Downtown St. Louis, and Downtown West to a lesser degree, has lots of one-way streets. This was done decades ago to facilitate driving in & out. A decade ago Locust St., which had been one-way Westbound, was reverted back to two-way West of 14th St. But there are some odd little one-way remnants that need to be reexamined. One is a very short stretch of 17th St between St. Charles St & Washington Ave.
Looking South on 17th St from Washington Ave, this bit is one-way in the direction we are lookingThe opposite view, looking North toward Washington AveThis view looks at the intersection of St. Charles (1-way WB) and 17th toward Locust (2-way)
St. Charles Street, which is a glorified alley, runs parallel between Locust & Washington Ave. — it is one-way Westbound. Yes, 17th from St. Charles to Locust is two-way. From Locust to Olive it is one-way Southbound. Confused?
Typically one-ways are done in couplets — an opposite direction street a block away. Such is the case between St. Charles & Washington.
The significantly narrower 16th St is one-way northbound — the opposite of 17th
Motorists routinely treat 17th as two-way — we should just make it official.
One hundred years ago today St. Louis experienced deadly flooding. The problem wasn’t the Mississippi, it was the River Des Peres!
On the afternoon of Aug. 19, 1915, remnants of a hurricane reached St. Louis from Texas. Heavy and steady rainfall fell through the next day, dumping a total of 7.4 inches across the area. (6.85 inches on Aug. 20 remains the one-day record in St. Louis.)
The River Des Peres rushed from its banks, swamping long stretches of Delmar and Lindell boulevards, Manchester Avenue and other streets. People were stranded on the Wabash Railroad platform at Delmar (now a Metrolink station) by a seven-foot-deep current 200 yards wide. Firefighters reached them with ladders and used boats to rescue residents of Maple and Hodiamont avenues. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch — includes vintage photos)
In August 1915, St. Louis was flooded. All roads leading to the suburbs were cut off, and in Maplewood, the waters reached the second floor of some homes. The water was a mile-wide in Forest Park. Three bridges in the park were washed away, the Zoo’s Bird Cage and Bear Pits were flooded. The platforms at the old Delmar Station were destroyed. Passengers at the Wabash Station were surrounded by seven feet of water and had to be rescued by firefighters. Other people were trapped in their homes, and some even drowned. By the time the disaster was over, 11 people had died and more than 1,000 homes were lost.
The cause of the disaster was not the Mississippi River but the smaller River Des Peres, which ran along the City’s western edge.
River Des Peres, or “River of the Fathers,” was named after two Jesuit priests who founded a mission on its banks around 1700. Problems associated with flood and sewage control became obvious as St. Louis grew. In 1887, city officials planned to drain River Des Peres and Mill Creek. This plan was not completed, though, and River Des Peres had become an open sewer by the early 1900s. Parts of the river were covered or diverted in preparation for the World’s Fair in 1904, and monitoring of flooding conditions began in 1905. However, no steps had been taken by 1915 that could have prevented the devastating flood that same year. (St. Louis Public Library)
Perhaps the first sewage the River des Peres received was from St. Louis’ Central West End chamberpots. In response to the volume of waste, the city wrote an ordinance in 1887 “to prevent discharge of sewerage or offensive matter of any kind into the River des Peres.” If the city had funded the ordinance, then a separate sewer system would have been built and the River des Peres’ history might have taken a different course. Instead, the government of St. Louis began a trend that has plagued the river for more than a century: St. Louis would support ideas to protect the River des Peres as a sewer more than as a river.
As St. Louis grew westward, so did the expanses of pavement. With less open ground to soak up the rains, the River swelled with runoff. The River des Peres flooded in 1897, 1905, 1912, and 1913. The flood of 1915 killed 11 people and forced 1025 families from their homes. Flooding – not sewage – prompted St. Louisans to action. Mayor Henry W. Kiel called for a hydrologic study, which was completed by W.W. Horner and presented to the St. Louis Board of Public Service in 1916. St. Louis voters chose to implement Horner’s recommendations, which cost $11 million.
The project was called the River des Peres Sewerage and Drainage Works, and it took nine years to complete (from 1924 to 1933). Workers re-graded and paved the River’s banks and straightened its bends. Elsewhere the River was directed below ground to join with the sewer. The engineering innovations brought national recognition for Horner (who was also the project engineer). Scientific American and Engineering News-Record featured the marvelous new River des Peres. In 1988, the American Society of Civil Engineers recognized the project as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. (River Des Peres Watershed Coalition)
The bond issue vote was in 1923 — 7 years after the plan was presented.
