City Needs to Ban Future Skywalks, Ameren’s is Latest to be added

What better way to destroy a city than to take pedestrians off the public street? Back a few decades ago skywalks were all the rage — every city just had to have at least one.

St Louis has it’s fair share and the most noteworthy is the one above as part of the failed St Louis Centre indoor mall. Making Washington Ave feel like a tunnel and blocking urban views up and down the street this is most certainly the largest. This bridge over the street is pretty universally accepted as major urban blunder even though it was hailed as wonderful just 20 years ago.

Many of the skywalks we have connect multiple buildings while others connect building to parking garage.

Above is a new skybridge at Lumiere Place on the formerly historic Laclede’s Landing area. This one connects a renovated hotel structure to the casino, saving guests from having to go outside on the sidewalk.

The latest skywalk being constructed is at the HQ of electric utility Ameren located just South of Union Station. This bridge doesn’t connect buildings or even a building to a parking garage. No, this skywalk goes to a surface parking lot.

In a prior post I was critical of the lack of street trees on 18th/Truman Parkway and as I was taking these images I felt like I was in the roadway given how close traffic was. We really should not be building pedestrian-unfriendly roads like this.

It should be telling that Ameren is going to such expense to keep employees from crossing five lanes of traffic. Their own HQ building and numerous surface parking lots has contributed to the destruction of an active and thus safe public sidewalk.

We need to stop removing people from the sidewalks in this manner — it only makes bad situations worse.

Book Review; Historic Photos of St. Louis by Adele Heagney and Jean Gosebrink

The old saying is ‘a picture is worth a thousands words.’ So a book with nearly 200 vintage images says a lot. A new hardcover book called, appropriately enough, Historic Photos of St. Louis, attempts to tell a lot using vintage images. Combined with a very diverse collection of these images are fairly detailed captions on the place or event shown you learn a great deal about the evolution of St. Louis.

Many books using historical photos tend to focus on a single event or subject– the 1904 World’s Fair, Streetcar transit, The Arch, etc. Here Adele Heagney and Jean Gosebrink have divided the book into four sections covering a 100+ year period from the 1860s through the 1960s. I’ve seen many old photos of St Louis but Heagney & Gosebrink have put together an interesting collection of previously unpublished images (to my knowledge).

At first the lack of a theme other than St Louis is a bit disturbing — I kept wanting to find a connection from one image to the next. The connection is naturally St Louis and in each section that the images are from roughly the same period.

The cover image is from a 1927 parade honoring Charles Lindbergh. The interesting thing is the route — along Locust behind the main library. Of course in 1927 this was a much more vibrant section of town than it is today. However all the images show a booming St Louis with lots of people out on the sidewalks, newsboys selling papers on street corners and so on.

Ultimately such a book is depressing — showing all that we have lost — specific buildings, the streetcar system, sidewalks filled with pedestrians and the optimism of a growing city. I’ve spent hours now pouring over the images in this fine coffee table book.  The book is hardbound and is listed at $39.95.

Lumiere Link is Nice, Route to Tunnel Needs Attention

Earlier in the week a new tunnel under I-70 connecting Baer Plaza (East of the Edward Jones Dome) and Lumiere Place casino in Laclede’s Landing opened to the public. St Louis Development Co. head Rodney Crim suggested the city wants convention goers, “when not in session and looking for things to do” to take the tunnel to the casino and Laclede’s Landing. Never mind conventioneers taking a stroll down Washington Ave or other streets downtown where retailers are struggling to have enough customers. See Crim on KSDK here.

So much was made about this great new privately funded $8 million dollar connection I just had to see for myself.

I started by heading East on Washington Ave, passing by the main entrance to the convention center, aka America’s Center. Of course the taxi stand on the sidewalk gets more space than us pedestrians. I can tell you that being in a wheelchair heading straight on toward a taxi that is moving toward me is not a comforting feeling. Oh the driver saw me as he repeatedly tapped his horn as he drove off. Behind the cabs was a St Louis police car that was so far to the right I had to go to the left to get around it. Welcome to St Louis.

When I got to 7th I turned left as I figured conventioneers might use the courtyard/plaza doors as their starting point for their walk to the casino. Above is looking back South from the plaza entry at 7th & Convention Plaza. As a side note Convention Plaza used to be Delmar but it was renamed when it ran in front of the original convention center. Later in the early 1990s when the center was expanded to the current configuration the street go cut off by the building. So now we have this short section of Convention Plaza on both the East & West sides of the center. It should have reverted back to the name Delmar.

