Sunday: Dutchtown Harvest Festival

Sunday is the Dutchtown Harvest Festival:

Bring your appetite for food, knowledge and fun!

October 23, 2011, 11am to 5pm

Marquette Park* in Dutchtown

Mayor Slay’s Vanguard Cabinet and the Downtown Dutchtown Business Association present the first ever St. Louis Food Day celebration!

Think Earth Day but all about producing, preparing and eating FOOD! This new national holiday is dedicated to addressing problems with food production, distribution, access and education and is being championed by folks like Michael Pollan and Alice Waters. Our hope is to invigorate the blossoming food culture of Dutchtown within the context of St. Louis and the Midwest.

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Features include a kids zone, locally produced food, cooking contest, cooking demos, nutrition education, live music and food vendors. 

The location is the beautiful Marquette Park in south St. Louis (Google Maps). Some scenes in the 2005 film The Game of Their Lives were filmed in Marquette Park.

– Steve Patterson

Former Missouri Pacific Railroad Headquarters Now Luxury Residences

Ground was broken on the Pacific Railroad in St. Louis on July 4, 1851.  By 1917 it had become the Missouri Pacific Railroad (MoPac).

The company grew and decided to build a new headquarters:

In 1926 the Missouri Pacific Railroad began the construction of a 30 floor building in St. Louis which would become the home of the railroad’s offices. In 1928 with only 22 of 30 floors completed, the construction was stopped. (Source)

They had planned a duplicate building behind this on facing east but they didn’t want to appear too wealthy during the Great Depression. Ironically, many needed the work the construction would have provided.

By the early 1980s Union Pacific, based in Omaha, bought the company but kept offices in the building until 2005. After the Lawrence Group purchased the building they planned for-sale condos in the building as well as in a new structure to the east that included parking. When the bottom dropped out of the economy they had to rethink their plans. To make the project work financially more units would need to be fitted into the building and they would be for lease rather than for sale. The structure to the east would become parking only (with ground-level retail space). The result is the ParkPacific.

Due to high costs to redevelop this historic building the decision was made to go upmarket — these are high-end lofts with stone counters, fancy bath fittings and great amenities.  Even though the rates are on the high end there are more total units than were previously planned. This means more people — which is excellent.

The top floor common space retains the original wood panelling and the roof is a great space for residents and their guests.

The roof is wheelchair accessible, whereas the roof at my place isn’t. If I lived at the ParkPacific I’d be on the roof often.  Lawrence Group partner Steve Smith is planning a restaurant in the southwest corner of the building. Smith is the owner of The Moto Museum and Triumph Grill in midtown.

– Steve Patterson

Readers: Open Streets is a Good Idea

Readers think St. Louis’ “Open Streets” is a good idea, I personally fall into the second group on last week’s poll:

Q: St. Louis’ “Open Streets” events a good idea?

1. Yes, it gets people outdoors 44 [61.11%]
2. Yes, in theory more than practice 19 [26.39%]
3. No 4 [5.56%]
4. Unsure/no opinion 4 [5.56%]
5. Other: 1 [1.39%] “Yes, it lets people see urban STL from a different view.“

If these continue hopefully the city will learn and improve. Some of the crew hired to work the last one didn’t even know what the event was — I had to explain it.

The next event, the last for 2011, will be held on Saturday October 29th. This will differ from past events by being held from 3pm-9pm, rather than in the morning. As you might expect, it will have a Halloween theme.

Closing the street in front of numerous gay bars on the Saturday before Halloween? That’s like closing roads to the mall the day after Thanksgiving. Open Streets is over at 9pm so hopefully Manchester will be opened quickly — and barricades won’t block pedestrian access.

Weather permitting, I will do this event.

– Steve Patterson

Remember Big Local Banks?

When I moved to St. Louis in 1990 local banks like Mercantile and Boatman’s were the biggest. These are how U.S. Bank and Bank of America, respectively.

Boatman’s opened for business 164 years ago today.