River Des Peres at S. Broadway, March 2012River Des Peres, looking East from Hampton, July 2015River Des Peres; looking North from Gravois. Tuesday August 18, 2015
Problem solved? Wrong.
Explore any city enough, and at some point you’re likely to walk on water, so to speak. San Francisco is full of ghost rivers. So are Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles. In the urban core of Baltimore, up to 98 percent of streams are underground.
Early city planners may have hoped for healthier cities when they covered up these streams, but it turns out they created new problems. Paving over and piping waterways often worsens flooding. And as new research by scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency indicates, buried streams can also exacerbate pollution.
In a paper published in PLOS ONE, lead authors and EPA research scientists Jake Beaulieu and Heather Golden found that nitrates—nutrients that can become pollutants—travel on average 18 times further in buried urban streams than they do in open streams, before they are taken out of the water column. (City Lab)
From February 2014:
Starting in a few days, MSD will begin construction of a 3,028 foot-long tunnel under the River Des Peres, just south of Carondelet.
The tunnel will hold a pressurized pipe that will carry sewage to the Lemay Wastewater Treatment Plant.
MSD spokesperson Lance LeComb said the new pipe will increase the plant’s capacity to take in sewage, and also serve as a back-up in case the existing “force main” ? which dates back to the 1960s ? has a problem.
The project is the first of about a dozen tunnels, totaling nearly 33 miles in length, that the MSD will be digging under St. Louis in the next couple decades. Most of the tunnels will hold a mix of stormwater and sewage. “The longest one will be nine miles long, running underneath the River Des Peres, almost 200 feet below ground,” LeComb said. “And 30 feet in diameter.” (St, Louis Public Radio)
Hopefully this will keep our sewage out of the waterways and not create more problems! The River Des Peres starts in St. Louis County, flash flooding remains an issue.
After being shuttered since 2011, the original Hotel Lennox – once known as St. Louis’ tallest hotel – will re-open Sept. 2, the same day that the hotel originally opened in 1929, as The Courtyard by Marriott St. Louis Downtown/Convention Center Hotel. The newly revitalized hotel will be one of the most unique and historically significant Courtyard-branded hotels in the country. The hotel has undergone a significant renovation, with an investment of over $22M into the property during a 16-month restoration. (KMOX)
Los Angeles-based Maritz Wolff & Co. will own and manage the property. It bought the Renaissance Suites this year for $3.2 million from the bondholders who owned it. Lewis Wolff, co-founder and chairman of Maritz, Wolff & Co., and Phillip “Flip” Martiz, its co-founder and president, sold the Ritz-Carlton in Clayton for $56 million in December 2012 to Bruce Karsh and his Clayton St. Louis Property LLC.
The development and management team from Maritz Wolff is led by Patrick Lowery and Jeffrey Barone. (St. Louis Business Journal)
The narrow Washington Ave facade, 9th Street on the left. Our convention center is on the right.
Thankfully the renovations included the new sidewalks you can see above, replacing the failed stamped concrete fake brick sidewalk that was installed about 15 years ago, when it reopened as the Renaissance Suites. The sidewalk is totally new, but they did one thing exactly as it had been: the location of the curb ramp across the auto driveway to the East.
The sidewalk width is generous and people tend to walk in the center. But those of us using wheelchairs are forced to use ramps pointing diagonally into the street. This new work should’ve had a wide ramp area in the natural flow of pedestrian traffic, not a ramp pointing into the street out at the corner.
You might say they were just matching the ramp on the East side of the driveway. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
View looking West across driveway. In the winter snow gets piled up blocking ramps placed at the curb rather than the natural pedestrian flow closer to the buildings.
When new concrete is poured it should be done right, now continue an early 1990s mistake. If new work makes incremental improvements then eventually downtown will be more pedestrian-friendly.
This pedestrian crossing of Morgan St is a good example.
In high pedestrian areas such as between the hotel and convention center this reduces the chances someone will trip & fall on a curb. As this is part of the public right-of-way (PROW), not private property, the city should’ve ensured this was done differently.
The planning to reduce travel lanes from four to two on the three blocks of Washington Ave, from 18th to 21th, took place in 2007. The work was done in 2008. I was a paid consultant during the planning phase. At the time I lived in the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood and drove a motor scooter. In late 2007 I moved downtown and a few months later I had a stroke.
