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 …
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 …
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 …
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, …
The future of the buildings at the former St. Aloysius Gonzaga is receiving national attention from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The issue was featured yesterday in the Trust’s Preservation Online website.
It is sad that we continue to raze quality urban buildings in favor of uninspired new construction. But the wrecking ball hasn’t struck yet so don’t be so sure it is going to happen.
I can’t remember the last time I participated in a “The Walk” organized by Metropolis St. Louis. However, I do recall one Walk along the Manchester St. gay bars that I was inspired by two friends with shaved heads — I went home that night and shaved mine. That was probably a good 4 years ago and as I shave my head I still think of that night. Good times…
Next week former Metropolis President, Brian Marston, is leading The Walk in an area I’ve personally spent too little time, The Ville. The date is Thursday February 9, 2006. From Brian’s email:
The Ville is St. Louis’ Harlem, a close-knit black community that has made prodigious cultural contributions to the life of our city. The small, nine-by-five-block neighborhood is home to the former Homer G. Phillips Hospital and Sumner High School, the first school west of the Mississippi to provide secondary education for black students. Annie Malone, one of the country’s first African-American millionaires, made her fortune while living in The Ville. Among Sumner’s famous alumni are rock-and-roll legend Chuck Berry, singer Tina Turner, tennis great Arthur Ashe, comedian and activist Dick Gregory, actor Robert Guillaume, opera diva Grace Bumbry, opera’s first black male soloist (and Bobby McFerrin’s dad) Robert McFerrin, former local newscaster Julius Hunter and the American League’s first black MVP Elston Howard.
Here’s The Walk lineup:
6:30 – 8 p.m.
J’s Hideout Cocktail Lounge
4257 Dr. Martin Luther King Dr.
This cozy, laid-back establishment features two big-screen TVs, a fish tank full of oversized goldfish, and plastic Clydesdales in a Plexiglas case over the bar. The dapper gentleman wearing a suit behind the bar is the proprietor, J.D. Bratcher. A big glass of Crown on the rocks is $5.
8 – 9:30 p.m.
Harlem Tap Room
4161 Dr. Martin Luther King Dr.
Established in 1946, this club sees the most traffic of the three stops on our itinerary. It features an enticingly backlit liquor display that is well-stocked with premium brands. A waitress delivers drinks to the tables. The canned beer is ice cold (literally).
9:30 – 11 p.m.
Zack’s Lounge
1904 Whittier St.
Ah, Zack’s — my home away from home. A tiny shotgun bar that’s a bit off the beaten path (and, amusingly, right next-door to a church), the home of the curiously punctuated “Zackaroo’s and Zackaretts” has the most straight-up neighborhood flavor of any Ville bar I know of. Some of the regulars have been going to Zack’s for 20 years. Family photos and Christmas decorations line the wall behind the bar. Gracie, Zack’s wife, works Thursday nights. In her words, “We all family here.”
I recommend parking on the street, near the corner of MLK and Whittier. If you want to travel en masse, meet up at that corner at 6:20. Bring cash; your plastic is no good here. All three bars have jukeboxes and dart machines. You must be at least 21 to Walk this way. Please drink responsibly, and tip your bartenders and barmaids. They take care of you, you take care of them — it’s the circle that makes life go ’round.
The area is served by Metro Bus. The most direct routes are the #32 Wellston/MLK bus which comes out of downtown (and points further west) and the #42 Sarah (from the CWE and parts North). Click here for a list of routes.
My recent post on Martin Luther King Drive sparked some interesting discussion about this area and how to revitalize it. Patronizing local businesses is certainly a good way to start.
In the last post I casually mentioned the concept of a retail bridge for Grand Boulevard. It took me a while but I finally found the example that I had referred to. In 2004 a developer added retail to both sides of a Columbus Ohio bridge spanning a major interstate that created a pedestrian barrier.
St. Louis is planning to rebuild the existing Grand bridge by adding a landscaped median as well as wider sidewalks and bike lanes. The intent is to make it more pedestrian friendly so that St. Louis University to the north and their medical center campus to the south are better connected. You can dress up a bridge all you like but it is still hundreds of feet of dead space. No amount of median planting will make it pedestrian friendly.
In Columbus a developer was granted the right to basically construct two new bridges over the interstate highway, each on the side of the existing bridge. By doing so pedestrians and drivers alike don’t really reailze they are on a bridge at all — it simply becomes a city street.
The Grand bridge spans railroad tracks, the existing MetroLink line and the eastbound lanes of I-64 (hwy 40 to locals). The actual width of the tracks and highway is quite short. The rest of the bridge just spans industrial land.