Leaving the circle drive area at 7th & Convention Plaza we see surface parking lot and the back of the Drury Inn.

Heading East toward Baer Plaza & Lumiere Link we are along the side of the Edward Jones Dome. I’m not sure why street trees were not part of the plan when this was built but thet are sorely needed. The Jersey barriers were likely added after the Oklahoma City bombing or after 9/11.

Almost to Broadway now and we see a nice collection of Jersey barriers, seemingly blocking our path across the street.

Above, I want to cross Broadway which is to my left but I can’t get my wheelchair close enough to the pedestrian signal button (it is the one on the right on the light pole).

Above is the same pole and signal button from another angle. The ramp to cross Broadway is to the left of all the Jersey barriers you see. Current ADA guidelines require signal buttons to be closer to where they are needed.

Finally we make it. I can’t believe that Rodney Crim wants visitors to make that walk — it has to be among the worst in the city. I’d hope conventioneers would never see this side of the dome — instead making their way down Washington Ave to see sidewalk dining and increasingly active sidewalks.

So we are now at the entry to Lumiere Link. We are at Baer Plaza. Who?

Robert J. Baer was the first chairman of the St Louis Regional Convention and Sports Complex Authority. Baer was also the former head of Bi-State Development and he took over the position again at Metro after Larry Salci had a very public crash & burn. From the plaque:

“Preservation of land for this park reflects Mr Baer’s recognition for ‘green space’ as an attractive front yard for the Stadium/Convention Center.”

With the trees now mature this has the potential for a decent public space. Sadly it has no natural users as the area is pretty desolate. Although now we have people coming and going to the casino and maybe a few to Laclede’s Landing beyond the casino. So how attractive is this front yard? Above you can see the weeds popping up between the seams in the concrete, not a good start.

All around the edges is debris from the trees.

There is even part of a dumpster lid. The whole plaza looks and feels rather abandoned. This is not St Louis putting it’s best foot forward. You’d think someone from the Visitor Commission or whomever has responsibility for this space might had tidied up a bit before the opening of the new tunnel.

Visitors to the tunnel have three choices for the decent — stairs, an escalator or an elevator. At the other end of the tunnel you end up right smack in the middle of the complex. You are not on the casino floor of course because you must show ID and such to enter the gaming area. Still you can see the games and certainly the restaurants.

The interior was more posh than I expected. Pity they had to go and ruin it with all the gaming machines. I also have to wonder how of the $8 million for the tunnel was in video screens. Despite the richness of the whole place I couldn’t wait to get out. I may use the link again so that I can check out the exterior of the casino & hotel as it looms over what little remains of Laclede’s Landing.

Overall I think the link is a good thing — the more connections across I-70 the better. If only the route to get to the tunnel wasn’t so pathetic.

Tower Grove South Concerned Citizens Special Business District

What a name!  Ald Jennifer Florida is introducing legislation (BB89) at the Board Of Aldermen this morning to put the establishment of a special taxing district on the ballot for residents within the district to vote on.  The district, if approved, would be from the alley South of Utah Place, to the centerline of Grand, to the centerline of Gravois to Roger Place (one block West of Gustine). The official name would be the “Tower Grove South Concerned Citizens Special Business District.”
First, what is with the “concerned citizens” bit in the name?  They’ll never get the full name on banners or on trash cans.  Doesn’t every area have concerned citizens?
Secondly, I never like it when major streets are used as edges for neighborhood or business district lines — Grand was once the center point for residential areas on both sides.  When using major streets as dividing lines we end up with different groups having a say on the same street — but only for their half.  When business districts are done this way you end up with money for improvements for half the street.  Using alley lines is the better way to go.

And lastly I always wonder who manages the money — in this case it would be a 7-member Board of Commissioners appointed by the mayor.  Five would be property owners and two would be renters.

Soulard Market to Become a Park

Don’t worry, the city has no plans to do away with the market.

However a bill (BB41) before the Board Of Aldermen would make the market part of the “Soulard Playground” park which shifts control from the Director of Public Utilities to the Parks Director.  Maybe this is a good thing?  Maybe it is a power play to increase the Parks Dept budget?

Given the issue of citizens getting to vote on any leasing or selling of park land I wonder how the long-term leasing of vendor stalls would be impacted?