During the planning phase we debated angled parking — front-in vs. back-in. In 2007 I argued for front-in angled parking, which is how the street got striped. Since then the block West of Jefferson plus others toward Grand also reduced travel lanes with the addition of angled parking. But these blocks did back-in parking.
Front-in angled parking is much easier when it comes to parking your car but harder to see other motorists, motorcycles, or bicyclists when exiting the space. Last year we picked up friends at their loft at Washington Ave & Jefferson, I was driving and parked in a back-in space. I was nervous. but I did it first try. In hindsight I wish I’d argued for back-in parking initially.
Recently these blocks of Washington Ave were resurfaced and restriped — now with back-in parking. Let’s take a look:
Looking West from 18th — no parking zone at cornerWhile most do OK, clearly this person had trouble. Parking enforcement was writing a ticket as I took this pic.The adjacent vehicle also didn’t stay within the space
Out of 20+ cars only two weren’t within their respective spaces. Again, I wish I’d argued for this initially. The planning was prior to my being disabled, but I lobbied hard for good pedestrian crossings and disabled parking.
New “Continental” crosswalk at 19th is highly visible. Click image for article on Continental crosswalks.Unfortunately the mid-block crosswalks next to disabled parking wasn’t restriped.
Two and a half hours later I returned to check out a few more things, the white Ford was in the same spot.
An orange boot was on the front wheel, the Kia had moved over one space and parked correctly. While I was in the area Parking Enforcement came by and removed the boot, the waiting owner then drove off. .
Like most aspects of driving, backing into a parking space just takes practice to master. Occasionally I back into our space in our parking garage, it does get easier. Some day I may drive over to Washington Ave to practice — this wasn’t on my driver’s test in 1983.
For a couple of years I’ve been watching & writing about changes at 901 Locust St. The former Board of Education building, built in 1893, was converted into loft-style apartments at least a decade ago. The ground-floor retail space, however, has struggled.
So the building’s new owner removed the old storefronts and installed new ones — more open. I questioned how these spaces would meet the accessibility requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) and building codes:
1103.2.13 Live/work units. In live/work units constructed in accordance with Section 419, the portion of the unit utilized for nonresidential use is required to be accessible. The residential portion of the live/work unit is required to be evaluated separately in accordance with Sections 1107.6.2 and 1107.7.
Live/work units are dwelling units in which a significant portion of the space includes a nonresidential use operated by the tenant/owner. Although the entire unit is classified as a Group R-2 occupancy, for accessibility purposes it is viewed more as a mixed-use condition. The residential portion of the unit is regulated differently for accessibility purposes than the nonresidential portion.
The floor area of the dwelling unit that is intended for residential use is regulated under the provisions of Section 1107.6.2 for Group R-2 occupancies. The requirements for an Accessible unit, Type A unit or Type B unit would be applied based upon the specific residential use of the unit and the number of units in the structure. The exceptions for Type A and Type B units set forth in Section 1107.7 would also exempt such units where applicable. For example, a two story dwelling unit above the work unit in a non-elevator building would never be subject to Type B requirements due to the exemption in Section 1107.7.2. The code does not clarify if a two story live/work unit with the business on the entire first floor and the residence on the entire second floor would be considered a multi-story dwelling unit for purposes of the exception in Section 1107.7.2.
In the nonresidential portion of the unit, full accessibility would be required based upon the intended use. For example, if the nonresidential area of the unit is utilized for hair care services, all elements related to the service activity must be accessible. This would include site parking where provided, site and building accessible routes, the public entrance, and applicable patron services. In essence, the work portion of the live/work unit would be regulated in the same manner as a stand-alone commercial occupancy. (International Code Council)
In May 2014 I showed the new storefronts going in but obvious changes in grade along 9th St
Perhaps one big retail space with an accessible entry off Locust? A 24/7 pharmacy like CVS or Walgreens? Nope, the owner has built apartments on the ground floor — billing them as “live/work” units.
901 Locust
The six live/work units range from $1,295/mo for a 760 sq ft one bedroom to $1,995/mo for a 2,480 sq ft 2-story 2-bed unit. All include another entrance connecting to the building, but it’s not clear how disabled customers would reach these doors, if at all.
The live/work units facing 9th, and the one on the Locust corner, are not directly accessible from the sidewalk.One space doesn’t appear to be live/work, but it might be. Haven’t checked this ramp yet but it doesn’t appear to be ADA-conpliant .Two live/work units do have accessible public entrances — both off LocustUnfortunately, I expect we’ll see a lot of closed blinds
If you rent one of the spaces without direct sidewalk access please note your business will be responsible for ADA compliance.
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