Reading: St. Louis Parks by NiNi Harris and Esley Hamilton

The St. Louis region is home to many great parks and now historians (and personal friends) NiNi Harris and Esley Hamilton have collaborated on a book about parks in St. Louis city & county, respectively. The title, appropriately enough, St. Louis Parks.

ABOVE: Cover of the new hardcover book from Reedy Press, click image for publisher's page

The forward is by Peter H. Raven and the 164 page book is filled with beautiful images by photographers  Mark Abeln and Steve Tiemann.

ABOVE: Image of Fairgrounds Park by Mark Abeln

The wealth of knowledge that both Harris & Hamilton have shared is overwhelming. NiNi Harris shared this thought with me:

I love showing visitors to St. Louis around our City Parks. They are always awed by the beauty of our parks. And they are wowed by the number of parks, the variety of sizes from pocket parks to enormous Forest Park, from pedestrian parks to driving parks, from squares to linear parks. Hopefully, this book can help more people discover and enjoy this remarkable treasure.

Look for it in the library or your local bookstore.

- Steve Patterson

Readers On Library Use

Last week readers responding to the poll indicated their use of the public library:

Q: How frequently do you, or an immediate family member, use the public library?

• Weekly 41 [33.06%]
• Monthly 27 [21.77%]
• A few times a year 20 [16.13%]
• Rarely 19 [15.32%]
• Never 10 [8.06%]
• Daily 6 [4.84%]
• Other: 1 [0.81%] – “2 – 3 x weekly, various branches”

I guess it’s good that just 8% indicated they never use their public library. I wasn’t sure what to expect, weekly was the answer with the most responses, followed by monthly. When the central library reopens this year I’ll be there often hopefully. The original post is here.

- Steve Patterson

Poll: How Often Do You Use The Public Library?

This year the St. Louis Central Library will reopen after a $70 million dollar renovation and the St. Louis County Library is seeking a property tax increase to replace it’s main building and others (story). The library is a great resource we all pay for,  one I know I haven’t used often enough. I’m changing that this year.

Lately I’ve been checking out DVDs from the library for titles I can’t stream on Netflix. I had to update my library card since I hadn’t used it for a while.  Turns out the St. Louis Library requires everyone to update their card after each birthday.

ABOVE: Cabanne Branch at 1106 Union Blvd

With all this investment in our libraries I was wondering how often you use the library. Take the poll in the right sidebar and add any comments below.

- Steve Patterson

Richard Nickel Died 40 Years Ago

ABOVE: Cover of book on Richard Nickel's photography, click image to see book info on Left Bank Books website

One Chicago resident was obsessed with photographing, stopping demolition of and lastly saving pieces from buildings designed by Louis Sullivan.

Architecture photographer Richard Nickel spent years with his camera, documenting — and arguing against — the demolition of buildings in Chicago. Thirty-five years ago this month, Nickel died trying to document the demise of a building designed by Louis Sullivan, whose architecture helped define the Chicago cityscape.

In the ’60s and early ’70s, Nickel watched the demolition of so many of Sullivan’s buildings — and buildings created by other turn-of-the-century masters — that he wrote, “I look forward to the day when I never have to enter a wet, charred, smoky building again.” (NPR)

He died 40 years ago today inside one of those buildings.

Nickel was killed on April 13, 1972, while attempting to obtain more items for SIUE, when a stairwell in the Chicago Stock Exchange building collapsed on him. He is buried in Chicago’s Graceland Cemetery, not very far from where Sullivan is buried. He died without completing his great collection of photographs of Sullivan’s work, but Nickel’s black-and-white photos have been displayed at the Art Institute of Chicago and elsewhere. The Richard Nickel Committee and Photographic Archive is a non-profit organization devoted to preserving the photographer’s work, and holds the copyrights for most of his pictures. (Wikipedia)

Some items previously salvaged by Nickel had been purchased by Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE). Some are on display in the The Louis H. Sullivan Collection in Lovejoy Library.

Nickel would be 83 if he were alive today.

- Steve Patterson

Maybe The World Breaks On Purpose, So We Can Have Work To Do

Earlier this month I attended a couple of events with Peter Kageyama, author of For the Love of Cities. In his presentations he talked about attachment with where we live, quoted here from his website:

“A 2009 Gallup study that looked at the levels of emotional engagement people have with their communities, found that just 24% of people were “engaged” with their community. Gallup also found a significant relationship between how passionate and loyal people are to their communities and local economic growth. The most “attached” communities had the highest local GDP growth. Despite this, it feels as though our places and our leadership have forgotten how to connect with us emotionally and our cities have suffered because of it.”

Attachment, he explained, might be as simple as voting, going to a PTA meeting, etc. Forty percent were not attached, thirty-six percent were neutral, and only twenty-four percent attached. See the Gallup Soul of the Community website for the detailed reports.

