Final Four Window Display Important to Street Life

Keeping things fresh is important in existing shopping areas and a must in emerging areas. I can think of a few South City window displays that haven’t changed in at least a decade. Lack of foot traffic in areas can partially be attributed to stagnant window displays. Conversely, interesting new displays is a contributing factor to increased foot traffic – even after hours.

For many years the St. Louis Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) was on an upper floor of a Washington Avenue building. A couple of years ago they moved to a ground level space right on the sidewalk and greatly expanded their book selection.

Rather than depend upon a staid display the AIA staff is constantly changing the window. This week the window recognizes the Final Four with a clever display on the origins of basketball. The store is closed but careful lighting draws you to the display. Passersby were stopping to look at the basketball display as well as some of the book titles.

Apparently basketball had origins with peach baskets. The AIA’s display has nothing to do with architecture but everything to do with good design. The two are not always related.

The AIA window is very important. The other window of the same size on this building contains a classroom for Webster University. The blinds are usually closed – adding nothing to street life. So much for Webster helping downtown.

Across the street is Niche furniture & accessories but their after hours presentation leaves something to be desired. The remainder of the block is convention hotel stuff which is to say immanently boring. Until lofts open in the building adjacent to the AIA office/bookstore this is the one bright hope on this entire block.

– Steve

Old Webster Repeats Old Mistakes

Opened a few years ago, the Old Webster development provided parking, retain and office space for downtown Webster Groves. In the big picture I have no complaints. But a closer look reveals some old mistakes I’ve reviewed before. Common mistakes that show an underlying misunderstanding of urbanity.

The entrance is a bit too hard for my taste as a pedestrian. Entrance sidewalks are accessories to the entry drive – almost an afterthought.

A small left over parcel as you enter off of Lockwood is supposed to be an appealing place to sit and relax. You get a great view of the public parking entrace. This is not good open space. Good open space draws people in which this does not. A note to designers – stop placing benches in your left over parcels. Instead, a small news stand or similar small retail space could have created an interesting addition to street life.

At the end of the sidewalk you are just dumped onto a vast sea of concrete where the cars come and go. Not at all friendly. The goods news is you can look at the fountain ahead has you get run over.

If you survive crossing the great divide you actually seen an area with reasonable scale and care in detailing.

Well, not all the detailing is so good. This vent for the garage below is located next to the stop sign post. It is hard to tell from the grade material if a wheelchair can easily navigate without getting stuck. Most likely it can but it would have been nice to provide the vent somewhere where it wouldn’t be squeezed next to a sign post.

But look straight ahead in the picture. Planters in front of a cross walk?

Yes, the logical straight path in this nearly new development is blocked by store signage and planters. The painted crosswalk is lacking curb cuts on both sides of the “street.”

From the opposite side looking back where we had just come from you can see the lack of curb cuts and how much of the sidewalk is blocked. The crosswalk going to the right was seemingly planned as it has a curb cut.

Surely the designers expected people to be able to cross from one side to the other? Walking a few car spaces to the left reveals the original intent.

Here we see the curb cuts that really should have been at the corner. The car is legally parked – a space has been designated in front of the curb cut that provides ADA compliance.

Same is true for the opposite side of the “street” with a parking space blocking the accessible route. The center of the building in the background is lined up with the office building entrance behind me. On paper someone thought it would be wise to connect the two.

Designers, architects, planners, developers, retailers, and elected officials can all fall prey to looking at ideas on paper without realizing in reality the concepts don’t follow basic human nature. So much work has been done on the habits of humans in urban environments a mistake like this should not have made it past a first draft sketch. Clearly after being built someone realize people were crossing at the corner (duh) so it was stripped as such.

– Steve

Grand Center: The Intersection of Art and Life

The Intersection of Art and Life is the latest in a serious of marketing attempts to brand Grand Center as an arts district.

We are the cultural soul of the city.
We are its right brain.
Its once and future kingdom of arts and entertainment.
We open minds and nourish spirits.
We broaden horizons and indulge fantasies.
We are a melting pot of creative juices.
We are the center of all that feeds the mind, body and soul.

We are Grand Center.
At the intersection of Art and Life.