Here is my proposal:
Forget the planted medians on the bridge. They add weight, require maintenance and widen the distance from one side to the next. The do create safe crossing zones but I’ll address that in other ways.
Have four lanes of traffic, two in each direction. This is basically what is on Grand to the north and south of the bridge already.
Allow on-street parking just as you would on any other urban street. You might have some bus areas near MetroLink but otherwise make it urban.
Add one “intersection” along the span. This would ideally be at the MetroLink stop so as to create a proper street crossing.
One additional intersection might do well further south that would allow for car entrances into parking garages on both sides. Drivers could pull into a garage that would basically be built below the street-level retail, about 4-5 levels worth. At grade the structure could have street-level retail to serve the future greenway development area. This would provide more than enough parking for the retail above and adjacent to Grand.
In addition to building structured parking the area could have office and condo uses to compliment the street-level retail. The office space could include high-tech bio-med facilities as part of the CORTEX plan.
This bridge turned retail street could serve as a needed campus hangout area for both SLU campuses. It could include a coffee house (or two) as well as a copy center like a Kinko’s.
With plenty of structured parking, on-street parking, bus routes and MetroLink this could be a happening spot! With land on each side of the tracks and highway we’d be building not bridges but buildings that happen to have a floor that aligns with the bridge sidewalks.
Before all the naysayers try to explain why we cannot be urban let me try to address a few points. The area has already been blighted and is going to be redeveloped. Building new buildings up to the existing bridge is feasible, perhaps more so than the plan to add width and medians to the current structure. Also, we can be urban and what better place to create an urban street than at a location with a MetroLink light rail stop and between two major university campuses.
The Urban Land Institute along with some local organizations, including St. Lousi University, are sponsoring a competition for part of the proposed Chouteau Lake/Greenway area. With a submission deadline of February 6th it doesn’t give much time. From the Competition Brief:
The development site is an approximately 100-acre parcel encompassing a block on both sides of Grand Boulevard, bounded by Spring Street at the west and Theresa Street at the east; and spanning the proposed Chouteau Greenway, from Forest Park Boulevard at the north to Chouteau Avenue at the south. The northern and southern boundaries abut the north and south campuses of SLU, and your master plan must suggest ways in which your development would connect to the existing campuses and other neighborhood amenities.
In prior posts I’ve commented on the new SLU research buliding currently under construction to the south of this site — basically that it is an anti-urban tower sitting in the center of a green field. I’ve also written that when the Grand Boulevard bridge is rebuilt it should have street-level retail added to each side to “bridge” the gap of the tracks below.
[UPDATED 1/30/06 @ 9AM – I found the 2004 project in Columbus Ohio where retail was placed along both sides of a bridge spanning a major urban interstate. It is called the ‘Cap at Union Station.’ Click here to see the developer’s website on the project (includes many photos and a site plan).
The Cap at Union Station is a $7.8 million retail development that reconnects downtown Columbus, Ohio, with the burgeoning Short North arts and entertainment district. Opened in October 2004, the project effectively heals part of a 40-year scar that was created by the construction of the city’s Interstate 670 (I-670) inner-belt highway. Composed of three separate bridges—one for through-traffic across the highway, and one on either side for the retail structures—the Cap provides 25,496 square feet (2,369 square meters) of leasable space, transforming the void caused by I-670 into a seamless urban streetscape with nine retail shops and restaurants. While other cities like Seattle and Kansas City have erected convention centers over urban highways, the I-670 Cap is one of the first speculative retail projects built over a highway in the United States.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation recently had a story about church closings and possible demoltions in the New York City area, including a St. Aloysius in Harlem:
Architecturally, the three Harlem churches meet the commission’s criteria for landmarking: special character or special historical or aesthetic interest. But that’s only part of the churches’ significance. “They tell the story of immigrants to this country who were poor and who were unable to manifest any kind of individual pride in terms of places they were forced to live in,” says Michael Henry Adams, a Harlem architectural historian of Harlem and author of Harlem: Lost and Found. “But they were able to manifest a group pride by building these great buildings as an indication of their faith in God and also the opportunities of this great country. They’re symbols of the promise of America.”
In these cases parishioners are working with preservationists to save their history, even though the churches will likely be closed and the buildings used for other purposes.
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Built St. Louis
historic architecture of St. Louis, Missouri – mourning the losses, celebrating the survivors.
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In the last post I casually mentioned the concept of a retail bridge for Grand Boulevard. It took me a while but I finally found the example that I had referred to. In 2004 a developer added retail to both sides of a Columbus Ohio bridge spanning a major interstate that created a pedestrian barrier. 