“Over the past three years, the Soul of the Community study has found a positive correlation between community attachment and local GDP growth. Across the 26 Knight communities, those whose residents were more attached saw more local GDP growth. This is a key metric in assessing community success because local GDP growth not only measures a community’s economic success, but also its ability to grow and meet residents’ needs.” (p5 2010 report)

I asked  Peter Kageyama to say a few words to St. Louis:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onzX9eYYXv8

Good advice! In the presentations he mentioned a January 2011 report in Newsweek listing the top 10 dying cities.  Those listed were:

• 10. Grand Rapids, Michigan
• 9. Flint, Michigan
• 8. South Bend, Indiana
• 7. Detroit, Michigan
• 6. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
• 5. Cleveland, Ohio
• 4. Rochester, New York
• 3. Hialeah, Florida
• 2. Vallejo, California
• 1. New Orleans, Louisiana

Newsweek wrote:

“Michigan dominates much of this list, with several cities experiencing significant declines in population as the state suffered high unemployment rates and above average foreclosures in recent years due mainly to the collapse of the auto industry.”

As you can imagine Grand Rapids wasn’t pleased.  But their response was not the typical stuffy political press release as if so often the case from municipalities. Check out this news report:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enq7Rogtus8

In short the city leaders listened to a 20-something controversial local artist, Rob Bliss. The result was the 9+ minute Grand Rapids LipDub:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPjjZCO67WI

This video has now been viewed more than 4 million times! The $40,000 production cost was raised through private donations and was a bargain given the positive PR it has generated for Grand Rapids. Thousands of residents participated. Newsweek said they didn’t do the study and they think better of Grand Rapids.

Another town Kageyama mentioned was Braddock PA, a 19th century suburb of Pittsburgh. It has lost 90% of it’s population from a peak of 20,879 in 1920.  They know they have issues, no rose colored glasses. They partnered with jeans maker Levi’s on the following:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YyvOGKu6ds

“People think their are no frontiers anymore, they can’t see how frontiers are all around us.”

“Maybe the world breaks on purpose, so we can have work to do.”

Powerful stuff! Thanks for the Regional Arts Commission (RAC) and STL-Style for bringing Peter Kageyama to St. Louis!

- Steve Patterson

Opening Reception for American City: St. Louis Architecture: Three Centuries of Classic Design Friday June 10th

Click image for PDF with details of opening reception

Tomorrow night will be a great event, the “opening night reception with photographer William Zbaren and architectural writer Robert Sharoff, creators of American City: St. Louis Architecture: Three Centuries of Classic Design.”  Both the reception and exhibit are free.

The reception is Friday June 10th from 5-7pm at the Missouri Botanical Garden, 4344 Shaw Boulevard. You can use this address link to check transit routes in Google Maps.

ABOVE: Photographer Zebaren (left) and writer Sharoff (right) at Macy's last month

I reviewed their book in January and had the pleasure to meet both last month at the reopening of the downtown Macy’s. I can’t wait to see the images in large format at the exhibit.  If you can’t make the reception tomorrow be sure to get to the exhibit by August 21st.

The authors also have two book signings scheduled: Saturday June 11, 2011 @ The Missouri Botanical Garden 11am -1pm and June 12, 2011 @ Left Bank Books 399 North Euclid from 4-6pm

- Steve Patterson

Readers: ‘Death and Life’ a Classic, Happy Birthday to the Late Jane Jacobs

Jane [Butzner] Jacobs was born on May 4, 1916, ninety-five years ago today. Jacobs was 45 when she finished & published Death and Life of Great American Cities.  Jacobs died on April 25, 2006.

The poll (and post) last week asked:

Q: Have you read ‘Death and Life of Great American Cities’ by Jane Jacobs?

1. Yes, a must-read classic! 38 [37.25%]
2. No, it is on my list to read 23 [22.55%]
3. No, never heard of the book before 20 [19.61%]
4. No, I have no desire to read it 11 [10.78%]
5. Other answer… 6 [5.88%]
6. Yes, but it has been years 4 [3.92%]
7. Yes, wasn’t impressed 0 [0%]
8. Yes, no longer relevant though 0 [0%]

It is nice to see that more than half have read it or plan to do so. From the other answers we see that some are currently reading the book.

1. Never heard of it, but I’m curious.
2. no, but i think i’ve heard of it before somewhere
3. I just started reading it a couple weeks ago
4. almost finished; amazingly relevant and still underappreciated 50 yrs later
5. Yes, A real eye-opener that still applies to mistakes being made today
6. Just started the other day. It all seems right so far!

To me the book is an enjoyable read filled with excellent observations and lacking the pompous theories that fill so many books on urban planning and architecture. THE classic on urban planning.

Happy Birthday Jane Jacobs!

- Steve Patterson

Poll: Have you read ‘The Death and Life of Great American Cities’ by Jane Jacobs?

