Mother’s Day Brings Memories & Tears

Holidays like Mother’s Day & Father’s Day bring up those days from years past.  Great memories.  Not so much from anything in particular, just having Mom & Dad there.  This is now my 3rd Mother’s Day without my Mom.  Coming up is the 2nd Father’s day without my Dad.  The day to day is easier but holidays are difficult.

One of my memories is how upset my Mom was on these holidays after the passing of her Mom in the early 1980s and her Dad in the late 1990s.  Now I get it.

Photographs and memories
All the love you gave to me
Somehow it just cant be true
Thats all Ive left of you

Reach out and hug your mom, or any mom, today.

Poll, Will Mayor Slay Get Charter Reform, Police Control, City into County During 3rd Term?

St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay, in his address after being sworn into office for a 3rd term, said, in part:

We can no longer afford to compete against each other. We must combine our resources and talents to figure out solutions to regional issues as complex as race relations, poverty, transportation, and creating jobs in new industries – and to regional tasks as simple as writing smoke-free laws, sharing public services, and building bike paths.

The world is changing at a dizzying pace, accelerated by a brutal economy. The City and our region will be very different four years from now. They can be better – but not by accident. We have to make it happen.

The City must reform its charter. The City, the inner suburbs, and outer suburbs must combine services. And, I strongly believe, that we must begin to lay the groundwork for the City of St. Louis to enter St. Louis County.

All of these changes — to help those struggling in this economy, to reorganize city and regional government, to find better educations for our children, to reinvest in our neighborhoods, to improve our quality of life, to create jobs in new industries, to engage young college graduates, to build contemporary infrastructure — will require that we talk to each other more often, more directly, and in different ways.

The past eight years have been an awakening—we have shown what we can accomplish if we dream great dreams and if we work together to make them reality. The next four years will see just how far we can really go.

So the poll for the coming weeks asks how much of Mayor Slay’s agenda will get accomplished by the end of his 3rd term which ends in April 2013.  He seeks 1) Charter reform in the city, 2) local control of the police deptment (has been goverened by the state since the Civil War) and 3) get the City of St. Louis back into St. Louis County.  So how many will he get done?  All three?  Two?  One?  Or nothing?  Take the poll in the upper right corner of the main page and then share your thoughts below.  For my post from the Mayors 3rd inaugural with the full text of his speech click here.

Kinloch Park; The Rapid Transit Suburb

Ads for new home building lots in May 1893 for the St. Louis suburb of Kinloch Park touted its transit connections — calling itself “the rapid transit suburb.”  Kinloch Park was served by the St. Louis & Suburban Electric Railway and the Wabash Railroad.  Building lots started at $40.

At first Kinloch Park was meant for whites only.  An online guide to African-American Heritage in St. Louis County tells the story of Kinloch:

People often wonder how the all-black community in northwest St. Louis County came to have the name, Kinloch. The name is Scottish in origin and means “at the head of the lake.” Some sources indicate that Major Henry Smith Turner named the area after his ancestral family name. Other sources state that the Scots settler, Major Richard Graham, who arrived in the area in 1807, named part of his land “Kinloch” after his holdings in Virginia. The area remained sparsely settled up to the end of the 19th century. A small number of blacks had land in the locality.

Kinloch Park was developed in the 1890s as a commuter suburb. The establishment of the Wabash Railroad from downtown St. Louis through the Kinloch area sparked development by whites. A small area of land was reserved for purchase by blacks, many of whom where house servants for Kinloch’s new homeowners. When a white land-owner sold to a black family a small parcel in an area of Kinloch restricted to whites, many whites sold their lots and moved, thus further opening the market to blacks.

The majority of blacks arrived in Kinloch during the 1920s. Many of them were black soldiers returning from service in World War I. Restrictive housing practices in St. Louis City made moving outside the city and away from the pressures of racial prejudice appealing to many blacks. The East St. Louis race riots in 1917 brought many Illinois residents to the area. Additional black settlement was abetted by the northern migration of blacks from the South.

The initial black church in Kinloch was the First Missionary Baptist Church, now at 5844 Monroe Avenue, dating from 1901. Other churches followed: First United Methodist Church in 1904; Second Missionary Baptist Church at 5508 Lyons in 1914; Kinloch Church of God in Christ, now Tabernacle of Faith and Deliverance, in 1914; and Our Lady of the Angels (originally Holy Angels) in the early 1920s.

Although the one-room frame Vernon School opened for black children in 1885, it closed a few months later. Black children in the Kinloch area traveled to Normandy to attend the school opened at Lucas and Hunt [electronic editor’s note: “Lucas and Hunt” is the name of a single street.] in 1886. The Vernon School, which moved to a number of locations in the area, served black children until the formation of the Kinloch School District in 1902, and its building remained in use as an all-black school in the Ferguson District until it was closed in 1967. When whites in the area split to form a separate school district in 1902, the Scudder Avenue School became Kinloch’s elementary school. A second elementary school, Dunbar, was opened in 1914. High school students attended Sumner in St. Louis City until Kinloch High School opened in 1937. In the mid-1970s, to further integrate education, both the Kinloch and the white Berkeley school districts were annexed into the Ferguson-Florissant School District. Kinloch students were also served by Holy Angels (now Our Lady of the Angels) Elementary School which opened in 1931.

