The big 50th anniversary of the day the final piece of the Arch was lowered into place is one year from today. CityArchRiver 2015 has been working for a few years now to complete a big update to the Arch grounds for a huge celebration, but don’t expect to see everything you remember from the winning design completed in the next year. The balance of the work will be finished after this anniversary, well after in some cases (cough: gondola).
Here are some future anniversaries, opportunities to celebrate:
June 10, 2017: 50th anniversary of the Arch opening to the public
May 25, 2018: 50th anniversary of the inauguration by VP Humphrey
May 30, 2022: 75th anniversary of the opening of the design competition
February 18, 2023: 75th anniversary of the jury selecting Saarinen’s design the winner
December 15, 2033: 100th anniversary of the idea for a riverfront memorial
May 28, 2037: 50th anniversary of being listed on the National Register of Historic Places
February 12, 2038: 75th anniversary of the start of construction
October 10, 2039: 100th anniversary of the start of demolition to clear the historic riverfront
Luther Ely Square will be extended over the highway, but the expanded museum won’t be open until Spring 2017Work on the highway lid has moved quickly, though it remains a mess currently.View of the south side of the lidLid view from the Arch sideWhat we’ve known as the entry/exit areas will become exit-only once the new museum opensThe ash trees will be cut down to be replaced, the grounds are expected to be complete by May 2016View looking north from south of the ArchTrees to the south have already been tagged for removal. Click image to see video from May 1982 when these trees were youngWorks is progressing on the riverfront, this should be complete by a year from now.
I suspect a year from today I’ll be both impressed and disappointed by what is finished.
Please vote in the poll, located in the right sidebar
The last regular season game for the St. Louis Rams is December 28th, at CenturyLink Field in Seattle. With a 1-4 record I don’t think we can expect to see the Rams in the post-season. At the end of this season the Rams need to decide if they’re going to opt out of the last 10 years of a 30 year lease at the Edward Jones Dome. They can opt out because the quasi-government entity that owns the Dome was unable to meet the contractual obligation to keep the facility within the top 25% of all NFL stadiums. If the Rams opt out of the last 10 years they’ll switch to a year to year lease.
The negotiating climate changes rapidly. I personally had positive feelings when they drafted Michael Sam. When they released him, understandably so, my feelings cooled immediately. With players in trouble for domestic & child abuse, this year hasn’t been the best for the NFL’s image.
The poll question this week asks what you think the Rams will do. Not what you’d like them to — what will they do? The phrasing is:
“At the end of the current NFL season the St. Louis Rams have the right to opt out of the last 10 years of their lease at the Edward Jones Dome. What’ll they do?”
The poll is in the right sidebar, mobile users will need to switch to the desktop layout to see the sidebar.
Back on May 6th I got fed up with the sidewalk condition along Olive at 13th, so I emailed Bill Burkhardt, the city employee in charge of asphalt, and copied his boss, Director of Streets Todd Waelterman.
One of the photos I sent showed bucked sidewalk sections, the raised edges were hard to pass over in my wheelchair and a trip hazard for others.Another, in the same block, to the east, two concrete utility covers were very roughLess than a week later a little asphalt was now placed at various points to make the sidewalk less hazardous, but the rough utility covers remained for months.But on August 27th I noticed one had been removed, now facing westThe following day it was prepped for new concreteOn September 6th the other was removedOn September 15th the 2nd had been poured but workers remained.September 17th all workers are gone, both rough utility lids replaced,
Turns out the underground utility vaults belong to Ameren, the worker I spoke to said the lids shouldn’t have been allowed to get that bad. Eventually the sidewalk needs to be replaced, but the asphalt makes it tolerable in the meantime. Very glad the city contacted Ameren about their lids.
Aloe Plaza, across Market from Union Station, was many years in the making. President of the Board of Aldermen (1916-1923) Louis P. Aloe had championed a 1923 bond issue that included razing buildings across from Union Station to create a more attractive way to welcome visitors arriving by train. Aloe died in 1929 but his widow continued his vision, from the city’s former website on Aloe Plaza:
Edith Aloe, Louis P. Aloe’s widow, became acquainted with the work of the Swedish sculptor, Carl Milles, at an exhibition of modern art held by the St. Louis League of Women Voters in 1930. The idea of commissioning Milles to build a fountain in Aloe Plaza grew out of her enthusiasm for his work.
But the country was in the middle of the Depression so her idea was put on hold until January 1936 when Mrs. Aloe gave a dinner in her home for the sculptor,Carl Milles, and members of the St. Louis Art Commission. She officially presented her check for $12,500.
The City signed a contract with Milles in 1936. Milles designed and cast the bronze statues for the fountain in his studio at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Cranbrook, Michigan. The fountain was completed in November 1939, but remained veiled until its dedication on May 11, 1940 before a crowd of 3,000 persons.
The fountain, originally named “The Wedding of the Rivers,” depicts the union of the Missouri and the Mississippi Rivers, represented by the two central figures. Accompanying the two main figures and forming a wedding procession are 17 water spirits, symbolic of the smaller streams that empty into the two major rivers.
An uproar arose over the nudity of the male figure, reprenting the Mississippi River and the female figure, the Missouri River. In deference to the criticism, the name of the fountain was changed to ,”The Meeting of the Waters.” (PDF of website on Scribd)
Milles was in his early 60s when we was commissioned by St. Louis.
The former website listed the total cost of Aloe Plaza at $225,000, broken down as follows:
Fountains: $150,000
Statues: $60,000
Lighting: $12,000
Landscaping: $3,000
Tulips: $200
The cost of the tulips wasn’t included in the total. Not listed was the cost to acquire the land and raze the buildings.
Carl Milles, date unknown, Source: findagrave.com, click to view his memorialCarl Milles’ ‘Meeting of the Waters’ is the focal point of Aloe Plaza
Milles died on this day in 1955 — 59 years ago.
May 11, 2015 will mark 75 years since Aloe Plaza was first dedicated and ‘Meeting of the Waters’ unveiled. Our IKEA store won’t be open yet, but perhaps the Swedish retailer can be involved in a celebration.
Busy weekend, the post I’d planned for today will appear later this week. Today I thought I’d share a recent pic from Citygarden.
Citygarden on September 8, 2014 @ 8pm
The bright light on the right is the new Saint Louis University School of Law. I tend to take photos of Citygarden this direction, the other direction the Peabody sign on the Gateway One building is too bright. When Citygarden first opened in 2009 the Peabody name wasn’t on the building, the park was much more pleasant at night. Now the signage is overpowering.
For a future post I’ll try to get a decent nighttime shot to illiterate my point, to contrast with older photos from before the sign went up on the building.
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