St. Louis is Distinctive, but Not the Most Distinctive 10:23 AM

As reported earlier on this blog, St. Louis was recently honored to be selected as one of the nation's "Dozen Most Distinctive Destinations" for 2010 by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

For the first time ever, the Trust put the dozen destinations, which included Provincetown, Massachusetts and Bastrop, Texas, up to a popular vote to determine the Fan Favorite.

Marquette, Michigan is this year's winner, besting St. Louis by a considerable margin.

See the final results here.

Marquette will receive a free one-year partnership with Gozaic.com, a new website dedicated to heritage tourism.

The photograph, showing the Upper Peninsula 200 Sled Dog Race in Marquette, is courtesy of the National Trust.

St. Louis: We're a Distinctive Destination! 12:07 PM

Last year I posted about St. Louis's not being listed on the National Trust for Historic Preservation's annual listing of the nation's "Dozen Distinctive Places". By my review of their archives, the city had never been selected,  although St. Genevieve, Missouri had. A USAToday article describes the Dozen Distinctive Destinations as "highlighting 'cultural and recreational experiences different from those found at the typical vacation destination.'"

Well, 2010 is your year, St. Louis! We're now distinctive!

Here's the link and here's the list:

2010 DISTINCTIVE DESTINATIONS

» Bastrop, Texas
» Cedar Falls, Iowa
» Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania
» The Crooked Road, Virginia
» Fort Collins, Colorado
» Huntsville, Alabama
» Marquette, Michigan
» Provincetown, Massachusetts
» Rockland, Maine
» Simsbury, Connecticut
» Sitka, Alaska
» St. Louis, Missouri

What was said of St. Louis?

Meet Me In St. Louis

Famous for its beer, legendary baseball teams, and the modernist Gateway Arch that has loomed over the cityscape since 1947, St. Louis, Missouri is one of America's great cities. But visitors who look beyond St. Louis' hallmark offerings will find a vibrant, ethnically diverse city full of unexpected treasures and one-of-a-kind attractions.

Gateway to the West

Immigrants determined to pursue their version of the American dream made tracks to this city on the banks of the mighty Mississippi River in the early nineteenth century, resulting in what is now a regional patchwork of architectural styles and distinctive neighborhoods. Architecture buffs and curious visitors will not be disappointed with the collection of red brick buildings, cobblestone streets and terra cotta friezes designed by some of America's most notable architects: from Louis Sullivan's Wainwright Building, lauded as the nation's first skyscraper, to the area's only Frank Lloyd Wright-designed building, Ebsworth House, St. Louis has preserved excellent examples of America's major architectural trends throughout history.

Activities

The size of the city and breadth of cultural influences have combined to provide sites and attractions for every visitor to enjoy. Art lovers will revel in evening gallery walks through revitalized historic districts, the world's largest collection of interior mosaics at the 1908 Byzantine and Romanesque Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, and the exquisite details of Theodore Link's stained glass windows at St. Louis Union Station. The station, which was once the largest and busiest passenger rail terminal in the world, now serves the public as a festival marketplace of shops and restaurants. In a Preserve America community located just south of downtown, the Anheuser Busch Brewery offers tours of the historic Brew House and Clydesdale stables and is in close proximity to the longstanding Soulard Farmer's Market.

St. Louis Going Green

According to the U.S. Green Building Council, St. Louis ranks ninth among U.S. metropolitan areas for the number of buildings certified under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program. The region features 11 LEED-certified construction projects that have been completed, with another 36 in the process of attaining LEED certification. Seasonal markets are interspersed throughout the city to promote a Buy Local campaign, and St. Louis lays claim to an abundance of sprawling parks and green spaces including the nation's oldest public garden, the Missouri Botanical Garden. 

Congrats, St. Louis!

St. Louis is Still Not a "Distinctive Destination" 5:40 PM

Every year since 2000, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has released a list of a "Dozen Distinctive Destinations".

These are places that: "offer an authentic visitor experience by combining dynamic downtowns, cultural diversity, attractive architecture, cultural landscapes and a strong commitment to historic preservation and revitalization."

All right, all right. St. Louis is lacking in a lot of those. But, even if it were just a neighborhood of St. Louis, such as Lafayette Square or Soulard, shouldn't St. Louis get some recognition as distinctive?

It's a city with a staggering degree of history, even if a lot of the physical connections to that past have been erased. There's a wealth of existing exemplary architecture and parks. Cultural connections are many (everything from the landmark Dred Scott case to the development of the A-bomb).

Ste. Genevieve, Missouri was honored last year. Maybe someone could make a pitch for St. Louis in the upcoming year?

Here is this year's list, for those interested:

2009 Dozen Distinctive Destinations
Santa Barbara, CA
Athens, GA
Saugatuck-Douglas, MI
Virginia City, NV
Santa Fe, NM
Buffalo, NY
Lititz, PA
Bristol, RI
Hot Springs, SD
Franklin, TN
Fort Worth, TX
Lake Geneva, WI

P.S. If Buffalo and Fort Worth can make it on the list, surely St. Louis can, right?

