In other Tower Grove South news, South Grand is going on a road diet and you, St. Louis, can vote on the resulting slimmer design at an upcoming public meeting. I hear high-tech touch pads will be used for the voting process. Here's a cut-and-paste of the meeting announcement from the Tower Grove South website:
GREAT STREETS INITIATIVE SOUTH GRAND: Public Meeting and Design Charrette Announcement
Good Evening Everyone,
Please accept the attached postcard as an invitation to participate in the Public Meetings and Design Charrette scheduled for Monday, August 10, 2009 – Wednesday, August 12, 2009 from 4:00PM to 7:00PM. Also, please share the postcard flyer with your constituents so that they may have the opportunity to participate in the meetings as well. Should you have any comments or question, please give us a call at (314) 436-3311. We appreciate your immediate attention to this matter, and we look forward to meeting you.
Bridgett S. Willis
Hudson and Associates, LLC
1204 Washington Ave., Ste. 402
St. Louis, MO 63103
Office: 314-436-3311
Fax: 314-436-3503
Cell: 618-560-3225
Maybe a slimmed down South Grand will be able to compete with the charming, wacky Skinnytown along Morganford?
“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
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?
Cinco De Mayo 2008 on Cherokee Street. Photograph from cherokeestreetphotos.org.
Choosing the best neighborhood bar in the city is sort of like picking the cutest puppy in a basketful of golden retrievers. Not. Easy. That's because, to the delight of city dwellers and the despair of their livers, there are so many great bars in so many great neighborhoods. Cozy taverns tucked into brick buildings, elegant wine bars anchoring nightlife districts, beer-and-whiskey dives popping up in between fancy restaurants — which to choose? This year we've spun the wheel and landed on Riley's, in Tower Grove East.
What: "Point-Of-View: Cherokee Street and Benton Park West Neighborhood" photography exhibition
When and Where: Sept. 16 to Oct. 26 at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, 362 Social Sciences & Business Building. Hours are 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Oct. 25 to Jan. 10 at the Cherokee Business Incubator, 2715 Cherokee St.; hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Admission: Free
For more information, call:
(314) 516-5273.
We visited Cherokee Street. It is between Ohio and Texas streets in south St. Louis. It is kind of scary. There are a lot of broken windows and burnt wood on the ground. I think they might make up for lost time in a couple years. They need to rebuild the population. A lot of the buildings were empty.
Today, when I went to Cherokee Street, at first I was scared because people were speeding, the streets were empty and littered, and the buildings were old and had bars all around. I felt much safer when we split up into groups and went to the bakery.
I liked how the road crews were putting more vegetation in the community. If I were in charge, I would plant even more vegetation. I think lots of vegetation is important for the community.
If I could I would change the "gangsters" in this community because if I were living there I would not let my kids go out without adult supervision.
I'd also like to see more "Mom and Pop" stores in the St. Louis community, like I saw on Cherokee Street.
In this community the people are all friends. They celebrate Cinco de Mayo together playing Mexican games and eating delicioso Mexican food.
Today my class and I went to the Cherokee Street neighborhood. The buildings are old and some were empty. They looked better on the inside than out and the people were nice.
After visiting the Farmers Market I suggest that you go for a walk through one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city. Just up the street from the market you will find houses built around one hundred fifty and two hundred years ago. Most of these homes are brick, and many have small gardens and terraces. It is a nice place to walk. The sidewalks are brick and granite and they gently rise and fall from the old tree roots growing underneath the sidewalk. Week-day mornings you can watch cars speeding past on the highway, but in Soulard, the side streets are quiet and peaceful. While you walk, you can hear birds sing, and if you’re lucky like I was, you can even see them nesting.
The thing that I liked best about Soulard is that people stop to talk to one another on the sidewalk or at the market. No one seems too busy to stop to talk. It is a very friendly part of St. Louis. Where else can you get lunch in St. Louis, in view of the Arch and the city skyline and only spend two dollars? Plus get some delicious fresh fruit for free? Why, at Historic Soulard Market, of course.
Today we went to Soulard. We took a big yellow bus down I 44. Upon arriving, we first took a tour around the neighborhood. There were a lot of interesting buildings. A lot of the had interesting patterns in the brick.
I would change this neighborhood by adding more people and having them walk instead of drive cars. We also talked to a woman about why she moved to Soulard. She said she moved here because she thought it would be a nice neighborhood and it was. She eats at Molly's and a club called Obie's.
South Grand is an urban neighborhood. It is urban because there are a lot of office buildings, apartments, and you can easily get parking tickets if you don't put money in the parking meters. There are many old houses that have vines on them and trees and flowers.
I went to South Grand on March 6, 2001 to visit this old neighborhood. It is a nice place to live. It has beautiful homes and friendly people. Between 1850-1899 some homes looked fancy. They had iron stoves, lights, and chairs.
People live and work in this neighborhood. Some people work in the restaurants. Some people have picnics and play in Tower Grove Park.
South Grand has a lot of German immigrants. There are Vietnam and Bosnia immigrants, too. The place we went shopping is called Jay's International. I bought a soda from Vietnam. After we went shopping our group went to a restaurant called South City Diner. There we interviewed different people. I think that all the different people is what makes South Grand interesting.
I left hoping that every neighborhood would be as nice as South Grand. I love our neighborhood studies because they're fun and we get to meet new people and explore different places.
Today, March 3, 2001, I visited the South Grand and Shaw neighborhoods. My third grade class went there by bus because we are studying different St. Louis communities. I learned that Shaw is a beautiful and old neighborhood. However, I interviewed someone who worked on South Grand, and she was robbed once. So it seems to be a dangerous place to work and live. My mother works there, at the Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital. She agrees that it could be unsafe sometimes if you are not careful. I know this is true because I fell off a curb and skinned my knees and my chin!
