“Most of the neighborhood residents in BPW don't go down to Cherokee street because they don't agree with what's happening or not happening in that stretch.”
by Bill Byrd
Yet I realize that our fragile, broken city still steams on.
It's saying a lot for St. Louis that its urban allure is still irresistible despite all of its puncture wounds.
Eric Sandweiss called St. Louis "The City of Fenced-off Corners" at the turn of the 20th century. Fenced-off corners referred to the tight-knit immigrant-run neighborhoods that were almost entirely autonomous and therefore largely disconnected from City Hall.
I think it's still true today, but it's in a much more literal sense. There are fenced-off corners of vibrancy, activity, and urbanity (the Central West End, Soulard, Lafayette Square). There are fenced-off corners in the sense of their isolation (N. Broadway and the stranded portions of Hyde Park east of I-70; and the example below...). There's not a connected city yet (or ever?).
But these unending pockets make life in the city so incredibly rich for the urban enthusiast!
I often wonder if I would even enjoy a St. Louis that took all the steps to stitch together these fenced-off corners. A part of me, the planner part, screams yes! this is exactly what drove you to remain a long-distance resident and not just another expatriate.
Yet that other part of me (it doesn't have a name) thinks the city is better for its fences.
Take these two examples. Both are in south city. Both are nooks now, but were once stitched into the larger fabric of the city. I-55 is the fence in both situations.
The Post-Dispatch reported on the first one. It was part of the Contemporary's Open Studio event. It's Keith Buchholz's studio at 4615 Oregon. This P-D write-up indicates the studio is a "circa 1810 farmhouse", though I highly doubt anything that old existed in this part of the city. The funny thing is, though, that it's so hidden at this point, who would ever know?
See this Streetview below? It's the building up those stairs, shrouded in all the greenery:
It's so intriguingly hidden. I should be furious though. The ruinous path of I-55 completely isolated this section of, what is it here, Mount Pleasant? The neighborhood's streets are essentially a series of cul-de-sacs shaped by I-55. Instead, though, it makes me want to explore even more than if the neighborhood were whole.
And take this B&B in "Benton Park"--this definitely related more to Soulard before the onslaught of I-55.
It's the Brewers House on the 1800 block of Lami, just west of I-55. It's a stunning Civil War-era house on a very historic block that is fenced in by the interstate to the east and the brewery complex to the west. Some friends of mine stayed there for New Year's a while back. It backs to the interstate (how many thousands of cars and people pass per day?) yet it might as well be in the country.
Pittsburgh has about 310,000 residents at last Census count. Its metropolitan region has 2.4 million. St. Louis has about 355,000 residents with an area of around 3 million.
So what gives? Without delving into the two cities' respective histories and demographies, I want to know what your ideas are for increasing St. Louis's pedestrian friendliness with the ultimate goal of increasing the number of pedestrians. I know crime, racial tensions, weather, overly wide streets, lack of pedestrian amenities, lack of vital public spaces and other factors hold St. Louis down to a degree that Pittsburgh just does not.
But it is amazing to me that a city of St. Louis's size, compared to Pittsburgh, has only the Loop as a traditional urban business district where one can walk several blocks and see dozens of other individuals walking with them.
A lot of St. Louis's problems seem to rest in its leaders and residents' belief in the mantra: if you provide parking, they will come. Yet, as we can see with the popularity of the Delmar Loop, it's the goal of having a commercial street with high foot traffic that really draws people. The people-watching appeal is undeniable when walking through any commercial area--whether a mall, the Loop, or Carson Street in Pittsburgh. Yet St. Louis's leaders (and even residents, often) are complicit in providing plentiful parking spaces.
New Orleans's Magazine Street is another great example. In its six miles, most of it retail and mixed use buildings, there are no parking garages. The street is active and heavily foot-trafficked.
St. Louisans also often cite a lack of parking as the reason for a particular business's failure. Yet is the equation that simple? Might that driving customer have struggled to find a space (what--2 blocks away tops?) if that same place had an awesome sign out front that drew them in; had amazing customer service or a unique product; had several stores and restaurants nearby to make the parking experience worthwhile? Better yet, what if more residents surrounding the establishment had walked from home?
Having visited and lived in cities of similar size to St. Louis--Pittsburgh and New Orleans--I have to say that this is one of St. Louis's greatest downfalls and one of its biggest detractors from claiming urbanism. There is a pronounced dearth of healthy business districts that are not only walkable (Manchester, Macklind, South Grand) but also regularly walked. Luckily, this seems to be slowly changing as some commercial areas become more popular and see new business openings (see previous three examples).
Yet the model of reinvigoration of a St. Louis business district always seems contingent on developing "destinations" out of individual buildings rather than marketing the whole district as a commodity. This leads to adjacent parking lots and the notion that a business district must "graduate" to walkability only after being deemed a "parkable" destination.
I have much hope for Cherokee Street as St. Louis's first and foremost example of relatively unbroken, walkable, and walked urbanism outside the Loop and Euclid in the CWE. With the Great Streets Initiative, South Grand could finally reach the critical mass of pedestrians as well. And North 14th Street in Old North at least sports the two blocks with an almost intact street wall.
Where do you fall on this discussion? Should we allow parking lots for the burgeoning district to reel people in, then allow demand to the fill those parking lots in with buildings? Or should we aggressively market existing business districts as urban places and significantly restrict all but on-street parking in order to encourage a) people to park farther away and therefore walk farther, b) people to simply walk to the district if they are within, say, one half mile distance, and c) people to take mass transit to arrive at these business districts?
Neighborhood Control of Preservation and Demolition: We propose an immediate moratorium on demolition north of Delmar, and meaningful neighborhood control of preservation and demolition. In order to preserve the valuable housing stock and architectural heritage north of Delmar, we believe that all of north city should be put under a revised form of Preservation Review, where proposed demolitions would need to be approved by the Neighborhood Development Advisory Board prior to review by the St. Louis Preservation Review Board. In addition, we expect any emergency demolitions be approved by the Neighborhood Advisory Board prior to approval by the Building Division, to prevent a developer from using this known loophole in preservation planning to demolish salvageable historic buildings which meet community standards for rehabilitation. This will preserve the community’s ability to access the State Historic Tax Credit program as an engine for economic development.
Emergency demolition permits are the easiest way to bypass preservation legislation in the city. Simply let your building precipitously decay (removing boards from windows helps) and watch as the city grants you an emergency demolition permit.
But a lot of the North Side is not in either a local historic district or a National Register District. North Side wards are also basically missing from Preservation Review, a process that ensures each demolition permit is reviewed by the Cultural Resources Office instead of simply going straight through to the Building Division, who almost always approves permits.
This bold suggestion of having the community review what of their building stock is important to them is innovative. It may not be airtight itself (some people, especially without architectural backgrounds, tend to unilaterally favor new construction at the expense of old). But the language in the CBA is still a bold step in the right direction of instituting citywide Preservation Review.
It's unbelievable to me that a city in 2009 would allow for a huge North Side warehouse to be dismantled (for a parking lot? This is getting beyond old.) Yet this demolition sailed through without so much as a notice at a grocery store.
This is simply unacceptable. The NorthSide CBA is one of the only public voices I have heard that has proposed this "radical" solution to our city falling further into an unwalkable, uninteresting, semi-rural haven for the automobile.
