Today I will be with friends I spend every thanksgiving with, enjoying homemade food and cosmopolitans (it’s our traditional drink as we cook).
ABOVE: A close friend's homemade stuffing served in a roasted pumpkin, Thanksgiving 2010
I have much to be thankful for this year:
The increasing number of urbanists fighting to keep others (Biondi, etc) from further destroying the city, giving me hope for the future.
Starting my 8th year blogging. My longest time at jobs has been about five years (about two longer than I should have stayed), so to still love what I’m doing after 7 years is thrilling & rewarding.
Very thankful for my family of friends in St. Louis.
And finally, I’m still alive! It’s been nearly four years since I had my stroke. I couldn’t get to my phone to call 911 and I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to survive. Going through that thought in your mind is life changing. The memory of that time and therapy will stay with me until the day I actually die. In the meantime, I’m going to do my best to encourage positive change in St. Louis.
ABOVE: The former Pevely Dairy at Grand & Chouteau (click image for map)
Father Biondi, President of Saint Louis University, must get a rush razing buildings, putting up fences and killing off potentially interesting areas. Word broke last week SLU wants to clear away the remainder of the Pevely Dairy at the SW corner of Grand & Chouteau:
The complex, at Chouteau Avenue and South Grand Boulevard, is made up of large brick buildings erected between 1915 and 1945. SLU has sought demolition permits for the buildings, which are on the National Register of Historic Places. The university argues the buildings can’t accommodate a modern medical practice. (STLtoday.com)
The Preservation Board will consider allowing demolition at their November 28th meeting (4pm). The poll this week asks simply if you think permission should be granted. Many will answer no but some may say maybe if SLU can show the building can’t be rehabbed. Others will say yes because you think since they own the building it is within their right to remove it from the landscape. The poll is in the right sidebar.
To my knowledge, UrbanReviewSTL.com is the oldest urban blog in St. Louis, with the first blog posts appearing on Sunday October 31st, 2004 – seven years ago today!
ABOVE: The "about me" section created on Oct 31, 2004
At 12:50pm on October 31, 2004 I created the “about me” section, shown above. Â Here is the text, sans my real estate pitch:
WHAT IS IT ABOUT ME THAT WANTED TO BLOG ON ST. LOUIS?
I’m often involved trying to save buildings from being demolished all the while stating I am not a preservationist. How can I put so much effort into saving old buildings and not be a preservationist?
I view myself as an urbanist first and foremost. Dynamic urban life is more important than any individual building, sports team, business or mayor. Great neighborhoods, by nature, incorporate existing urban-friendly buildings – especially those that are historic by virtue of architect, design or simply age.
[snip]
As an urbanist I see many mistakes being made in our urban environment. My intention with this blog is to highlight the positive and decidedly pro-urban parts of our city and region as well as show the mistakes. I hope that by showing the mistakes (and explaining why it is a mistake) we will begin to rebuild St. Louis into one of the countries [country’s] great cities.
My first post was a short while later at 2:30pm that day:
ABOVE: My first pic was a bike locked to a bike rack on Washington Ave
A BEAUTIFUL SIGHT
A month ago I was having lunch at Wasabi on Washington Avenue and I captured the essence of urbanity emerging in St. Louis.
The one thing missing from this picture is people. The goal is to make it difficult to snap a picture, day or night, in downtown St. Louis that doesn’t have people in it just due to the shear number of people on the sidewalks.
I love seeing a well-used bike secured to a proper bike rack. This inverted u-rack is considered one of the best urban bike racks due to its relative low cost, ease of use and simple design. The street trees, overflowing planers and even the row of parked cars made the sidewalk dining experience feel downright cozy. Spending a leisurely lunch people watching is one of the best of all urban activities.
My guest and I split an appetizer of Edamame. Edamame is one of the most simple of foods yet it is also one of the most rewarding in terms of both the processing of eating the soybeans from their pods and nutritionally. The urban lesson is that sometimes the simple solution is often one of the best.
Four more posts would follow later that same Sunday! Thousands of posts later, I’m still having fun. Hard to believe the eighth year begins tomorrow…
Tune in to KDHX 88.1FM tonight at 8:30pm to hear me on DJ Wilson’s show Collateral Damage. Thank you for reading!
Before I start this post let me first congratulate the Cardinals on doing what few thought was possible a month ago. The boost to our civic pride will hopefully last a while. I also hope winning the World Series will help get something built at the long-stalled Ballpark Village.
The day the St. Louis Cardinals won the 2006 World Series they unveiled plans (see post) to build “Ballpark Village” on the site of the old Busch Memorial Stadium (1966-2005). Today the site is parking and a softball field.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-MS5l-S8yc
Yes the bottom fell out of the economy in 2008 and there have been times when it looked like it would start. I’ve lost track on the current status.
ABOVE: Ballpark Village is a surface packing lot.
I’m just afraid it will still be vacant in another 5-15 years. It took 20 years for the Blues ownership to restore the Kiel Opera House. It was worth the wait but it also wasn’t a vacant hole in the urbn fabric all those years. Still, I’d rather Ballpark Village get built right rather than be rushed.
The poll question this week is:Â Will the Cardinals winning the 2011 World Series help get the proposed Ballpark Village built sooner? The poll is in the right sidebar.
The United States Postal Service (USPS) is facing financial difficulties due to declining use and rising costs.
ABOVE: USPS truck on Locust
The USPS has an idea to address their budget shortfall:
Under the Postal Service plan for five-day delivery:
Mail will not be delivered to street addresses on Saturday, and mail will not be collected from blue street collection boxes or Post Offices on Saturday. Also, there will be no Saturday pickup of mail from homes and businesses.
Mail addressed to Post Office Boxes will continue to be delivered on Saturday.
Post Offices will remain open on Saturdays. No Post Office will be closed as a result of the change to five-day delivery.
Express Mail will continue to be delivered seven days a week.
Outgoing mail may still be dropped off at a Post Office or in a collection box on Saturday, and will be canceled and processed on Monday.
Bulk mail acceptance that now takes place on Saturday and Sunday will continue.
The Postal Service does not take this change lightly and woud not propose it if six-day service could be supported by current volumes. However, there is no longer enough mail to sustain six days of delivery. Ten years ago the average household received five pieces of mail every day. Today it receives four pieces, and by 2020 that number will fall to three. Reducing street delivery to five days will help rebalance postal operations with the needs of today’s customers. It also will save about $3 billion a year, including reductions in energy use and carbon emissions. (USPS Five-Day Plan)
Postal delivery is the subject of the poll this week. I ask what should be done to solve the crisis. I rarely send/receive mail anymore so if it were up to me it would be delivered once a week and cost more. The poll is in the right sidebar.
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
