Readers’ Favorite St. Louis Commercial Streets: Euclid, South Grand, Delmar, & Cherokee
Rarely does the “unsure/no answer” option go unselected in the weekly poll, but last week the voting was higher than usual with 145 total votes and everyone had an opinion about their favorite commercial street in St. Louis. Here are the results:
Q: Pick your favorite commercial street in St. Louis city
- Euclid (CWE) 32 [22.07%]
- Grand (South Grand) 25 [17.24%]
- Delmar (Loop) 23 [15.86%]
- Cherokee Street 20 [13.79%]
- Washington Ave 17 [11.72%]
- Other: 11 [7.59%]
- Manchester Ave (The Grove) 8 [5.52%]
- Morgan Ford 5 [3.45%]
- Locust St (Midtown Alley) 3 [2.07%]
- N. 14th Street (Old North) 1 [0.69%]
- Unsure/No Answer 0 [0%]
As I said in the post introducing the poll, I’m thrilled there are so many choices.
In hindsight I should’ve 1) noted I meant a commercial street with organized marketing effort 2) defined what a commercial street is and isn’t, 3) allowed 2-3 selections rather than just one, and 4) included a few of the ones below submitted by readers:
- DeMun Neighborhood West of Clayton
- Ivanhoe
- Macklind
- manchester ave
- the Loop and South Grand tie for me
- Castleman Circle (Shaw & Vandeventer)
- Manchester (Maplewood)
- Gravois
- Mackland
- Truman Parkway
- Hampton Avenue
Ivanhoe & Macklind are the two I wish I had included. DeMun is an interesting area…in Clayton, not the city. Interestingly nobody added say 2nd Street in Laclede’s Landing.
How did Euclid in the CWE edge out South Grand, Delmar Loop, and Cherokee? Probably a number of factors but the main one is likely the first mover advantage. It was Euclid Ave that convinced me to move to St. Louis in 1990, at the same time the other streets were nothing like they are today.
— Steve Patterson
This list is nearly devoid of northside choices. There are plenty of commercial corridors on the northside as well. N. Broadway in Baden, W. Florissant through lots of neighborhoods. The Riverview Circle. Natural Bridge, Page, and Dr. MLK are main corridors, Vandeventer. N. Grand. N. KIngshighway. St. Louis Avenue. In fact, St. Louis Avenue might just be the most interesting commercial street in all of the city.
I agree those are all interesting corridors, but they can’t compete. The poll was up for a week and people suggested numerous others streets I hadn’t listed. Nobody mentioned the absence on the north side until now. I’m glad you brought it up though.
MLK competes.
The city is setting aside millions of dollars in local, state, and federal funding for improvements to the MLK corridor, begging the question: should more resource go into building up weaker areas or should more resource go into maintaining and building up stronger areas?
All neighborhoods are not equal and require different revitalization strategies. What strategies would you propose to build up weaker, northside areas?
Oh, and back to the list, don’t forget Salisbury through Hyde Park. Millions in new investment has recently gone into that corridor as well.
I’d love for these to be competitive, but at the moment they don’t. The new-ish business incubator across from the Harlem Tap Room is an awful suburban mess. Name one street on the north side where I can get a nice Sunday brunch, lunch at a sidewalk table, dinner on a patio, dessert afterwards, buy some gifts, refill a prescription, etc. Just one.
Goody Goody Diner offers a nice breakfast. There’s a cool new coffee/sandwich shop in the same building as the Housing Authority HQ near North Grand and MLK. There must be prescription shops in many northside places, especially along W. Florissant and the Riverview Circle/N. Broadway areas. It sounds like in your poll you were looking for the most trendy/hipster/high end retail offerings. In that case, you left off the best of all: Maryland Plaza in the CWE. Euclid’s a piker compared to Maryland Plaza.
When all that exists in a 3-5 block long section commercial street let me know.
Fair enough. Just went back and read the original poll. You were asking for favorite “thriving” commercial districts. You’re right. There are no “thriving” areas in north city. North city is mostly dead or dying. So is it time to turn off the lights there and focus our resources on areas with more market strength? Some would say yes.
Perhaps a better poll would have been favorite neighborhoods rather than streets, since for example Washington Avenue runs through several neighborhoods that are completely different.
The top list is pretty much as expected. What I find interesting are the add-ons. Casleman Circle with 5 shops is probably the smallest. Parts of Hampton I think would qualify but it’s close to being too-commercial with Hampton almost being a highway of sorts, unlike Euclid where one must stop every few blocks. I think another way of describing a favorite commercial street would be by answering the question: Where is the best place to people watch?
do the people who suggest things in the county know they are in the county?
I was surprised no one mentioned Grand Center. It may be very different then majority of mentioned street. The difference is what we need.
what street is grand center?
No offense Wump….but buy you asking that question just proves Bobby Nut’s statement (which is a very good statement)….Grand Center is the area along North Grand (northside)…with the VA hospital, Fox, Powell, Church (forget the affiliation), Big Brothers, a few restaurants, etc. that basically starts at the edge of SLU’s campus; Grand and Lindell. But then, this is mostly a night life area with the Fox and Powell the big draw, the Church on service days.
I won’t “buy” any offense, thanx. The I know what grand center IS? I want to know what street he is talking about.
N Grand Blvd could be the major street appealing to most people. Washington may be mentioned as well.
You can take a look on map here – http://firstfridaysgrandcenter.com/
Don’t really need a map. the poll was about your favorite commercial street in the city. Just wondered what street you meant in grand center. that part of grand has like two or three restaurants, thats it. not exactly a thriving commercial district. if you take grand, washington blvd, and locust (which was included) and olive you are starting to see a semblance of a real commercial district, but no one street around there is anywhere close to washington ave, cherokee, sgrand, manchester ave, or euclid.