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:

Fire Heavily Damages Downtown Restaurant

 

Earlier today an act of arson (per the Post-Dispatch) heavily damaged a downtown restaurant as well as adjacent living spaces. Thankfully, everyone was evacuated safely.

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Just past 7:30am this morning a few fire trucks were still on the scene that started after 3am, according to news reports. Police had Washington Ave blocked in both directions. Copia was in the main floor of the lovely two story building in the center, above. The Vangard Lofts are to the left, a narrow building is to the right and finally The Meridian to the far right. Residents of all these buildings were evacuated. Unfortunately, The Vangard suffered some smoke & water damage.

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From the back, above, we see the rear patio area. The front dining room seemed to have suffered mostly smoke & water damage, as the tables appear ready for dinner. However, the rear of the building was severely damaged.

The back of these buildings front onto St. Charles St., a narrow alley-like street. I’m not sure if parking is allowed on this section of the street. Still, a silver Mustang was parked at the end of Copia’s ramp at the back. The Fire Dept looks to have cut the railing apart to get access to the back entrance. Good thing they had that practice on Lou Hamilton’s diving board!

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Above, St. Louis’ new fire chief Dennis Jenkerson changes shoes at the back of his car before leaving the site.

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From the front, with the exception of the broken glass and debris, it doesn’t appear a 4-alarm fire just did the damage that it did. Again, the dining room was damaged by smoke and water, not fire.

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Later crews were on the scene to board up the building and deal with damage at the Vangard Lofts as well.

Regular readers will note this is the same restaurant where I had my video-tapped confrontation with owner Eyad “ET” Tammas, over valets consuming too much public parking. Despite that, and the on-going valet problems, I would never wish arson upon anyone. Copia, like many other places, was an important part of the downtown scene. I wish them well in their rebuilding. The valet guys, and their tactics to take up more spaces than is fair, can stay gone as far as I am concerned unless they learn to play well with others.

Gas Price Predictions, My Timing Was Off A Couple of Years

 

In December 2005, following Katrina & Rita, I was so sure that gas prices would continue to elevate past the three dollar point by the end of 2006. Boy was I wrong! To make matters worse, in June 2006 I was smugly confident that gas would be three-fifty by the end of 2006. In June of 2006 I wrote the following:

Back on December 30th [2005] I predicted that by the end of 2006 “a gallon of regular gas will exceed $3.00, not due to a natural disaster or terrorism.” I think that prediction might turn out to be a major understatement. At the time regular gas in St. Louis was around $2.20/gallon.

Yesterday when I left my house for dinner regular at the two stations near me was $2.69/gallon. Just a couple hours later the price was $2.88/gallon (shameful I didn’t have my camera with me). Today I noticed the price has settled to $2.84/gallon. This is all for regular. Premium fuel, like my former Audi required, is now over $3.00/gallon. Places in metro East are seeing regular in the $2.94 – $2.99/gallon range.

So today I’m revising my estimate, I think we’ll see regular gas at $3.50/gallon before New Year’s Day 2007. And I don’t mean some spike brought on by a hurricane or such. Just normal everyday pricing.

In reality I was not wrong, just off on my timing a couple of years, give or take a few months. Looking closer at the per barrel price of crude oil and I can see where I made my mistake in timing.

In September 2005 oil was pushing up toward $60/barrel following Katrina+Rita and refineries were knocked out along the gulf coast. The market was in place for a short term gas spike. By December, when I made my premature prediction, the price of a gallon of oil had dropped to just pocket change below $50/barrel. I wasn’t totally off, we had started 2005 in the low 30s per barrel so ending up pushing $50/barrel was a big increase.

This month oil prices have been in the high 80s to mid 90s, a considerable distance from $50/barrel.

Yesterday’s LA Times reported (free registration required) that analysts are projecting a US average around $3.50/gallon in the first half of 2008, as demand increases:

“If anyone expects gas to be less than a new record, they are not thinking,” said Fadel Gheit, senior energy analyst for Oppenheimer & Co. “There is no question it will be much higher than last year.”

Americans will start 2008 paying about 65 cents more a gallon than they did in January 2007, according to the forecasts, and by April could see self-serve regular selling for $3.50 to $3.75 a gallon.

In California — where gas this year has fetched as much as 50 cents more than the national average — $4 a gallon “will no longer be considered a rogue number,” said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst for the Oil Price Information Service. “It will list for that much in a lot of places.”

The Energy Department’s weekly survey of service stations Monday found the average pump price was $2.980 nationally and $3.261 in California, a couple of pennies lower than a week earlier — but much higher than the same period last year, when the number was $2.341 across the U.S. and $2.607 across the state.

Pump prices usually fall between Labor Day and the end of the year, in recent years dropping about 17% in California.  This year they did the reverse, gaining 17%.  

These will not be peaks and then drop back below $3/gallon. Demand continues to increase, both in the US and from other countries such as China and India.  World populations are increasing, as are vehicle registrations and total miles driven.  Not a formula for lowering prices.