Boatmen’s began as the vision of banker, entrepreneur, and civic leader George Knight Budd. Budd was born in 1802 to George and Susanah Britton Budd, both of whom claimed prominent East Coast lineage. Before he arrived in St. Louis on a steamer in 1835, he had already traveled extensively in the United States, as well as in the Mediterranean and in South America. Budd brought with him a substantial fortune and cosmopolitan vision. Viewing the thriving commerce on St. Louis’ Mississippi shore, Budd determined that the “Gateway” city was the place where he would settle.

Budd spent his first few years in St. Louis as a merchant before joining with a partner, Andrew Park, to form the private banking firm of Budd, Park & Co. Besides his business interests, Budd was a leader in his community. He sold U.S. bonds during the Civil War, for example, and served as financial editor of the Missouri Democrat. He was also a leader in the First Presbyterian Church and served as a city councilman and as city comptroller in the early 1850s. Budd’s service as comptroller demonstrated how his far-reaching vision surpassed that of his peers. As comptroller, Budd arranged for the city to purchase a tract of land downtown for use as a park. Many citizens viewed the purchase as wildly extravagant, and Budd was even forced to resign because of opposition to his decision. But the purchase eventually proved to be one of the greatest bargains the city ever made; the site became the location of the City Hall and other municipal buildings.

By the time Budd was forced to resign from the comptroller position, he had already started the organization (Boatmen’s Savings Institution) that would become Boatmen’s Bancshares. Budd had faced a formidable wall of opposition to that venture, as well, because it was the first nonstate bank of its kind in Missouri. Budd was motivated to start Boatmen’s Savings largely by his desire to help the industrial and working classes in St. Louis, many of whom were boatmen. Indeed, he saw that many of the rivermen were drinking and gambling their money away, rather than saving and investing it for their families and their future.

Budd wanted to start a bank that would cater to the needs of the working class rather than commercial enterprise. The entire city would benefit, he reasoned, because welfare and charitable needs would be reduced, a financial instrument would be put in place that would direct working people’s money into more productive assets like homes and durable goods, and investment capital would be generated for St. Louis. Opposition to his proposal came from bureaucrats, many of whom wanted to protect the state’s control of the commercial banking business. Those critics argued that a private bank would compete with Missouri’s commercial bank. In fact, the Missouri legislature had shot down dozens of petitions from other people who wanted to start private, noncommercial banks. (source)

In it’s 150th anniversary year, 1997, Boatman’s merged with NationsBank.  A year later Bank of America bought NationsBank.

It’s just not the same as having the bank based here for a century and a half. It’s no wonder people are protesting with Occupy Wall Street movements all over the world, including here in St. Louis (see Occupy St. Louis)

– Steve Patterson

SLU Garage Keeps Sidewalk at Olive & Compton Dead

One hundred years ago the block at SW corner of Olive & Compton contained about a hundred buildings — flats and houses mostly. But also a very large indoor skating rink, complete with electric lights!  Those buildings, and the life they gave to the sidewalks, are long gone.

In 1998 Saint Louis University constructed a massive parking garage on this corner — over 180,000 square feet on the ground floor. It’s impossible to have a vibrant (and safe) street life with such a lifeless structure consuming so much length of the sidewalk.

Of course we must stop building in such a way that kills sidewalks. But what do we do here? What we aren’t going to do is recreate the structures that existed 100 years ago, time marches on.  The massive garage isn’t going anywhere due to remaining debt and need.

But rarely is anyone parked on Olive. Why would they? There are no businesses or residences  to visit.

That’s the solution — squeezing in occupied structures between the garage and sidewalk. The garage would likely require mechanical ventilation since a structure(s) would cut off natural cross-ventilation. Small storefront spaces would occupy the sidewalk level, excellent incubator spaces. Apartments on the 2nd & 3rd floors, an elevator & stair would be in the middle.

Yes, you can point out all sorts of issues but I challenge you to instead think of how to make it work because I’m not satisfied this sidewalk will remain lifeless.

– Steve Patterson