I am returned to New Orleans once again. 11:58 PM

Another fantastic trip back home; a feeling of belonging that bores further into my skull. Sigh.

As regular readers of this blog know, when I return home, I hit up all those restaurants, etc. that opened up in my absence. I also, this time, was able to get to some I had never been to despite being fixtures of the St. Louis dining scene. Lacking money, I must thank my newly minted lawyer-brother for some of these meals. Thanks Josh!

As far as oldies-but-goodies, I went to both Modesto (the Hill) and Yemanja Brasil (Benton Park). Both are colorful and lively dining experiences. I would have to say, though, that Modesto provided some of the best food I've experienced in quite a while. Try the chicken croquettes! We must have had seven tapas portions of food that were all excellent. I give Yemanja more marks on its ambiance, which is as lively and festive as Copacabana.

I returned to a couple places, too--The Wedge (Bates/Virginia), Hodak's (a Benton Park classic), Hartford Community Coffee (Tower Grove South), Three Monkeys (Tower Grove South), Murdoch Perk (Southampton), and Pi (East Loop), to name a few.

I was extremely pleased to finally experience Urban Eats (Dutchtown), at Meramec and Virginia. I had a flatbread pizza that was extremely fresh and delectable. The place is a step up, for sure, in the decor department as well, especially compared to previous attempts at tackling the space. I would highly recommend this place if your desire is quick, relatively inexpensive, healthy food. Plus, you can overlook the sidewalk activities of a very urban neighborhood as you dine. As it turned out, I ran into 25th Ward Alderman candidate Shane Cohn and had a brief conversation with him at the establishment as well. I wished him luck in his campaign. He, like Steve Patterson of Urban Review St. Louis, who ran and lost in this same Ward against Dorothy Kirner, supports term limits for alderpersons. I could not agree more that this is a huge issue in St. Louis governance. [Wow...Urban Eats became surprisingly political].

Triumph Grill in Midtown/Grand Center is a superb addition to the neighborhood's growing repertoire of eateries (though I've still not been to The U or Pappy's, both having earned critical acclaim). I stayed somewhat conservative with my food choice (old fashioned fish and chips), but our party ordered an appetizer sampler that was simply delicious. Flash-fried asparagus with a soy-based dipping sauce? Count me in!

BoBo Noodle House (Skinker-DeBaliviere) was a pleasant surprise as well. Its ultra-contemporary/Euro design is surprisingly rare in St. Louis and is welcome in my opinion. I forget the name of my dish, but it contained beef and, go figure, noodles. Spicy and wonderfully tasty.

SweetArt in Shaw (on 39th) opened on the 26th, so I was actually able to make it to this highly anticipated spot. A husband and wife duo, painter and baker, respectively, have turned a vacant storefront facing the beautiful St. Margaret of Scotland Church into an urbanite's paradise. Within easy walking distance of thousands of Shaw residents and scores of visitors to the Garden is this pleasant bakery (which, of course, serves coffee). I tried the red velvet cupcake (all natural, by the way)--and it did not disappoint.

What's next on my list when I return?

Velocity Cafe and Cyclery (DeBaliviere Place)

Fritanga (Nicaraguan, on Jefferson near Russell)

One of the Mexican restaurants on Cherokee (...I've never been. I know. Shame. Anyone have recommendations?)

Taft Street Restaurant (Bosnian, in my parents' neighborhood, Bevo)

Also, I snapped a couple more pictures that I have yet to dump onto Skyscraperpage, and so may just make them Dotage exclusives. I was able to walk the length of the Macklind Avenue Business District and snap a bunch of photographs, so look forward to that post coming soon!

Thanks, all. My New Year's resolution is to post more often while I have a lull in my workload.

Happy New Year!

[Linkage to come soon...]

My first original photography! 12:40 AM

Hope everyone is having a splendid holiday season!

Thanks to my haul on Christmas day, I am now a happy digital camera owner.

Accordingly, I have snapped photos of the South Side all week!

If you want to check out my first work, which actually predated my own camera (I borrowed it from my sister), check out this Skyscraperpage thread.

Thanks.

Happy Holidays! 12:33 AM

Here's an in-post poll.

Where did you do most of your shopping for gifts?

Free-form Answers welcome.

What percentage of your gifts did you purchase within the city of St. Louis?

What was your "mall count" in the shopping season?

Did you make it a point to support local businesses this holiday season? If so, which businesses did you patronize? Which did you find was the best shopping experience?

Spill all the beans about your holiday experience here. Please.

...and Happy Holidays, everyone!

A spate of National Register listings is a good thing for St. Louis 7:08 PM

A map of St. Louis historic districts, minus recent additions (mentioned below).

The Landmarks Association of St. Louis and a couple private citizens have been working hard as of late to list more of St. Louis's historic vernacular architecture on the federal registry of historic buildings and districts: the National Register of Historic Places.

The National Register is important in St. Louis because, although it does not protect a building from demolition, it does open structures up to the state of Missouri's generous 25 percent investment tax credit.

In October of 2008, the Preservation Board considered the addition of a portion of the Marine Villa neighborhood to the National Register. Marine Villa is a wonderful reflection of St. Louis architecture, with its stock dating from the 1870s in early examples all the way up to the modern period (1960s). Red brick, Creole structures meet little modern bungalows in an odd but (in my opinion) somewhat cohesive building mix. While Marine Villa is in dire need of some tree planting, streetscape improvements, and better connections to the riverfront given its riparian nomenclature, a National Register district within the neighborhood might spur historic rehabs--the first step to an improved neighborhood.

