MX Doesn’t Mark the Spot

In September 2007 the mood downtown was optimistic.  On September 27th Pyramid construction held a lavish street party as they opened the Laurel project in the former Dillard’s building.  Two years earlier, in September 2005, Mayor Slay was beating up on the then owner of the St. Louis Centre about the need to pull down the massive bridge over Washington Ave.  But at the party marking the grand opening of the Laurel it looked like the bridge might finally come down.

The area around the old downtown mall was being branded as the Mercantile Exchange:

A Pyramid press release tells of the heavy hitters as part of the project:

The MX will create a vibrant atmosphere in Downtown St. Louis, combining nationally-known retailers with a strong mix of local merchants. Apparel, furniture, exciting restaurants, entertainment, public art and intimate music venues are all planned. The new district will add 160,000 square feet of new retail space to the existing 300,000 square feet Macy’s.

Pyramid has aligned itself with General Growth Properties to bring the retail experience of the MX to life. General Growth’s portfolio includes St. Louis’ premiere indoor shopping mall, the Saint Louis Galleria, and the famed Water Tower Place in Chicago.

“We are very excited about the plans for the Mercantile Exchange,” said Mark Hunter, Vice President of Leasing and Client Services at General Growth. “We chose to be a part of this project because we believe in its ability to bring dynamic retail to the city of St. Louis. We look forward to working with the development team and government officials to bring the vision to reality.”

“General Growth is one of the most diversified and successful operators in the retail business,” Steffen said. “Their involvement in the MX demonstrates the untapped potential for exciting street-level retail in downtown St. Louis. We are delighted to have a company with such a sterling national reputation working with us on the MX.”

Pyramid is partnering with Spinnaker Real Estate partners LLC, based in Connecticut. Spinnaker is a national developer that has redeveloped several downtowns across the U.S. including the 3,000 unit development in the Pearl District of Portland, Oregon and a 70 acre mixed-use project on Long Island Sound.

Yes, that General Growth Properties, the over leveredged investment trust now in bankruptcy.  Pyramid went under in April 2008.    All that remains is shuttered buildings, that bridge that was such a big deal to Mayor Slay back in 2005, and fadding fading marketing materials.  MX doesn’t mark the spot.

Mother’s Day Brings Memories & Tears

Holidays like Mother’s Day & Father’s Day bring up those days from years past.  Great memories.  Not so much from anything in particular, just having Mom & Dad there.  This is now my 3rd Mother’s Day without my Mom.  Coming up is the 2nd Father’s day without my Dad.  The day to day is easier but holidays are difficult.

One of my memories is how upset my Mom was on these holidays after the passing of her Mom in the early 1980s and her Dad in the late 1990s.  Now I get it.

Photographs and memories
All the love you gave to me
Somehow it just cant be true
Thats all Ive left of you

Reach out and hug your mom, or any mom, today.

Poll, Will Mayor Slay Get Charter Reform, Police Control, City into County During 3rd Term?

St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay, in his address after being sworn into office for a 3rd term, said, in part:

We can no longer afford to compete against each other. We must combine our resources and talents to figure out solutions to regional issues as complex as race relations, poverty, transportation, and creating jobs in new industries – and to regional tasks as simple as writing smoke-free laws, sharing public services, and building bike paths.

The world is changing at a dizzying pace, accelerated by a brutal economy. The City and our region will be very different four years from now. They can be better – but not by accident. We have to make it happen.

The City must reform its charter. The City, the inner suburbs, and outer suburbs must combine services. And, I strongly believe, that we must begin to lay the groundwork for the City of St. Louis to enter St. Louis County.

All of these changes — to help those struggling in this economy, to reorganize city and regional government, to find better educations for our children, to reinvest in our neighborhoods, to improve our quality of life, to create jobs in new industries, to engage young college graduates, to build contemporary infrastructure — will require that we talk to each other more often, more directly, and in different ways.

The past eight years have been an awakening—we have shown what we can accomplish if we dream great dreams and if we work together to make them reality. The next four years will see just how far we can really go.

So the poll for the coming weeks asks how much of Mayor Slay’s agenda will get accomplished by the end of his 3rd term which ends in April 2013.  He seeks 1) Charter reform in the city, 2) local control of the police deptment (has been goverened by the state since the Civil War) and 3) get the City of St. Louis back into St. Louis County.  So how many will he get done?  All three?  Two?  One?  Or nothing?  Take the poll in the upper right corner of the main page and then share your thoughts below.  For my post from the Mayors 3rd inaugural with the full text of his speech click here.

Kinloch Park; The Rapid Transit Suburb

Ads for new home building lots in May 1893 for the St. Louis suburb of Kinloch Park touted its transit connections — calling itself “the rapid transit suburb.”  Kinloch Park was served by the St. Louis & Suburban Electric Railway and the Wabash Railroad.  Building lots started at $40.

