Pyramid Construction, A Year Later

Last years collapse of Pyramid Construction is a tragic story on numerous levels, fortunes lost, promises broken, etc.  Last month came the worst news out of this continuing story.

A former employee, who was suddenly out of work when Pyramid folded, committed suicide.  He and his widow had both worked at Pyramid and had not found new employment as the economy worsened.  My heart goes out to her, their family and friends.

It was one year ago today that I broke the news that Pyramid was ceasing operations (see post).  I was still in the hospital at the time, about four hours from St. Louis.  My post indicated the news of the collapse was a “rumor.”  I knew, based on my source, that it was true.

The fallout continues.  Lenders have taken back preoperties. A few projects, like the senior housing center on South Grand, have been completed.  Most remain no further than they were a year ago.

Proposed Smoking Ban Ordinance for St. Louis City

Normally I’d not do another smoking related post so soon after the one earlier this week.  But, I agreed to publish the proposed ordinance to ban smoking in the City Of St. Louis.  28th Ward Alderman Lyda Krewson sent along the following note with the draft board bill:

Attached is a draft of a proposed smoke free air ordinance I plan to introduce soon.

I hope you will consider joining me in this effort.  Most states already have smoke free air legislation, including our neighbors, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska & Arkansas… and of course, well known places such as California, New York, France and Ireland.

The following link gives a quick map and summary of the current laws in the U.S.  All but 15 states have some form of smoking ban, to provide smoke free air.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_smoking_bans_in_the_United_States

Many think this legislation should be done at the state level, and frankly I agree.  But Missouri is unlikely to move this forward.  Many legislators consider it a ‘city issue’.  Kansas City, Columbia, Kirksville, Nixa and others already have a broad smoking ban.

It seems clear to me that Mo’s largest city needs to provide leadership on this issue!

The science is clear… second hand smoke causes or exacerbates a wide range of adverse health effects, including cancer, respiratory infections, and asthma.  Banning smoking in public work environments is about the health of workers… not about smokers.  About smoke… not smokers.    It is a health safety issue, not a social issue.

The attached draft Board Bill says that  it will become effective in the City, when St Louis County passes a similar ordinance. I am not interested in creating an advantage/disadvantage for a city vs. county establishment.  Let’s take the leadership role on this. Maybe we can move the whole state?

I look forward to our discussions about this ordinance.  The pressure not to do it will be heavy…   I hope you will join me in this effort.

Thanks Lyda

Lyda Krewson
28th Ward Alderman

314-231-7318 (work)
314 607 3452 (cell)
lyda.krewson@pgav.com

You can view a PDF of the proposed bill here.  One of the most important clauses is on the last page:

SECTION SIXTEEN. Effective Date
This Ordinance shall be effective on such date that a similar smoking ban ordinance becomes effective in St. Louis County, Missouri.

So we can pass the ordinance in the city but until St. Louis County passes a similar bill we will keep things as is.  This prevents the challenge of city establishments losing customers to the county.  Read the language and share your thoughts in the comments section because Alderman Krewson will be reading them.

The Urban Cemetery

The urban cemetery is quite different than the rural one.  Urban cemeteries are often squeezed by surrounding development whereas the rural cemetery is lost in the corn fields.

My maternal grandparents are interred in just such a cemetery.  The county roads to reach the cemetery are gravel.  The only structure seen from the cemetery is a long abandoned farm house.

In the St. Louis area many of our oldest cemeteries started out rural and saw development come toward them. A good many were started as a way of moving bodies from cemeteries closer in locations.

Looking at many of the cemeteries on a map it is clear many of them were located on the outer edge of the city limits or beyond the city.

This land, far away from the core, would have been cheaper than vacant land closer in.  Having already moved early 19th Century cemeteries, new ones from the late 19th Century probably wanted to be far enough away to avoid being moved. The wealthy had country estates to the west of the city.  Ladue was incorporated in 1936.   With land to the West taken by estates it follows that new cemeteries would be located along major farm routes out of the city, to the NW & SW.

Yesterday I visited one such cemetery, Gatewood Gardens Cemetery on Gravios near Hampton (map).  Gatewood is in a cemetery row with St. Matthew & the Old St. Marcus cemeteries to the East, Saints Peter & Paul across Gravois and the New St. Marcus Cemetery to the West, just across the River Des Peres.

Gatewood, located on both sides of Gravois, has an interesting history:

Gatewood Gardens Cemetery began with a small congregation of Germans in 1832. They organized the German Evangelical Church and held services in a small schoolroom on Fourth Street, just south of Washington Avenue in 1834. Two years later a gentleman named George Wendelin Wall arrived in St. Louis and became the pastor of the now named German Independent Protestant Evangelical Church of The Holy Ghost. In four years Pastor Wall was able to raise enough money to purchase the First German Church on August 9, 1840. He remained the pastor for three years before a new pastor took over the congregation.

Frederick Picker began his ministry in October of 1843, and by the time he retired in January of 1855 he had accomplished many things. He averaged 420 baptisms and 225 weddings a year, and was instrumental in purchasing ground for a cemetery located on a 20-acre lot. The cemetery was located in the Kansas-Wyoming-Louisiana-Arsenal area in South St. Louis. It opened in 1845 and was called the Holy Ghost Evangelical and Reformed Cemetery. Many victims of the great cholera epidemic of 1849 were interred there and the last recorded burial in this cemetery was in 1901. The cemetery acquired the nickname, “Picker’s Cemetery,” and was commonly called such by the people of the congregation as well as the surrounding areas.

