The downtown YMCA partially reopened on Monday the 20th after being closed for 10 days. A couple of postings on their Facebook page explains:
January 10th:
The Downtown Y is closed until further notice due to a water main break. We are assessing the situation and will be able to update with details today. We apologize for the inconvenience. Other local YMCAs will welcome you during this time. We will be rescheduling more Fitness On Demand Orientations next week.
January 16th:
The facility is undergoing emergency cleanup due to a fire sprinkler system break that occurred as a result of last week’s subzero temperatures. Generators are currently being used to power equipment that is helping the cleanup happen quickly and safely. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause our neighbors and assure the community that we are working through this process as quickly as possible, with as little disturbance as possible. We appreciate your patience and understanding while we work through this unavoidable issue.
It was the generators on 16th Street that got my attention:
Equipment was on 16th street next to the YMCA/Centenary Tower building for days, it was removed by Wednesday
Presumably the 7 upper floors with 100 apartments, vacant since 2007, have been winterized. If so, the burst pipe was in one of the 3 floors of the YMCA.
In July 2013 I noticed the perimeter of BPV wasn’t ADA-compliant. The single ramp is pointed sorta across Walnut, no ramp for crossing Broadway. This needs a “blended corner” due to high volumes of pedestrians on game days
On January 19th I noticed this corner looks a bit different:
The entire corner was busted out so it could be redone, hopefully correctly this time.
I’m not sure who screwed up originally but the fixes aren’t cheap. This is just another example of pedestrian work done poorly/incorrectly in St. Louis, with almost no oversight.
Eventually I hope the owners, contractors, architects, and engineers on these projects will learn how to do things right, or at least hire someone that does, to make sure they’ve got it right before the concrete is poured.
This is a blazing moment for American stoners. Colorado has just legalized the commercial production, sale, and recreational use of marijuana, while Washington State will begin its own pot liberalization initiative at the end of February. On Jan. 8, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said his state would join 20 others and the District of Columbia in allowing the drug for medical purposes. (Business Week – Legal Weed’s Strange Economics in Colorado)
To be sure, ending prohibition won’t singularly eliminate the underground market or end racism in law enforcement. But it is a constructive step toward those goals, especially considering the aforementioned White House ad correctly acknowledging that marijuana isn’t egregiously dangerous. Sure, the government’s “safest thing in the world” line may have been an overstatement – but it was certainly closer to the truth than all the fear-mongering about our decision to embrace reefer sanity here in Colorado. (Salon – Reefer sanity takes hold in Colorado)
New York is one of the only states in the Northeast without a medical marijuana program. Gov. Andrew Cuomo was opposed to medical marijuana, and attempts to create a law have failed to get through the state Senate for years. Now Cuomo has reversed himself, proposing a medical marijuana research program run under exacting federal guidelines that would be the most restrictive in the country.(NPR — New York’s Medical Marijuana Experiment Begins With Caution)
News articles will continue on the topic as more states legalize medical & recreational marijuana, Illinois Dept of Health released draft medical marijuana rules yesterday. What about here in Missouri?
Thirteen initiative petitions related to the legalization of marijuana and hemp products were approved for circulation by Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander Wednesday, clearing the way for voters to decide on the issue during the November 2014 election.
For marijuana legalization to make the ballot, petitioners have to get enough signatures to account for eight percent of the total votes cast in the 2012 governor’s election from six of the state’s eight congressional districts. (KSDK)
The advocacy group Show-Me Cannabis submitted the petitions for approval but hasn’t yet determined if they’ll work to collect the needed signatures:
But before we launch a full campaign, however, we must assess whether likely 2014 voters will pass any of these measures at the ballot box in November. For that reason, we are hiring a firm to conduct scientific polling on the official ballot language approved by the Secretary of State. Polling is most accurate when respondents are presented with the specific question as it would appear on the ballot, so that is why we could not conduct this polling earlier.
We hope to receive results of the poll by the beginning of February, and if around 60 percent of likely 2014 voters surveyed say they will vote for our measure, we will very likely pursue a campaign this year. 60 percent is considered to be a very safe benchmark because even if support decreases somewhat by Election Day, which is common with initiatives, it will still pass. I am optimistic that the polling will show strong support, but that hunch needs to be tested scientifically. (Show-Me Cannabis)
The weekly polls here are not scientific, but since the same poll last April support of full legalization jumped from 53% to 63%!
Comparison of the results from a non-scienticfic poll conducted in April 2013 and last week.
From these results it appears increased full legalization support comes from the legalize medical/decriminalize recreational camp. It’ll be interesting to see the scientific polling of likely Missouri voters. Other states will likely have medical or full legalization on their November ballots.
Why am I so interested? Several reasons: prohibition on marijuana doesn’t make sense from a law enforcement, policy, health, or economic perspective. With the latter — the “green rush” is creating new opportunities, employing people, etc. For full disclosure: about 14% of my portfolio is comprised of marijuana-related stocks: (CANV, CBIS, FSPM, GRNH).
The Edward Jones Dome at Broadway & Cole in downtown St. Louis
This past weekend you no doubt saw video of the Minnesota Vikings’ 1982 Metrodome roof being deflated to make way for a replacement stadium. This got me thinking about our own St. Louis Rams and the Edward Jones Dome. The St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission (CVC) rejected the last Rams proposal, then lost in arbitration:
By declining to carry out that proposal, the commission granted the Rams stadium free agency starting in 2015.
