The City that Never Sleeps / Mound City

I just got back from my first ever (albeit very brief) trip to New York City.

Here is a cell phone picture of SoHo to stand as incontrovertible proof that I indeed visited:

St. Louis can't compare to this, right? People, shops, activity in every direction. As a self-avowed urbanist, St. Louis should be quickly fading from my memory.

But it's simply not. While I was scrolling through my several cell phone photos of New York, I crashed abruptly into this one...

This was certainly not New York. In fact, it was definitely no where else but St. Louis. Little Midwestern St. Louis, a city of 355,000.

I can't explain it fully, but I brimmed up with pride in the moment of the realization: these unique red brick streetscapes are ours and, for the most part, ours alone.