idea overhead wires were moved underground so early! So much of the trenching in downtown’s streets over the last 6-12 months has been replace old conduit and wire. The new substation being built on Dr. Martin Luther King between 19th & 20th will start going into use in late September and by April 2015 the old substation on Cole will be out of service.
I got to see the new and old substations yesterday.
The east end of the new substation, along 19th, is a MSD-required bioswale to handle water runoff. The brick piers and fencing is much nicer than the chain link at the Cole substation. I’m told the entire site will be landscaped once construction is complete. I’m going to suggest street trees between the curbs and new sidewalks.Much of the new site is open with weatherproof transistorsFour prefab buildings made in Fulton MO hold more sensitive electronicsWorkers inside one of the fourOver at 13th & Cole you notice the heavy door and detailed masonry.The plaque on the brick wall proclaiming “Union Electric of Missouri”You also notice the trailer outside handling a lot of the switching duties after some equipment inside failed.Thanks to project manager Matt Haffer (left) and director of Ameren’s underground division John Luth for showing me both facilities.
The Cole substation will be razed next year, some remediation will be performed on the site. Ameren will retain & landscape the site.
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