Celebrating Blog’s 19th Anniversary

 

  Nineteen year ago I started this blog as a distraction from my father’s heart attack and slow recovery. It was late 2004 and social media & video streaming apps didn’t exist yet — or at least not widely available to the general public. Blogs were the newest means of …

Thoughts on NGA West’s Upcoming $10 Million Dollar Landscaping Project

 

  The new NGA West campus , Jefferson & Cass, has been under construction for a few years now. Next NGA West is a large-scale construction project that will build a new facility for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in St. Louis, Missouri.This $1.7B project is managed by the U.S. Army …

Four Recent Books From Island Press

 

  Book publisher Island Press always impresses me with thoughtful new books written by people working to solve current problems — the subjects are important ones for urbanists and policy makers to be familiar and actively discussing. These four books are presented in the order I received them. ‘Justice and …

New Siteman Cancer Center, Update on my Cancer

 

  This post is about two indirectly related topics: the new Siteman Cancer Center building under construction on the Washington University School of Medicine/BJC campus and an update on my stage 4 kidney cancer. Let’s deal with the latter first. You may have noticed I’ve not posted in three months, …

Recent Articles:

A roof with a view

April 20, 2010 Downtown 5 Comments
 

To keep up with a daily post I may just post a picture and let you discuss what you see.

ABOVE: my rooftop view of St. Louis
ABOVE: my rooftop view of St. Louis

The other afternoon I liked the contrast of the dark clouds against the sun hitting the buildings.

– Steve Patterson

Light posting schedule now through mid-June

April 19, 2010 Site Info 4 Comments
 

Due to my employment with the U.S. Census Bureau I will most likely not be able to maintain the post-per-day schedule that I have had for quite a while now. At this point the only thing I can commit to is a new poll on Sundays and the results of the prior poll on Wednesdays.  As I have posts from contributors I will post those. If I have other posts they may be less involved than usual.

ABOVE: A Census Enumerator follows up on a housing unit where a census form was not returned. Photo Credit: U.S. Census Bureau, Public Information Office
ABOVE: A Census Enumerator follows up on a housing unit where a census form was not returned. Photo Credit: U.S. Census Bureau, Public Information Office

My role will be to train and supervise a crew of Enumerators.   At the conclusion of this temporary job I will resume full daily postings.

– Steve Patterson

Poll: Thoughts on the $630 million dollar Mississippi River bridge

 

On Monday officials will “break ground” for the new $640 million dollar bridge across the Mississippi River.  The ceremony will take place on the historic Eads Bridge.

ABOVE: Section drawing of new bridge. Click image to view official website.

Sadly I will not be able to attend the event.  The poll for this week asks your thoughts on the new bridge which is expected to be complete by February 2014.  The poll is in the upper right sidebar.

– Steve Patterson

I didn’t request a phone book

April 17, 2010 Environment 6 Comments
 

In the lobby of my condo building was a huge stack of bound & printed phone directories.

I thought these became upon request only?

– Steve Patterson

Midtown crosswalk lacks ramps, blocked by parked car

April 16, 2010 Accessibility 5 Comments
 

Everywhere I turn I encounter crosswalk issues. On Monday I brought you the finally corrected crosswalk on Delmar.  From the 2nd floor terrace of the Pultizer Foundation I noticed a bad crosswalk on Washington Ave in Midtown:

Neither side has curb cuts and a car is parked blocking the crosswalk!

From the street level we can see the car parked so it fully blocks the crosswalk.  The sign indicates parking is permitted in both directions.

What needs to happen is to bulb out the curb both the width of the parking lane and crosswalk. A channel can be left to allow rainwater in the gutter to drain. The bulb out would do a few things: 1) the ramp could be within the bulb rather than cut back into the existing sidewalk, 2) the bulb would prevent motorists from accidentally blocking the crosswalk and 3) the bulbs would shorten the distance to cross the street.  The current situation cannot continue.

– Steve Patterson

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