Sunday: Dutchtown Harvest Festival

Sunday is the Dutchtown Harvest Festival:

Bring your appetite for food, knowledge and fun!

October 23, 2011, 11am to 5pm

Marquette Park* in Dutchtown

Mayor Slay’s Vanguard Cabinet and the Downtown Dutchtown Business Association present the first ever St. Louis Food Day celebration!

Think Earth Day but all about producing, preparing and eating FOOD! This new national holiday is dedicated to addressing problems with food production, distribution, access and education and is being championed by folks like Michael Pollan and Alice Waters. Our hope is to invigorate the blossoming food culture of Dutchtown within the context of St. Louis and the Midwest.

[snip]

Features include a kids zone, locally produced food, cooking contest, cooking demos, nutrition education, live music and food vendors. 

The location is the beautiful Marquette Park in south St. Louis (Google Maps). Some scenes in the 2005 film The Game of Their Lives were filmed in Marquette Park.

– Steve Patterson

The opposite of the big box store

Nothing defines “big box” more than Wal-Mart, take this recent bit from Iowa:  “the Wal-Mart Supercenter will cover 150,000 square feet of land — around 40,000 feet fewer than the company originally planned.” (source)  40,000 feet fewer?

In the earlier days of our city we had the small box store.  No, make that tiny box.

This tiny storefront was built in front of a single-family detached home just down the street from the streetcar commercial district at Meramec & Virginia (map).  Built in the time before zoning laws this storefront extended the established commercial district just a bit farther.  But head down Virginia or most city streets and storefronts dot the landscape.  Commercial activity was not limited to the strip/power center or mall.  Of course most customers were on foot back then.  Thanks to our progress we are forced to drive a car to make purchases.

I can see in the future adding such structures in the sprawling suburbs.  Attitudes and zoning laws will need to change before we will see these in suburbia but it is an option I think we will see explored to make sprawl more walkable in the next half century.

This storefront on Virginia Ave. was vacant for many years.  Finally a creative couple found the answer.

Last month I attended the opening of The Virginia House, a new art gallery.  I had seen the inside 4-5 years ago so I know they did a lot of work on this tiny space. So the space is no longer offering sundries, it is adding activity to the street.  It is a window to peek into even when closed.

I’m not the only one that likes these storefront.  Michael Allen has featured many on The Ecology of Absence.  Here is a recent post of a fine 3-story home that gained a storefront addition in 1912.

It makes a much more intimate space for a gathering than say a former Wal-Mart big big store.

– Steve Patterson

Lucas Park Cleanup Inspires Similar Effort for Amberg Park

The recent efforts of downtown residents to tidy up Lucas Park has inspired at least one group in the city to tackle issues in their own neighborhood park. Amberg Park, located on Gustine South of Chippewa, will see a group effort on October 18, 2008. One of the organizers acknowledges the recent efforts in Lucas Park as inspiring their own project.

Technically Amberg Park is listed by the city as being in the Duchtown neighborhood. Dutchtown is its own neighborhood among the 79 listed by the city. You also have the Dutchtown South Community Corp (a CDC) which encompass not only Duchtown but also the neighborhoods of Gravois Park, Marine Villa and Mt Pleasant. Duchtown, the neighborhood, is geographically so large that residents have for years sliced it up into smaller, more manageable neighborhood units; Dutchtown North, Resurrection, & Trinity. Interestingly the Dutchtown Community Corp is located not in the Dutchtown neighborhood but on the corner of the Mt Pleasant neighborhood. You also have the Downtown Dutchtown Business Association.

So back to Amberg Park. It is in that part of Dutchtown listed as in the Resurrection neighborhood on the Dutchtown website. But efforts are also underway to give this area an identity. A site for the ‘Dutchtown Amberg Neighborhood Association’ has been created as has an Amberg Park Cleanup blog.

Rick Bonash over at STL Rising picked up on the new association based on a comment left here on UrbanReviewSTL. Bonash also linked to a recent Suburban Journal article by Jim Merkel on the new group that is forming. An undertone in the article is about the long-time residents and more recent arrivals. I know from my own personal experience, if you were not born & raised in the neighborhood or haven’t lived there since Eisenhower was President you are a newcomer. This attitude is really unfortunate because a lot of people may have ideas and want to contribute but are discouraged from doing so.

Some in an old guard praised the leadership of the group. But they have their concerns about youthful enthusiasm of the organization led by Chris Wintrode, 24, a St. Louis University law and masters in health administration student. They said the group isn’t really new, but the continuation of an organization that long met at the former Resurrection Church, 3880 Meramec St.

Kirner also said the group is the continuation of the old Resurrection Neighborhood Support organization that long met at resurrection as part of the church and community umbrella organization Churches United for Community Concerns. Pat Sullivan, 75, a lifelong neighborhood resident who has led the organization, said that Chris Wintrode and others essentially came in and took over meetings.

I see, by saying it is a continuation of an old organization that diminishes the new effort. Kirner is Dorothy Kirner who defeated me for 25th Ward Alderman in March 2005, she was an incumbent. Her term expires in April 2009.

Personally I’m glad to see a new crop of residents take some action to actually do something, anything.
I’ll be stopping by Amberg Park after 10am on the 18th to see how the cleanup project is going.