The increasingly active group known as the Downtown Dutchtown Business Association have come up with a very interesting contest — a 24 hour photo competition:
The contest is designed to promote a positive image of Downtown Dutchtown, generate civic pride and bring awareness of our neighborhood to the St. Louis community. Winners from every hour of the day, plus the top three overall winners, will be, published in a special book, recognized on DT2stl.org in a digital album and displayed in an exhibit after the event. There is no need to pre-register and the contest is open to all.
IMPORTANT NOTE:While you may submit photos in black & white or color, all photos will be published in black & white.
The “downtown” Dutchtown area is primarily concentrated at Meramec & Virginia but the contest rules allow for a broader area: Chippewa to Bates and Broadway to Grand. For all the details visit the Downtown Dutchtown website. The website includes a photo release form if you have people in your images.
I can’t wait to see some of the images as Dutchtown has some great architecture and people. I can imagine Dutchtown resident and fellow STL Syndicate blogger Tom Lampe will have some excellent entries.
After posting earlier today about the testing of the new MetroLink line I decided to head over to the Shewsbury/Lansdowne station to witness the arrival. Sadly, I arrived just as the second of two cars were being pushed into place. I even arrived early on the off chance Metro was ahead of schedule.
I scooted around the parking lot getting video and photos from various angles. As I was nearly done an orange vested person approached me saying the area was still under construction and not open to the public. I showed him the Metro press release announcing the event and inviting the media to witness the event. For the record, the news crews were not lined up at the station.
This guy was upset the PR department invited the media and didn’t bother to tell him to expect people to be arriving at a construction zone (although it is virtually complete). As the press release indicated, the platforms were off limits so I stayed on my scooter in the parking lot.
Well, I did get off my scooter once, to shoot some stills and a video of the bike racks. The standard wave rack, designed to hold 3 bikes, is positioned too close to the retaining wall to be used as designed. In April 2005 I had discussions with someone close to the project who reviewed the bike racks for all the new stations. My contact identified the rack for this station being shown on the drawings as “being too close to the retaining wall.” I had hoped that by bringing up the issue with such advance notice it would have been possible to correct the drawings and install the racks in a more suitable place. Rather than giving them the benefit of the doubt in April 2005 I probably should have gone public with what I knew about rack locations as designed.
I’m still experimenting with video so check out this short clip. Don’t be too critical on the editing or music selection but do let me know what you’d like to see in future videos.
Testing on the new 8-mile length of the MetroLink “Cross County” extension began this morning at 9am. But don’t look for a train speeding along the track, it will take them 4 hours to get from Des Peres Road (just east of Skinker) to the end of the line at Shrewsbury.
From the press release:
The train and test crew are moving at walk speed (2-3mph average) stopping at each station platform to take measurements.
The release also says they will be “towing” the vehicle but don’t elaborate as to how. Presumably the electrical system is not all in place for the train to operate under its own power. However, they also caution media to assume that all wires a live.
Metro is suggesting the following locations for viewing the train:
•Sidewalk south of University Drive, north of Forest Park Parkway
and just east of Big Bend. (1.2 miles along the test route)
• Public sidewalk adjacent to Forsyth station (2.0 miles along)
• Bemiston Avenue Overpass, over Forest Park Parkway (3.0 miles)
• Morrow Drive at Galleria Parkway (3.8 miles)
• Maplewood station, visible above Manchester Rd (5.4 miles)
• Sunnen station, visible from the cul-de-sac on Laclede Station Rd at
Sunnen Drive (5.9 miles)
• I-44 Bridge (6.7 miles)
• Shrewsbury station (7.2 miles)
You’ll need to do the math to figure out when they will be at the various viewing locations. They are suggesting they will arrive at Shrewsbury at 1pm this afternoon.
On a related note…
This past Saturday over 40 people from both the City of St. Louis and the City of Shrewsbury gathered to conduct a design charrette examining TOD (transit oriented development) possibilities for the new Shrewsbury Station.
Seven teams worked all day on their ideas after touring the area and viewing a presentation on TOD. Participants included residents from both cities, local architects & planners. The event was organized by Citizens for Modern Transit along with Shrewsbury Mayor Bert Gates and St. Louis’ 16th Ward Alderwoman Donna Baringer. Rolling Stanley, director of Planning & Urban Design for the City of St. Louis, was among the professionals helping guide the charrette. Rollin’s wife Ann, also planner, was on one of the seven teams.
Many great ideas came out of the results, including some interesting reconfigurations of the street pattern along River Des Peres. I think one of the best ideas was to continue Wabash Street south of Lansdowne, crossing the “river” to connect with the existing Boulevard. All teams focused on creating a mixed-use area along Lansdowne at the station or in the immediate area. Some accepted the MoDot’s idea of connecting River Des Peres Boulevard with a new I-44 interchange. Others weren’t so keen on the idea. Everyone agreed that River Des Peres should actually have water!
