The Short Life Of Some Street Trees

Last week workers replaced the dead street tree in front of my building, it was planted in 2008. Other trees in front of the building are older, but this spot is where dogs go as soon as their owners  take them outside. I’m not sure if that’s the cause of the short lifespan of the last tree or one of numerous reasons it didn’t survive.

Hopefully this tree will last longer. I saw the workers digging out the old tree but I didn’t stick around to see how it had been planted or the conditions. I did snap a picture of a hole for a street tree around the corner just before the tree was planted.

Yes, the earth surrounding the hole is filled with bricks. How do we expect trees to survive when the root system has to compete with bricks and other debris?

– Steve Patterson

Then & Now: Racial Segregation

A century ago whites went to great lengths to keep out non-whites, including deed restrictions:

On February 16, 1911, thirty out of a total of thirty-nine owners of property fronting both sides of Labadie Avenue between Taylor Avenue and Cora Avenue in the city of St. Louis, signed an agreement, which was subsequently recorded, providing in part:

‘* * * the said property is hereby restricted to the use and occupancy for the term of Fifty (50) years from this date, so that it shall be a condition all the time and whether recited and referred to as ( sic) not in subsequent conveyances and shall attach to the land, as a condition precedent to the sale of the same, that hereafter no part of said property or any [334 U.S. 1 , 5] portion thereof shall be, for said term of Fifty-years, occupied by any person not of the Caucasian race, it being intended hereby to restrict the use of said property for said period of time against the occupancy as owners or tenants of any portion of said property for resident or other purpose by people of the Negro or Mongolian Race.’

The entire district described in the agreement included fifty-seven parcels of lamd. The thirty owners who signed the agreement held title to forty-seven parcels, including the particular parcel involved in this case. At the time the agreement was signed, five of the parcels in the district were owned by Negroes. One of those had been occupied by Negro families since 1882, nearly thirty years before the restrictive agreement was executed. The trial court found that owners of seven out of nine homes on the south side of Labadie Avenue, within the restrit ed district and ‘in the immediate vicinity’ of the premises in question, had failed to sign the restrictive agreement in 1911. At the time this action was brought, four of the premises were occupied by Negroes, and had been so occupied for periods ranging from twenty-three to sixty-three years. A fifth parcel had been occupied by Negroes until a year before this suit was instituted. (Source)

The above was part of the majority decision of the US Supreme Court on May 3, 1948 when they ruled it was unconstitutional for the state to enforce such deed restrictions.

Today the situation is reversed, some African-Americans are trying hard to keep whites out of north St. Louis.

In March the BBC did a video report on the dividing line:

Delmar Boulevard, which spans the city from east to west, features million-dollar mansions directly to the south, and poverty-stricken areas to its north. What separates rich and poor is sometimes just one street block. (BBC)

I was recently told that whites shouldn’t be involved north of Delmar because it’s not their community. Whites that move north of Delmar are gentrifiers. North St. Louis is sparsely populated and and incomes are substantially less than south of Delmar.  Clearly more people with higher incomes are needed in north St. Louis to reduce this disparity.

When I was in real estate I had a middle-class African-American family looking to move from St. Louis County to the city but they made it clear to me — they didn’t want to live in the ghetto. I represented them in the purchase as  a fully renovated home in McKinley Heights. We did look at property in north St. Louis, but only for rental purposes, not for them.

Some see whites as a threat, gentrifiers that will cause rents and sale prices to go up.  Maybe, but more people with greater income will mean more jobs as businesses spring up. Some of the new entrepreneurs  could be current African-Americans.

My interest in St. Louis doesn’t stop at Delmar. My interest in the region doesn’t stop at the city limits. If a white person wants to live north of Delmar then go for it.  It was wrong last century for whites to attempt to exclude nonwhites and it’s wrong today for African-Americans to attempt to exclude whites from the same area.

I didn’t like being told to butt out of areas north of Delmar.

– Steve Patterson

Readers: Global Warming Is Affecting The Weather In The United States

Most readers agreed that global warming is affecting the weather in the United States.The examples are numerous, too many to be a coincidence.

Take March:

Record and near-record breaking temperatures dominated the eastern two-thirds of the nation and contributed to the warmest March for the contiguous United States since records began in 1895. More than 15,000 warm temperature records were broken during the month. The average temperature of 51.1°F was 8.6 degrees above the 20th century average. In the past 117 years, only one month (January 2006) has ever been so much warmer than its average temperature. (It’s official: March 2012 warmth topped the charts)

Last month it got ugly:

The storm center determined that 75 tornadoes touched down in Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa and Nebraska during a 24-hour period beginning at 6 a.m. Saturday. Six people died as a result of an overnight tornado that hit Woodward, Okla., about 140 miles northwest of Oklahoma City. No other deaths were reported. (Huffington Post)

Then in the news on April 23:

BUFFALO, N.Y. — A nor’easter packing soaking rain and springtime snow churned up the Northeast on Monday, unleashing a burst of winter, closing some schools and triggering power outages in communities that were basking in record warmth a month ago. (Washington Post)

And Saturday:

One person is dead, five others critically injured after powerful winds upended a huge tent outside a downtown St. Louis bar, sending tent poles flying through the crowd. (KMOV)

The above was the first of two storm systems in the St. Louis area, just hours apart.

In the poll there were some votes from likely Climate Change Deniers but most agree man has managed to alter weather patterns.

The poll results are below, the question came from page 16 of this report from Yale. National averages are the second percentages shown below:

How strongly do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Global warming is affecting the weather in the United States.

1. Strongly agree 76 [61.29% / 26%]
2. Somewhat agree 27 [21.77% / 43%]
3. Somewhat disagree 11 [8.87% / 19%]
4. Strongly disagree 10 [8.06% / 11%]

The original post introducing the poll is here.

– Steve Patterson

Thirtieth Anniversary of Richard Serra’s Twain

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the dedication of ‘Twain’ by Richard Serra, easily the most hated or misunderstood art in St. Louis (depending upon your viewpoint).

I tried to arrange a party for tonight to celebrate the anniversary. I had  a lighting designer and manufacturer willing to temporarily light the sculpture. But nobody with deep pockets or art world connections were willing to lift a finger. We’ve got abandoned buildings  galore but we also have an abandoned city block with art by a well known artist.

Being inside Twain is amazing, the sense of enclosure changes your perception of the surroundings. People do wonder inside and when they do they get it also.

Below is from dedication day, May 1, 1982. Original film footage by Merrill Bauer.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3zIlq7Je74

Hopefully some day we can connect this block to Citygarden to the east.

– Steve Patterson

Street vs Alley?

Two downtown streets are more like alleys than streets: Lucas Ave & St. Charles St. Both are parallel to Washington Ave with St. Charles St. to the south and Lucas Ave to the north. I’m sure when early founders laid out the street grid these two had buildings facing them. in the 18th & 19th centuries.

In many places these two have been closed entirely as large buildings were built on the right-of-way after the city vacated it. Examples include the convention center and the former St. Louis Centre indoor mall. In recent years some lofts have entrances facing these two, such as Railway Lofts facing Lucas Ave and 10th Street Lofts facing St. Charles St. These are the exception though, not the rule. St. Charles St. runs along the back of my building, our recycling dumpsters are there as is the entrance to our parking garage.

These need to stay as named streets because of the few places with entrances facing them but we shouldn’t encourage more facing them. In very dense cities you’ll see such streets as active places but we aren’t anywhere dense enough to make these safe to walk down at night. They also lack sidewalks so making entrances accessible is a challenge.

They’ve got proper names but they’re best viewed like they have been for over a century — as alleys.

– Steve Patterson