Yeah, yeah, we get it. Artsy. Creating an arts district is not an idea new to St. Louis. In fact, such was the trend in cities all over the US in the 60s. It was 1966 when the Symphony bought Powell hall to serve as their new home. The roots of such thinking comes from a lack of understanding on how cities work.

As people left cities in the 1950s for the new clean suburbs city planners began devising ideas on how to revitalize cities. Unfortunately they nearly destroyed our cities. Streets were widened and highways cut through to make it easier to leave at 5pm for the home in the suburbs. Streets were made one-way for the same reason. Some streets were ripped up to become pedestrian malls. Buildings were razed left and right for parking lots and garages. Entire neighborhoods were leveled for great new housing like Pruitt-Igo.

St. Louis and other cities became neither cities or the new suburbs. They were stuck in this middle ground of being neither. As such, they offered little appeal to city dwellers or suburbanites. In retrospect we now know we should have not tried to mimic the suburbs but instead reinforced what city life was all about. But that didn’t happen.

One of the main aspects of the suburbs is to separate uses. Single family houses are separate from apartments which are separate from shopping areas. Offices too are separated. Given how ugly the new suburbs were it was almost never thought the Symphony should be next to a strip mall. But the logic that created the office park thought a arts district was a good idea. Hence the idea to compartmentalize cultural institutions into one place.

Special districts, by definition, are not diverse neighborhoods. They will not be vibrant from a mix of users and uses. They have a singular purpose.

Jane Jacob’s wisdom from The Death and Life of Great American Cities still rings true over 40 years later. I’m not suggesting we make any arts group or museum move. I am suggesting we drop the urban renewal era district idea in favor of building a great neighborhood. The renovated Coronado and Moolah are two steps in the right direction – they add life to the city morning, noon and night.

The best urban areas in St. Louis; The Loop, Euclid in the West End, South Grand and Washington Avenue, are all based on diverse uses. They are not false singular districts. It is time for city & civic leaders to realize the fallacy of special districts.

We need to be focusing on building diverse neighborhoods.

– Steve

Cherokee Street Needs to Lose the “Antique Row” Designation

It seems everyone knows “Antique Row” is on Cherokee street between Lemp and Jefferson. This is good and bad. Mostly bad.

The business owners along Cherokee Street have done a great job marketing themselves as the place to buy antiques. Suburbanites that seem to know little about the city know how to find their way to Cherokee when they want to go antiquing. You will find the street packed with antique shoppers on Saturdays. The rest of the week is another story.

The above quote is from Jane Jacobs’ classic book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, as she describes one of four indispensable conditions “to generate exuberant diversity in a city’s streets and districts.” Cherokee relies on a single primary use – antique shoppers. With the exception of Saturdays I find the street to be dead.

The last time I was in one of the shops was nearly a year ago when a friend visited from Seattle. I have two houses full of stuff so the last thing I need to do is go antiquing. The street offers me little else. It doesn’t serve the daily needs of adjacent residents.

By contrast the blocks of Cherokee West of Jefferson are increasingly vibrant. Throughout the day and night you’ll see activity. On Thanksgiving Day I was able to purchase a wonderful pumpkin empanada at a Mexican bakery. Many customers on the street are pedestrians from adjacent blocks. Most businesses appeal to the lower incomes of residents with check cashing places, furniture rental and thrift stores. Despite these issues, the street feels genuine and I often will drive or bike down the street when I am in the area.

Back East of Jefferson we are seeing more and more vacant shops where antique dealers used to be. With the “success” of the street came higher building prices and increased rent which made it more difficult for antique dealers to survive. Other businesses such as bookstores and cafes face similar challenges as they rely heavily on the antique shoppers for their business.

Cherokee Street needs to lose the “Antique Row” designation in order to survive. The street needs a coffee house with wi-fi to attract people morning, noon and night the way Hartford Coffee does in the Tower Grove area. The street needs the diversity of uses found on the Loop. A small market. A place to buy CDs. A newstand. The simple grab a slice of pizza type place as well as a cloth napkins restaurant.