In 1862 the German Protestant Church bought a new cemetery, and called it the Independent Evangelical Protestant Cemetery. It is located at Gravios and Hampton and like the old German cemetery took the name of pastor Picker. IT became known as New Picker’s Cemetery. This cemetery truly became Picker’s new cemetery, when all the burials at the original cemetery were moved to this location by 1916.

An additional plot of land was purchased across the street (Gravios) and New Picker’s Cemetery became Old Picker’s, while the new plot became New Picker’s. The Cemetery remained in the hands of the congregation for many years before eventually being purchased by another church in 1978. This began the downward steps of the cemetery. In 1981 the cemetery would begins its trip through different individual ownership, and the cemetery’s next 15 years would be in continual decline. At this time the cemetery’s name was also changed to Memorial Gardens, and later it would be changed to its current name. When the City of St. Louis seized Gatewood Gardens Cemetery in 1996, the owners owed back taxes totaling more than $234,000. In the past six years there have been many improvements on the land and the records of the cemetery.  (source)

Yes, the City of St. Louis took control of the cemetery in 1996.

The only new interrments allowed are in family plots.  For the most part the city appears to be a good steward.  But you have to wonder if this is a good use of precious tax dollars.  Could a non-profit be formed to buy & maintain the cemetery?  Clearly, a cemetery with no plots to sell has no profit potential.

St. Louis-Based Association Has An Issue with the Obama’s Garden

Besides having a new dog, Bo, the first family has a garden at the White House.  Specifically, an organic garden:

The back-to-the-earth movement has gotten the ultimate PR push. First lady Michelle Obama has planted the world’s most famous new garden on the White House grounds. Michelle Obama’s White House garden symbolizes much more than dreams of a few plump tomatoes or juicy snap peas.  (source: USA Today)

Seeing our First Lady plant the first White House garden in 60 years warms my heart. I grew up with a garden and my grandparents on both sides of my family had large gardens.  Who doesn’t like a garden?

Just a few days after Michelle Obama invited local fifth graders to help plant the White House Kitchen Garden, the MACA, a group which represents and is comprised of former executives from Dow AgroSciences, Monsanto and DuPont Crop Protection, sent the White House a letter expressing their disappointment that she had not “recognize[d] the role conventional agriculture plays in the US.”  (source: Sustainablog)

Here is part of the letter:

We live in a very different world than that of our grandparents. Americans are juggling jobs with the needs of children and aging parents. The time needed to tend a garden is not there for the majority of our citizens, certainly not a garden of sufficient productivity to supply much of a family’s year-round food needs.

Much of the food considered not wholesome or tasty is the result of how it is stored or prepared rather than how it is grown. Fresh foods grown conventionally are wholesome and flavorful yet more economical. Local and conventional farming is not mutually exclusive. However, a Midwest mother whose child loves strawberries, a good source of Vitamin C, appreciates the ability to offer California strawberries in March a few months before the official Mid-west season.

Bonnie McCarvel, Executive Director
Janet Braun, Program Coordinator
Mid America CropLife Association
11327 Gravois Rd., #201
St. Louis, MO  63126

True, we’d starve if we all had to grow our own food today.  But growing a family garden to supplement what you buy in the store is a good thing.  The decision of Michelle Obama to have an organic garden is practical.

The first family must pay for ingredients in their non-official meals.  Just like you and me, the more they can grow at home, the more money they can save.

There is something too about watchng herbs & veggies grow in the garden and later see them on your dinner plate.  That is an increasingly important mesage for youth to grasp.  They need to understand that we can grow at least part of our food.  And we can do so organically.

But the chemical lobby doesn’t like the idea of our first family growing some organic food.  It sends the wrong message apparently.  I think it sends the right message.

“This is a big day. We’ve been talking it since the day we moved in,” said the First Lady as she and two dozen local students broke ground on the White House Kitchen Garden on the South Lawn of the White House.  Those students will be involved in the garden as it develops and grows, producing delicious, healthy vegetables to be cooked in the White House Kitchen and given to Miriam’s Kitchen, which serves the homeless in Washington, DC.  (Source: The White House Blog)

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Neighbors in Fountain Park Neighborhood Continue Organizing

Few neighborhoods symbolize St. Louis as well as Fountain Park (map). The once densely filled neighborhood retains much of the feel it would have in the 19th Century.

The namesake park is beautifully scaled.  The gently curving street pleasantly deviates from the street grid.

But for the last half century the neighborhood has had some of the same issues faced by others: fewer residents, fewer businesses, a concentration of lower income residents and nuisance crimes.  Stately homes with owners unable to afford increasing maintenance costs.

Despite its issues, the neighborhood remains appealing.  Efforts continue to reverse its fortunes.

http://www.urbanreviewstl.com/?p=4501

Neighbors plan to meet with city officials this Saturday (4/18/09) at Centenial Church (4950 Fountain), 10am.  This is a neighborhood worth fighing for.