Owner Stan Kroenke has the leverage to start negotiating a new stadium deal here or elsewhere. The Rams could operate amid uncertainty for years to come. (stltoday)
I have no doubt in my mind that Kroenke will opt out of the lease and begin trying to fund a build a new home for the team. He’ll extend his hand locally to see if it gets filled with money, or gets slapped down. He’ll threaten to relocate if we don’t help fund the new stadium, standard operating procedure in the NFL:
In Minnesota, the Vikings wanted a new stadium, and were vaguely threatening to decamp to another state if they didn’t get it. The Minnesota legislature, facing a $1.1 billion budget deficit, extracted $506 million from taxpayers as a gift to the team, covering roughly half the cost of the new facility. Some legislators argued that the Vikings should reveal their finances: privately held, the team is not required to disclose operating data, despite the public subsidies it receives. In the end, the Minnesota legislature folded, giving away public money without the Vikings’ disclosing information in return. The team’s principal owner, Zygmunt Wilf, had a 2011 net worth estimated at $322 million; with the new stadium deal, the Vikings’ value rose about $200 million, by Forbes’s estimate, further enriching Wilf and his family. They will make a token annual payment of $13 million to use the stadium, keeping the lion’s share of all NFL ticket, concession, parking, and, most important, television revenues. (How the NFL Fleeces Taxpayers)
I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating: if we continue to have an NFL team, a new stadium should be in a more spacious area. One site continues to come to mind:
The 280+ acre site of the former Chrysler plant in Fenton MO (St. Louis County) is big enough, well located
In fact, a new stadium would only need part of the site.
The biggest thing after funding any project is where you are going to place your new giant building. Every city has ideal sites for these over-65-acre—or three million square feet—stadiums.
There is no correct answer for the best place to put one of these bad boys. Honestly, it’s easiest to work with the city and figure out the most cost-effective site. Using Dallas as an example, they went through three different municipalities before they finally decided on a site in Arlington.
The idea behind picking a site is making sure it will be big enough for a new stadium. That means over 80 acres of undisturbed and non-requisitioned land—meaning no wetlands, no rivers, no easements, and no eminent domain issues.
The Cowboys decided on a site that is in that 80-acre range, and they finally got their stadium finished after over a decade of issues. They likely had to fight easements and eminent domain issues while they created the site.
Sometimes roads even have to be moved in the middle of a city and, in some cases, historic landmarks may be threatened. It’s definitely an issue the Falcons are facing with their site selection, as they may have to buy out a pair of churches that have been in Atlanta for years. (Designing the Perfect NFL Stadium)
With 280 acres available there’d be plenty of room for hotels, restaurants, retail, etc to be constructed. Being adjacent to I-44 these other businesses could hopefully survive off-season. I think local taxpayers will end up paying part of the cost of a new stadium, I just hope our leaders don’t get taken to the cleaners.
I see the Rams playing at the Edward Jones Dome through at least the 2018 season.
This is my 10th year blogging on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, on each of the previous nine years I’ve taken a look at Dr. Martin Luther King Drive in the City of St. Louis. Let’s start at the Mississippi River withn the King Bridge, originally known as the Veterans Memorial Bridge.
The MLK Bridge viewed from an Amtrak train in 2012
The Veterans Memorial Bridge was built by the City of East Saint Louis as a toll bridge, opening in 1951. At the time, it was the 6th longest cantilevered truss bridge in the US, and the largest cantilevered truss bridge over the Mississippi River. It carried US-40 and US-66 from 1955 until 1967. When the Poplar Street interstate highway bridge opened as a free bridge in 1967, the toll revenue from the Veterans Memorial Bridge dropped off dramatically. Eventually, both the bridge and the City of East Saint Louis would end up going bankrupt. The bridge was renamed in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968. The structure continued to go downhill until it had to be taken over by the Saint Louis Port Authority and rebuilt in the late 1980’s, opening again in early 1989. (Source)
At that time drivers coming into St. Louis on the newly renamed bridge crossed under the elevated highway but the road split — Delmar Ave. to the left (south) or Franklin Ave. to the right (north). This 1958 aerial is clearer than the 1971 aerial. My guess is there was debate in St. Louis about which street to rename for Dr. King. This is just a hunch given the fact it wasn’t until 1972 that part of Franklin Avenue and Easton Avenue were renamed to honor Dr. King. I hope to do some research on the naming process before MLK Day 2015.
MARTIN LUTHER KING DRIVE (E-W). (Official designation is DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING DRIVE.) Following the route of the early trail from St. Louis to St. Charles, this street was officially named St. Charles Rock Road in 1865 and renamed Easton Avenue in 1881 to honor Rufus Easton, an early St. Louis postmaster. It received its present name following the assassination of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1968. King won a Nobel Prize in 1964 for his work to gain full civil rights for black Americans.
EASTON AVENUE (E-W). Honored Rufus Easton, who was named St. Louis’ first postmaster in 1805. He also served as Missouri’s first attorney general and gained recognition as one of the leading lawyers of his day. The name Easton still occasionally appears on city street maps although Easton Avenue is now known as Dr. Martin Luther King Drive. (St. Louis Library Street Index):
Just a few years later we began removing blocks of Dr. Martin Luther King Drive, first the two blocks were between 7th-9th for the Cervantes Convention Center, which opened in 1977. This cut off the ability to drive directly from the King Bridge onto MLK Drive.
There are now several groups working in the Wellston Loop area, each with the stated goal to revitalize the area. Their strategies are diverse and not entirely compatible with each other. Over the next year I plan to talk with the various players, asking each why they think their strategy will be successful.
AARP Livibility Index
The Livability Index scores neighborhoods and communities across the U.S. for the services and amenities that impact your life the most
Built St. Louis
historic architecture of St. Louis, Missouri – mourning the losses, celebrating the survivors.
Geo St. Louis
a guide to geospatial data about the City of St. Louis