Earlier in the year, the Preservation Board looked at the St. Cecilia Historic District (S. Grand (W), Delor (N), Virginia(E), Bates (S)). It includes 30 city blocks in south St. Louis. St. Cecelia is an excellent representative of St. Louis's early 20th Century late streetcar suburbs.

On this month's Preservation Board agenda, not one, but two districts are proposed. First, the "Liggett and Meyers Historic District", which is the portion of McRee Town that has not been demolished (west of Thurman, south of Park, east of Vandeventer, and north of Lafayette). Ecology of Absence has already discussed this addition (see "Folsom Avenue Blues"), which is the effort of the Garden District Commission, which had the other half of the neighborhood obliterated.

The other district is even larger--the Grand-Bates Historic Suburb District. Click the link to see the exact boundaries. A rough summation is that this district will take in several blocks to the southeast of Grand and Bates, partially from Grand to I-55. This district includes the impressive, tree-lined boulevard of Bellerive.

It was not long ago (2005) that the Gravois-Jefferson Historic Streetcar Suburb District was added to the National Register. Consuming nearly all of the Benton Park West neighborhood, much of Gravois Park, and parts of Dutchtown South, the district is St. Louis's largest in size and in number of contributing buildings. It is important because, with all of these recent additions to the Register, most of pre-1920 south St. Louis can now boast of historic district status--which raises property values and offers rehabilitation incentives all at once.

It's more than a shame that the original city of St. Louis has been mowed over multiple times: that old, compact Creole section hugging the river; the later manufacturing district that gave way to the Arch. It's also a shame that some of the earliest "suburban" outgrowths are also gone--Kosciusko, Mill Creek Valley, DeSoto-Carr, southern Old North St. Louis; most of LaSalle Park and Bohemian Hill; all the neighborhoods ringing downtown.

Even so, it's heartening to see that scrubby Dutch south St. Louis is recognized as historic. Fifty years from now, bungalows once taken for granted will appear all the more historic resources. A National Register listing for such properties certainly won't do any harm.

This is good news to break up the usual dour news as of late.

St. Louis goes ALL OUT with Stimulus Package Requests! 5:24 PM

Check out the Stimulus Package request for St. Louis. (Officially titled, the U.S. Conference of Mayors MainStreet Economic Recovery Survey).

It contains $2.4 BILLION worth of streetscape improvements, transit improvements, airport, etc.

UN-BE-LIEV-ABLE.

On the list:

• $900,000,000 for Northside/Southside Metrolink expansion!
• $3.0 million for City Hall Exterior cleaning/renovation
• $1.3 million for Old North streetscape improvements
• $4.0 million for Morganford (Arsenal to Chippewa) streetscape improvements
• $35.0 million for "Fixed Lane Trolley Development--Serving "Loop"/Washington University"
• $1.4 million for Historic Water Tower Renovations

And so much more!

How much that's on this list could possibly be approved? (By the way, the list contains the number of jobs the project is expected to create.)

Exciting to even see it all in print! I mean...nearly every streetscape would be rehauled!

Check it out for yourself.

UPDATE: St. Louis's request may be the nation's largest amount! I'll keep investigating.

My next project: Mapping SLU's demolition derby in Midtown for the past few decades 5:41 PM

Wish me luck.

It's going to be a lot of work.

But I was inspired by this saddening piece of news (and I'm not overly pleased by SLU's proposed demolition of Laclede Street for new student housing, either. There are other viable sites. Try Olive Street west of Spring. It's vacant, large, and waiting for redevelopment. Or build taller, rather than wider, adjacent to, but sparing, Laclede Street).

Another mansion to be lost; a context, already faded, wiped away forever.

What will be the model to rebuild by? I shudder to think.

The New I-64 may border on scandal. 12:45 PM

We taxpayers have spent millions.

The media nearly gave us heart attacks last year, predicting that the closure of the western portion of the "New I-64" project was an effective "Sorry, We're Closed" sign for the whole region.

And, after all of that, this is what we got?

I guess I should have looked at the plans more closely; I didn't realize it was merely a highway widening project. What a waste of money: turning old Highway 40, whose bridges actually had some character, whose roadway is actually historic, into the Page Avenue extension!

I truly thought that thoughtful design would go into new bridges; that clover intersections would be going on a "road diet" and give up right-of-way for future development.

I think that it's a scandal, in 2008, to be widening roads, for this much money and energy wasted, without consideration to non-motorized regional transit--no parallel project to expand light rail--just another widened road. It's our portly roads that ensure an ease of access in and out of the city that have proven so stifling to attempts to bring retail (and residents) back into the City of St. Louis.

This is a waste.

And it further christens the automobile, far and away, as the unrivaled king of transportation in the St. Louis region, especially after the failure of Proposition M, which would have plugged a Metro budget leak into the hundreds of millions. Instead, we as taxpayers have allowed those hundreds of millions to be shifted to car users, for the umpteenth time in St. Louis history.

I think it's a scandal. And I and other urbanists have dropped the ball; we should have acted sooner. Might it be early enough to intervene in the eastern section?