ABOVE: Jane Jacobs on the cover of Death & Life of Great American Cities

Fifty years ago Jane Jacobs published The Death and Life of Great American Cities, a harsh criticism of the state of urban planning at the time.  Jacobs was 45 when Death and Life was first published. Tomorrow marks five years since her death at age 89.

A direct and fundamentally optimistic indictment of the short-sightedness and intellectual arrogance that has characterized much of urban planning in this century, The Death and Life of Great American Cities has, since its first publication in 1961, become the standard against which all endeavors in that field are measured. In prose of outstanding immediacy, Jane Jacobs writes about what makes streets safe or unsafe; about what constitutes a neighborhood, and what function it serves within the larger organism of the city; about why some neighborhoods remain impoverished while others regenerate themselves. She writes about the salutary role of funeral parlors and tenement windows, the dangers of too much development money and too little diversity. Compassionate, bracingly indignant, and always keenly detailed, Jane Jacobs’s monumental work provides an essential framework for assessing the vitality of all cities. (description via Left Bank Books)

I can think of no other book on urban planning and cities that continues to be debated decades later or have their own Facebook page.

The mistake made by Jacobs’s detractors and acolytes alike is to regard her as a champion of stasis—to believe she was advocating the world’s cities be built as simulacra of the West Village circa 1960. Admirers and opponents have routinely taken her arguments for complexity and turned them into formulas. But the book I just read was an inspiration to move forward without losing sight that cities are powerful, dynamic, ever-changing entities made up of myriad gestures big and small. The real notion is to build in a way that honors and nurtures complexity. And that’s an idea impossible to outgrow. (Metropolis)

The poll this week asks if you have read this book and your thoughts on it.  The poll is in the upper right corner of the site.

- Steve Patterson

From Death & Life to Retrofitting Suburbia

Fifty years ago Jane Jacobs published her now-classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities.  Her book was a criticism of the Urban Renewal policies she observed in the 1950s.  Unfortunately too few paid any attention to her observations until it was too late.  Inner cities were gutted and suburban sprawl has leapfrogged way beyond anything sustainable.  Jacobs’ book offers little t0 help us  in the 21st century.

In the last 50 years we’ve had various planning trends & terms:

“There’s a 15- to 20-year cycle on urban planning terms,” says Robert Lang, urban sociologist at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. “Remember ‘urban renewal’? Smart growth is near the end of its shelf life.” (USA Today : Will ‘intelligent cities’ put an end to suburban sprawl?)

I’m betting on “retrofitting suburbia” as a lasting planning process for the next 25-40 years.  In April 2009 I did a book review on a new volume: Book Review: Retrofitting Suburbia, Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs. The book is $75  and worth every penny (Left Bank Books).  Unfortunately neither the St. Louis or St. Louis County library systems have this excellent book.

In January 2010 co-author Ellen Dunham-Jones presented an excellent TED Talk on the subject.  In 20 minutes you can get, for free, the basic concepts presented in the book.  Please take time to watch all 20 minutes.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_uTsrxfYWQ

I’m excited about gradually building on parking lots, densifying corridors, daylighting creeks, and restoring wetland areas.  This retrofitting should be applied to the suburbanized parts of the City of St. Louis as well the rings of suburbs around the city.

Dunham-Jones says:

“The growing number of empty and under-performing, especially retail sites, throughout suburbia gives us actually a tremendous opportunity to take our least sustainable landscapes right now and convert them into more sustainable places.”

Agreed!  The St. Louis region must begin planning for the future now, if we wait our jobs and economy will suffer.  I have a framed picture of the cover of Death & Life next to my desk because it is such an important book.  I may need to frame the cover of Retrofitting Suburbia as well.

- Steve Patterson

American City: St. Louis Architecture Three Centuries of Classic Design

ABOVE: Cover of American City: St. Louis Architecture. Text by Robert Sharoff & photographs by William Zbaren

Two days ago my post contrasted St. Louis natives & newbies.  That day a beautiful large-format book arrived at my door.  American City: St. Louis Architecture, with text by Robert Sharoff and 140 color photographs by William Zbaren, is stunning.  They affirm my point from Tuesday, that outsiders see what we often overlook.  Sharoff & Zbaren, both from Chicago, came to St. Louis in 2007 working for the New York Times. In the cover letter with the book they say they “wound up being knocked out by some of the greatest architecture in the country.”

ABOVE: One of several photographs of the Carl Milles fountain in Aloe Plaza. Photo by William Zbaren

St. Louis can and does impress persons from Chicago, New York, San Francisco, etc.  Books like this new volume will hopefully open they eyes of people who’ve never once visited St. Louis.  This book is the second in their American City series, the first was Detroit. Upcoming volumes will look at Chicago and Savannah.

Sure St. Louis, and Detroit, have issues but the gems presented in this book are part of the reason why St. Louis is home for me.  This book will be available for purchase in March 2011.

- Steve Patterson