St. Louis Main Streets: Cherokee 8:18 PM

In the previous post, I noted that St. Louis had no National Trust "Main Streets". Cherokee should be its first.




The nearly one and a half mile stretch of Cherokee Street in St. Louis is definitely one of St. Louis's most notable drags. On the eastern end, the magnificent Lemp Brewery complex awaits redevelopment.



Heading west, the "Antique Row" stretches until just about Jefferson Street. With its namesake's stores scattered about, one will also find an unexpected rare treasure for St. Louis--the magnificent vegan and vegetarian diner, Shangri-La as well as one of the city's most comfy coffeehouses, the Mississippi Mud House.

Moving on to South Jefferson, kitsch gets its proper dues with a rather stereotypical depiction of a Native American (presumably a Cherokee) at the gateway to the "Cherokee Station" shopping district, once a verifiable "downtown" for South St. Louis--an unabashed Main Street. In the middle of the district, a small but growing Latino/a population has injected much-needed life into a series of blocks. Formerly moribund blocks now pop with color, sidewalks once again are graced with sauntering pedestrians, and parking meters once starved for change now have their fill. Taquerias, grocers, and discount retail occupies these couple blocks. Look for one of St. Louis's best street festivals at Cinco de Mayo time.


After passing new record store Apop, you'll be out of the burgeoning ethnic enclave and you'll be on your way to an as-we-speak incubating indie arts district pioneered by Fort Gondo's Galen Gondolfi. Bookending the western portion will very soon be the Royale's Steve Smith's new alcoholic establishment, so look for that.

The photographs are courtesy of the Urban St. Louis forum member Jax.

While the pictures above do not display many pedestrians, Cherokee Street is nevertheless an active business district at peak hours. It features several shops and restaurants, but many storefronts are empty. It has many potential anchors (the Lemp Brewery being the big one) that could serve as a catalyst to neighborhood improvement, but are currently underutilized. It is already a pedestrian friendly street, especially by St. Louis standards. The street width and traffic speed are acceptable, stop signs (sometimes obeyed!) adorn each block for the most part, and Bike St. Louis now runs down the length of Cherokee. In short, with investment and careful assemblage of business owners toward the common goal of improving Cherokee, we might see a major difference on the street. The Main Streets program would, with any luck and determination, do just that.

And I am not speaking of any insidious gentrification; rather, new businesses should receive assistance in their move to Cherokee; the streetscape should be updated and made even more attractive; and tourists (as well as visitors from farflung parts of the region) should wander their way down to St. Louis's funkiest commercial street via better promotion and signage.

Cherokee should be St. Louis's first Main Street.

Why no St. Louis "Main Streets"? 4:37 PM

Chicago has two. New Orleans has four. Detroit has eight. But St. Louis has none.

What is a "Main Street" and why do I have it entrapped by quotation marks? The Main Street Program is...well, let's let the Trust explain:

In the 1970s, the National Trust developed its pioneering Main Street approach to commercial district revitalization, an innovative methodology that combines historic preservation with economic development to restore prosperity and vitality to downtowns and neighborhood business districts. Today, the message has spread, as the Center advocates a comprehensive approach that rural and urban communities alike can use to revitalize their traditional commercial areas through historic preservation and grassroots-based economic development. It has created a network of more than 40 statewide, citywide, and countywide Main Street programs with more than 1,200 active Main Street programs nationally.

The Main Street "Four Point Approach" is a strategy to redevelop ailing "main streets", both urban and rural, or bolster those that already have significant assets. The four points are Design, Organization, Promotion, and Economic Restructuring--affectionately abbreviated D.O.P.E. by those witty enough to notice. A "Main Street" gets a manager (much like a mall) to whom all emerging concerns filter, while an organized collection of business owners work together to make the Main Street attractive, lively, and, most important, financially viable. It has been called the Trust's greatest program and studies have shown for every one Main Street dollar invested, 38 return.

The project started off as a pilot project in the Midwest and only applied to cities with fewer than 100,000 people, as rural decline at the time was perhaps at an even greater crisis than its better publicized urban counterpart. Urban Main Streets are now fairly common, with Boston having led the way with its remarkable pouring of support into the program.

In future updates, I will argue my choices for the St. Louis Main Street Program. This program boasts of several features that make it a clear choice for St. Louis: it is in effect a "subsidy" for local businesses (rather than the TIFs and other incentives handed out to large developers who bring national chains to the table and nothing else); it encourages rehabilitations of long suffering commercial corridors that are seen as outmoded today; and it has worked in so many places. In short, it quietly kills that destructive adage that historic preservation and economic development are diametric opposites.

Stay posted.