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Saturday, August 2, 2008

Neighborhood Banners and Logos: Part I



Since when is the Chain of Rocks Bridge in Baden? If you follow its city-defined boundaries, Baden has no coast line at all--it ends at Hall Street on the east.



The old Bevo 2001 symbol. Bevo actually has other neighborhood banners, most of which are now tattered. But those green banners are nice because they display the block numbers and run the entire length of the neighborhood along Gravois and Morganford. Still, some new ones are in order. The Mill and German symbolism should share space with the Bosnian immigrants that have so changed the neighborhood.



This logo is all part of the "re-branding" of McRee Town. It's shameful when we as citizens and when our policy makers can't overcome stigma to assist a downtrodden neighborhood in reshaping itself, rather than forcefully from the outside. At the very least, the overhauled neighborhood should have still sported the historical name McRee Town, in my opinion. But I know why they opted for "Botanical Heights"--free advertising for the Garden that helped take the neighborhood down. Plus, and excuse the pun, it's much more flowery.



To my knowledge, this sign was either vandalized or lost in one of the 2006 summer storms. It was a nice little entry marker to a little known neighborhood (though, with the mayor moving here, it may just be on the St. Louis City map soon!).



I really like these crests that hang on banners all over Carondelet. They memorialize that this was once an independent city, a little French and Spanish Creole settlement that retains its uniqueness despite its absorption by the city.

1 comments:

Autonoe said...

It would be fascinating to do a little history of a city entirely from the perspective of what its neighborhoods/districts have been called over the generations, both officially and unofficially, and all the simultaneous competing claims (the conflicts between the official and unofficial nomenclature alone could be pretty enlightening).

If you hadn't pointed out the blurb on Madison, WI's historic "Third Lake Ridge" neighborhood to me a while back, I might never have known that good old Marquette Neighborhood, where I went to elementary school, has a second name these days. And what's especially amusing about the choice of "Third Lake Ridge" is that it's ultra-retro - going back to the days before the Madison lakes had no "official" names besides First, Second, Third, and Fourth.

Makes me wonder if I still know what neighborhood I actually grew up in... Also makes me wonder how the identities of more recent subdivisions named by their developers will hold up as years go by.

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