I don’t want to run off the antique dealers. I simply want to give people more reasons to visit the street. One new reason will be the opening of the Shangri-La Diner at 2201 Cherokee on Sunday April 10th. At this point I think it will only be for brunch but hopefully Patrice will extend hours during the week. [Note, for the past month or so Shangri-La has been operating out of the old Triple Expresso location at Lemp & Arsenal. Click here for more info on the brunch.]

At Cherokee and Lemp is O’Malley’s Irish Pub which seems to be doing a good job of creating some fun night life with food, drink and live music. The menu looks interesting but offers little for me as a vegetarian. Oh well, maybe I’ll stop in for a beer some night.

Ideally we will see the Eastern blocks of Cherokee diversify and offer more to the city resident not looking for antiques as well as reasons for the tourist/suburbanite to linger longer while antique shopping. I’d also like to see East and West begin to mix. Hopefully the blocks West of Jefferson can become less poverty-centric while continuing to serve the needs of the population.

Architecturally both sides of Jefferson are great. The scale is intimate and welcoming. East of Jefferson the buildings are much older with great wood and cast iron storefronts. West of Jefferson you get wonderful terra cotta detailing on larger buildings. The Casaloma Ballroom already provides a music/entertainment venue for the area.

Cherokee Street, East and West of Jefferson, has immense potential. Diversity is the key to sustaining the streets and ultimately the adjacent residential blocks. Clinging to an antique row designation at this point will do more harm than good.

– Steve

Western Downtown Could Be More Pedestrian Friendly

This past week I worked with a couple looking to relocate from NYC to St. Louis. Being natives of Manhattan and life-long residents of the NYC area they are used to getting around by public transportation. As such, they took MetroLink from Lambert Airport to Union Station. They walked the short distance West along Market Street to the Courtyard by Marriott located just before Jefferson.

During the week they were in St. Louis I picked them up and dropped them off at the hotel numerous times. But they also walked back to Union Station often to get on MetroLink to transfer to the Grand bus. They also walked to dinner at Syberg’s in the Hampton Inn across the street and a bit to the East as well as places in Union Station.

Despite having a public sidewalk along both sides of Market the area is far from pedestrian friendly. Pedestrians are treated no differently than they are in the sprawl of suburbia. If you want to get from the public sidewalk to the front door of your destination you are expected to clime over shrubs, walk through planter beds or walk in the driveways for cars. Pedestrians are given no consideration.

Approaching the Marriott from Union Station to the East you can see the building behind an AG Edwards parking lot. If you ignore the “No Trespassing” sign and are willing to cross through the shrubs that divide this private parking lot from the hotel parking lot you’ve got a direct shot. Not ideal so we continue West on the sidewalk.



As we get in front of the hotel we encounter more intense plantings and no clear pedestrian entrance. The entrance sign, however, is visible.

Turning toward the hotel we can see the main entrance over a sea of cars. Once again no provisions have been made for pedestrians and our only choice is to clime through the landscaping. Dragging luggage this isn’t really an option.

So we are left with the auto entrance. No sidewalk along the drive. Just the drive itself. This auto drive is shared with the office building next door and is quite busy. It is also narrow with no room for pedestrians plus cars coming and going.

On a positive note the Marriott parking lot has more trees than most.

It is not hard to imagine a number of guests at the Marriott walk to Union Station and other downtown destinations even if they drove to the hotel. Even the most ardent suburbanite would see the folly of driving to Union Station from the Marriott.

With Harry’s restaurant a block away and Syberg’s in the Hampton Inn across the street guests are likely to walk to these places. The Metro Bus stop in front of the hotel likely brings hotel staff to and from work in addition to giving hotel guests a ride to other parts of the city.

The NYC couple said trying to cross Market Street to get to the Syberg’s was difficult. With six traffic lanes and a center turn lane it is one of the widest streets in the city and especially downtown. Unlike Tucker, no center median is provided as a place to help pedestrians make their way across the full distance. Pedestrian crossings are located West of the hotel at Jefferson and just before Union Station. A pedestrian crossing is needed at 23rd (West of the Hampton Inn) or 22nd (street to Harry’s & FBI).

We should expect better of developments. If not, we should demand better through our ordinances. If downtown isn’t friendly to pedestrians how do we expect to compete with cities such as Portland, OR which take such concerns more seriously?

– Steve