Chouteau is too fat! Not the late Auguste Chouteau – I’m talking about the avenue named after St. Louis’ founder. Chouteau Ave has four travel lanes plus generous parking lanes, it’s too wide. I couldn’t find the curb-to-curb width but the public right... »
Pruitt & Igoe will forever be known around the world as the names on the biggest failure in modernist public housing, Pruitt-Igoe. When the Pruitt-Igoe complex was designed it was to be racially segregated. The black portion was named after Wendell O. ... »
I was in the Grand Center part of Midtown Thursday night. Grand Center is centered on a too short 3-4 block stretch of North Grand that was not razed for urban renewal to the north of Delmar or grass south of Olive. Many buildings stood vacant for year... »
A year and a half after I moved to St. Louis a huge scandal broke — 20 years ago today: The chief state prosecutor for the city of St. Louis, who has spent most of his 15 years in office crusading against obscenity, pornography and prostitution, was ch... »
The majority of the readers that voted last week agreed that Saint Louis University President Biondi has destroyed midtown since 1987 — a decade after it became a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places. Here were the final result... »
In July 1978 the Midtown Historic District (large PDF) became part of the National Register of Historic Places. The entire area was very rundown at the time, numerous buildings were vacant or nearly vacant. The St Louis Symphony Orchestra moved into th... »
Mark your calendars for March 8th — seven local teams will present their response to the challenge they were assigned. Facebook users can RSVP here, everyone else show up — nobody will be turned away. The event is free. From the announcement: For our ... »
The presentations were completed and the Planning Commission had asked questions of Saint Louis University representatives about their appeal. Don Roe, Director of the St. Louis Urban Design & Planning Agency was discussing procedures with the members ... »
I have a note on my calendar that the St. Louis Planning Commission will hear an appeal of the Preservation Board’s decision in December 2011 to uphold the staff denial of Saint Louis University’s demolition requet for the historic Pevely Dairy at Gran... »
The poll last week was interesting to watch, I’d wanted to do such a poll question for a long time but didn’t have a good reason. The new Hamburger Mary’s opening up in an area other than our gay village, The Grove, was a good excuse to do so. Here ... »
One debate often heard in cities is about gayborhoods, or gay village. Let’s start by defining this term which may be new to many of you, from Wikipedia: A gay village (also known as a gay neighborhood, gay district) is an urban geographic location wit... »
The other day I found myself in the 7-story Chouteau Building located adjacent to the intersection of Chouteau, Vandeventer & Manchester. Bleak, depressing, and hostile are just some of the adjectives that popped into my head as I looked out the window... »
In the 21+ years I’ve been in St. Louis I’ve watched Harris-Stowe State Universitygo through name changes and a major expansion of their campus. This was done under the leadership of university president Dr. Henry Givens Jr., now retired: Givens manage... »
On Monday the St. Louis Preservation Board approved the demolition of some buildings at the Pevely Dairy site but denied the two most critical, the corner structure and the smokehouse. Facebook & twitter were on fire afterwords with people celebrating.... »
The Preservation Board usually meets on the 4th Monday of each month but due to the holidays will instead meet tonight. On the agenda is Saint Louis University’s proposal to replace the historic structures with a lawn. And probably a fountain. The conc... »