In 1948 Kinloch was incorporated as Missouri’s first fourth-class, all-black city.

Much of Kinloch was destroyed by highway construction and sound mitigation for Lambert Airport to the immediate West.  If you look at the map you’ll see streets but few remaining buildings.

St. Louis had many transit suburbs (or streetcar suburbs) other than Kinloch.   Ferguson, Kirkwood and Webster Groves come to mind.  In regions like Chicago original transit suburbs like Evanston IL have remained as transit suburbs.  It is unfortunate that our region, over the last 100+ years, didn’t make the necessary  steps to retain a rail connection to these suburban municipalities.

Greening the City & Suburbs with Street Trees

I think it is safe to say we have more street trees in the City of St. Louis today than at any time in the history of the city.  Historic streetscape photos reveal wonderful architecture and busy sidewalks, but they were sidewalks without trees.  It is understandable why in the middle of the 20th Century planners sought to create open space.  Because there was very little open or green.  I think they went too far and calls today for open space are meaningless when we’ve an excess of open but a strong lack in quality urban space.  I favor infilling our blocks while greening our streets.

This past weekend I was delighted to see the addition of additional street trees on 17th street:

And looking North:

The parked vehicles and street trees help separate the pedestrian on the sidewalk from the passing cars on the road.  Take away the trees and stationary vehicles and the pedestrian experience becomes quite different.

The Blu CitySpaces condo project did the street trees on their side of 17th but also on the West side of 17th in front of the 7-11.   In a few years 17th will have a nice canopy from these trees. In other parts of the city we see many tree-lined streets and many barren streets.  I lived in Old North St. Louis in the early 1990s when we cut the sidewalk along St. Louis Ave to plant street trees.  These are nice and mature.

Regardless of where you live, street trees can make a big difference.  Newer subdivisions in suburbia especially.  Most often these houses have the single tree out in the lawn but nothing lining the street.  If your subdivision has sidewalks one of the best things you and your neighbors can do is to line your street with trees — with trees planted between the curb & sidewalk.

No Child Left Inside

I’ve never been a woodsy type or a parent.  But I have a message out there for parents, get your kids outdoors for free play.   You may tell me they are outside all the time: soccer, little league, etc.  Sorry, that doesn’t count.  I’m talking about time outside to just explore, on their own.

The above book was among one of a couple of books from one of my three Urban Planning courses at Saint Louis University this semester. It was an eye opener!  “Nature-Deficit Disorder” is not some new disorder requiring medicine to cure.  In fact, author Richard Louv suggests that free play outdoors may be the solution to the many issues children face today.

I recall growing up in the 70s, I’d spend hours away from home with friends riding our bikes on dirt trails along creeks near our homes.  I’d come home so dirty my clothes went right into the hamper — my mom not allowing me to walk through the house with them because I’d get red Oklahoma mud everywhere.   Other times I’d go riding off by myself exploring other neighborhoods or riding to the mall to buy something. I’d be miles away from home.

It was a different, more innocent time.  Parents just can’t let their kids do that these days.  But the question is if parents can afford to not let their children have free times outdoors?  Which brings us back to little league and such.  Yes, kids are not all couch potatoes playing Wii (though many are).  Yet organized events such as sports is different in a child’s development from free play.

In my pre-teen years I often walked or rode my bike to elementary & middle school. Most kids are chauffeured to school these days.  I didn’t have a full schedule of play dates and structured events.  The lives of kids today are very different.  An amazing number are diagnosed with ADHD and are medicated.  While Louv has no scientific proof that outdoor free play would reduce ADHD the prospect is interesting to explore.

A decade ago author James Howard Kunstler wrote about the connection between growing up in suburbia and the shootings at Columbine.  The theory goes that youth today do not develop any sense of independence — that suburba is so automobile independent this is compounded.  So while some may think suburbia is the best place to raise a child the fact is the driving lifestyle may prove worse than in more walkable areas. Please don’t confuse ‘suburbia’ with a ‘suburb.’  Suburbia is the worse of auto centric sprawl.  Many older suburbs are as walkable as the core city in regions.

Regardless of where a child is raised it is critical to have free play outside.  You’ll need to read the book for all the reasons.  Clicking on the cover image will take you to the author’s website.

With our education policy so focused on test scores (No Child Left Behind), recess often gets omitted.   Big mistake say some.  A connection to outdoors & nature helps the learning process of young minds.  The counter movement is No Child Left Inside.

As I said at the beginning I’m not a parent.  Odds are high that I never will be.  But as part of society I have an interest in making sure today’s kids grow up in such a way they are well adjusted.

—

Follow UrbanReviewSTL on Twitter