I spoke with both Mayor Bert Gates and Alderwoman Donna Baringer. They seemed equally excited about the process and were very thankful to everyone that participated. Baringer acknowledged the help of Rolling Stanley in this and prior events (see related video below).
“If it weren’t for him I wouldn’t be so well versed in the best urban designing and streetscaping we can come up with”
The Cross County MetroLink extension has certainly had its low points with the budget and delays but I find it very exciting to be at the point we are now, so close to opening day. What are your thoughts?
UPDATE 6/20/06 @ 4:10pm – Video embedded within post, removed earlier link to video.
St. Louis Public School CFO, Cedric Lews, last night indicated by deficit spending the system is technically bankrupt. His comment came during questioning from members of the board over the proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year which begins on July 1, 2006.
At one point board member Bill Purdy asked questions about line item expenditures in the budget. He mentioned money for “deputy” superintendents of which we have none. He wondered why we have text books in three locations within the budget. This was all pulled from a “by location” report of the current budget which he had sitting on the table — a huge document.
Purdy’s focus with the location report was to look at possible cuts in the central office. Indicating we have less students and less teachers perhaps we should have less administrators in the central office. Purdy’s comments drew applause from the audience prompting board President Veronica O’Brien to bang the gavel and proclaim, “This is not a rock concert.”
She’s right, it was not a rock concert. However, it was entertaining in a sad sort of way. I may have to stop attending school board meetings just to keep from getting too jaded about the future of our schools and city. But O’Brien’s “rock concert” comment got me thinking. Perhaps we replace CFO Cedric Lewis with St. Louis native comedian Cedric the Entertainer? That guy is a funny. I bet he can make us laugh about the millions in the hole we are. And what if the board sold t-shirts, “I survived the St. Louis Public School Budget Debate: 2006.” Depending upon which faction you liked better you could get the board members to sign the shirt. Sadly, we can’t see enough shirts to overcome the deficits.
Superintendent Creg Williams had a very good response to Purdy’s questions on the line items in the budget. Well, sorta good. Williams indicated the line items used in the budget were established 5-10 years ago. Thus, line item names do not necessarily correspond with current titles. The budget is already the size of 2-3 phone books and on top of that we have line items that do not reflect our current system. When the board members don’t fully understand the budget they are expecting to pass how can we as mere citizens have any confidence.
On the issue of trimming the central office budget Williams said the administration could be completely eliminated and we’d still have a deficit, that it represents only 4% of the total budget.
Later Peter Downs asked about maintenance. A senior staff member from that department, I don’t recall his name, indicated the bulk of his maintenance budget was going to roof maintenance — something on the order of $3.1 million for this coming fiscal year. When asked if that was enough his response was a big no. It appears other building maintenance must take a back seat to roof repairs. This is logical as it does not good to do other maintenance only to have the roof leak.
I witness last night, during the hour or so I was there, a level of hostility among board members that was not encouraging. I supported Peter Downs and Donna Jones and I am glad they are there to ask questions that I know I certainly want answered. What is missing from all this is someone to rally the troops, pull everyone together and get us on solid footing.
I’m telling you, we need Cedric the Entertainer to conduct these meetings.
Yesterday I made it to the first of three public meetings to be held this week on the subject of future transit in St. Louis with expansion to both North & South St. Louis. They study is now in month five of 18 months. Very little new information was shared although this is the first time the public is being shown routes different than those that came out of the earlier study back in 2000.
As a small aside, it was nice of PR Consultant Laurna Godwin of Vector Communications to make sure I got a “Media Kit.” As a result I was able to download the images you see below rather than rely on my photographic skills to take pictures of presentation boards.
Regular readers know I am critical of the plan to run light rail down our streets. Not that I don’t like in-street transit. Quite the opposite, I am a huge fan of in-street mixed traffic modern streetcars (not slow heritage/vintage streetcars). I don’t like the light rail in street concept because it creates dedicated lanes and because everywhere except downtown it will require a fixed median which I believe will make it too challenging to bring back once thriving commercial streets where ever the lines passes. Advocates say it is a necessity to get the reduction in travel time to both get funding for the system and to attract riders. For now I’m going to leave this debate for another day with a few exceptions below.
The first meeting was held last night on the Northside at the Herbert Hoover Boys and Girls Club, the site of the old Sportsman Park baseball stadium (history) and next door to the once thriving but now closed Carter Carburetor factory.
Another meeting will be held tonight, June 14, 2006 from 3:30pm to 6pm downtown (906 Olive) and then a third on Thursday evening, June 15, 2006, from 5pm to 7:30pm at the Missouri Botanical Gardens (Monsanto Research, 4500 Shaw). Click here for more info. … Continue Reading
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