At first Kinloch Park was meant for whites only.  An online guide to African-American Heritage in St. Louis County tells the story of Kinloch:

People often wonder how the all-black community in northwest St. Louis County came to have the name, Kinloch. The name is Scottish in origin and means “at the head of the lake.” Some sources indicate that Major Henry Smith Turner named the area after his ancestral family name. Other sources state that the Scots settler, Major Richard Graham, who arrived in the area in 1807, named part of his land “Kinloch” after his holdings in Virginia. The area remained sparsely settled up to the end of the 19th century. A small number of blacks had land in the locality.

Kinloch Park was developed in the 1890s as a commuter suburb. The establishment of the Wabash Railroad from downtown St. Louis through the Kinloch area sparked development by whites. A small area of land was reserved for purchase by blacks, many of whom where house servants for Kinloch’s new homeowners. When a white land-owner sold to a black family a small parcel in an area of Kinloch restricted to whites, many whites sold their lots and moved, thus further opening the market to blacks.

The majority of blacks arrived in Kinloch during the 1920s. Many of them were black soldiers returning from service in World War I. Restrictive housing practices in St. Louis City made moving outside the city and away from the pressures of racial prejudice appealing to many blacks. The East St. Louis race riots in 1917 brought many Illinois residents to the area. Additional black settlement was abetted by the northern migration of blacks from the South.

The initial black church in Kinloch was the First Missionary Baptist Church, now at 5844 Monroe Avenue, dating from 1901. Other churches followed: First United Methodist Church in 1904; Second Missionary Baptist Church at 5508 Lyons in 1914; Kinloch Church of God in Christ, now Tabernacle of Faith and Deliverance, in 1914; and Our Lady of the Angels (originally Holy Angels) in the early 1920s.

Although the one-room frame Vernon School opened for black children in 1885, it closed a few months later. Black children in the Kinloch area traveled to Normandy to attend the school opened at Lucas and Hunt [electronic editor’s note: “Lucas and Hunt” is the name of a single street.] in 1886. The Vernon School, which moved to a number of locations in the area, served black children until the formation of the Kinloch School District in 1902, and its building remained in use as an all-black school in the Ferguson District until it was closed in 1967. When whites in the area split to form a separate school district in 1902, the Scudder Avenue School became Kinloch’s elementary school. A second elementary school, Dunbar, was opened in 1914. High school students attended Sumner in St. Louis City until Kinloch High School opened in 1937. In the mid-1970s, to further integrate education, both the Kinloch and the white Berkeley school districts were annexed into the Ferguson-Florissant School District. Kinloch students were also served by Holy Angels (now Our Lady of the Angels) Elementary School which opened in 1931.

In 1948 Kinloch was incorporated as Missouri’s first fourth-class, all-black city.

Much of Kinloch was destroyed by highway construction and sound mitigation for Lambert Airport to the immediate West.  If you look at the map you’ll see streets but few remaining buildings.

St. Louis had many transit suburbs (or streetcar suburbs) other than Kinloch.   Ferguson, Kirkwood and Webster Groves come to mind.  In regions like Chicago original transit suburbs like Evanston IL have remained as transit suburbs.  It is unfortunate that our region, over the last 100+ years, didn’t make the necessary  steps to retain a rail connection to these suburban municipalities.

Greening the City & Suburbs with Street Trees

I think it is safe to say we have more street trees in the City of St. Louis today than at any time in the history of the city.  Historic streetscape photos reveal wonderful architecture and busy sidewalks, but they were sidewalks without trees.  It is understandable why in the middle of the 20th Century planners sought to create open space.  Because there was very little open or green.  I think they went too far and calls today for open space are meaningless when we’ve an excess of open but a strong lack in quality urban space.  I favor infilling our blocks while greening our streets.

This past weekend I was delighted to see the addition of additional street trees on 17th street:

And looking North:

The parked vehicles and street trees help separate the pedestrian on the sidewalk from the passing cars on the road.  Take away the trees and stationary vehicles and the pedestrian experience becomes quite different.

The Blu CitySpaces condo project did the street trees on their side of 17th but also on the West side of 17th in front of the 7-11.   In a few years 17th will have a nice canopy from these trees. In other parts of the city we see many tree-lined streets and many barren streets.  I lived in Old North St. Louis in the early 1990s when we cut the sidewalk along St. Louis Ave to plant street trees.  These are nice and mature.

Regardless of where you live, street trees can make a big difference.  Newer subdivisions in suburbia especially.  Most often these houses have the single tree out in the lawn but nothing lining the street.  If your subdivision has sidewalks one of the best things you and your neighbors can do is to line your street with trees — with trees planted between the curb & sidewalk.