All you folks with your V-8 SUVs and your 40-mile one-way commutes, get ready to pay lots more.  Sadly, the working poor who need a car to get to their jobs will also be paying more as well.  While some can handle the increase, others will not be able to do so.  And while many can handle short-term increases the long-term impact will be felt as consumers slow down their consuming to afford the gas for the Explorer.
Of course, this is an election year so that adds a whole new layer to the mix.  Will the Republicans in Washington find a way to artificially lower/stabilize prices between now and the November 2008 election?  Many factors such as the fallout from the subprime mess will really screw up the economic situation in 2008.
What will be interesting is how rising gas prices, combined with next weeks shutdown of highway 40, will impact the voters in St. Louis County with respect to a sales tax increase in August to help support ongoing operations at Metro as well as fund some future expansion.  Will the voters be see the folly of being so dependent upon cars that they decide to fund better transit or will they conclude they are already paying more money for gas and therefore can’t afford any more taxes?

Back to the LA Times:

Motorists found the New Year predictions infuriating.

“It’s absurd, ridiculous,” said Eric Mills, 40, a special-event coordinator for the entertainment industry, as he filled up his 1990 Honda Prelude with $3.399-a-gallon gasoline at a downtown Los Angeles Shell station.

“Every year I hear about fuel cells and other promising alternative fuel possibilities — and every year I’m still putting gasoline in my car.”

For all of you just waiting for that new fuel cell Taurus or Caprice, don’t hold your breath.  While these alternatives might pan out in a decade or so they are not going to help you this year.   Interestingly, motorists just keep motoring as if one day they will just instantly trade the gasoline powered car for some  fuel cell car and things will continue as before.  How simplistic.

Today’s Post-Dispatch has a story on people selling storage condos in St. Charles County.  For $40,000 you can get a storage unit for your extra car, boat or RV.  I guess when your 3-car garage is full that is what you do, buy a storage unit.  For these folks, the new reality that we are seeing unfold will come as a big shock.  When the market crashed in 1929 it was not the poor man jumping out of office windows.  Of course, today, the business man in Earth City doesn’t have operable windows and is likely at most on the 2nd floor.

So my predictions for 2008?  Nothing specific, I learned my lesson on that.  Gas prices will continue their upward trend, malls will continue to be yesterday’s news as people seek open air street-like shopping districts or actual shopping districts.  Projects in far St. Charles County that people think are temporarily on hold will be permanently on hold.  Developers and home builders will realize that 2008 is different than 1958 — the demographics are different, cheap gas is gone and people are seeking quality public space.  It will look rough while we are in it but in 2009 and beyond we will be thankful.

But I Ain’t No Liberal No More

December 27, 2007 Popular Culture 4 Comments
 

You’d think conservative would be a good term. After all, we want to conserve the earth’s precious resources right? But it turns out the conservatives have the most liberal environmental policy and the liberals the most conservative. So much for the logic of labels.

The barbershop quartet group, The Foremen, give us there take on liberal and conservative in this funny video. For those with broken sarcasm meters, trust me when I say these guys are very much on the left. Enjoy:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfnZOZ_LQcU[/youtube]

You can get the lyrics from Foreman Roy Zimmerman.

Given that the presidential primary is only six weeks away, I think we’ll hear more and more about liberals and conservatives until then.

Restaurant Cuts Dinner Hours Due to Highway 40 Closure

 

The Southside Journal is reporting that Giuseppe’s Ristorante at Grand & Meremac is axing it’s dinner hours starting next week, in anticipation of a drop in business from it’s largely West County clientele.

When the highway reopens, Giuseppe’s could start its evening hours again.”Sixty percent of our customers live in West County,” said Forrest Miller, who owns the restaurant with Eric Stockmann and Mark Manfrede. “You can’t expect people to go through that aggravation.”

While I think that many people on all sides of the construction zone will spend more time nearer their homes, I still think people will venture out for an evening meal to a well-known place they enjoy. The Fox and Symphony will continue. Life will continue, unless places begin to shutter their doors beforehand.

“When they closed the highway last summer, each time they closed it our weekend business was in the tank,” said Miller, who also owns the popular South County banquet hall Royale Orleans at 2801 Telegraph Road with his wife Donna. “We noticed our business was off like 60 percent every weekend.”

“This is a big restaurant,” Miller said. “If you have a bad day, you go in the hole.”

I appreciate that restaurants cannot have food prepared only to send it home with the staff because their business was down. Still, the temporary shut downs that we had were very temporary — a solitary weekend here and there. People were like, “let’s just go some place close tonight.” Well, that is going to wear off very soon.

In January our roads will be a mess. However, I think folks will get into a routine and before long it will seem rather normal. Someone coming for an 8pm Saturday dinner reservation will still manage. They might do well to consider a weekend only evening schedule, say Thursday-Sunday, starting in February. Still, the Feasting Fox across the intersection might pick up some business from people that arrive for dinner only to find the establishment closed.
Forrest Miller spoke at the stop highway 40 closure meeting last week held by Joe Passanise.

The End of the Universe Caused by Starbucks?

December 26, 2007 Popular Culture 6 Comments
 

Comedian Lewis Black has a funny take on the end of the world, which has says he has seen.  The cause?  A Starbucks across the street from a Starbucks.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9iMgSNrwv4[/youtube]

I’ve been to such a place in Vancouver.  There I was, on one corner of an intersection about to enter a Starbucks and across the street was another Starbucks.

Of course Lewis Black is not alone in making fun of Starbucks.  The excellent mockumentary Best in Show also takes a turn talking about Starbucks:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQKdEdzHnfU [/youtube]

The Simpson’s have also shown Starbucks taking over the Springfield Mall while South Park had a similar gag with a “Harbuck’s” running the local coffee shop out of business.

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