ABOVE: Tucker Blvd in this stretch is built over a failing railroad tunnel.
In a pretty decisive vote in the poll last week readers made it clear the homeless living in the old Tucker tunnel had to be displaced so the failing structure could be replaced:
Q: St. Louis displaced the homeless living under the Tucker bridge, your thoughts? Pick only one:
The homeless had to go so Tucker can be replaced. 96 [45.71%]
Larry Rice used the issue just to raise a stink. 68 [32.38%]
The homeless had to go, but the city could have been more sensitive to their needs. 25 [11.9%]
Other answer… 8 [3.81%]
Unsure/no opinion 6 [2.86%]
Larry Rice was the only person to stand up for the rights of the homeless. 5 [2.38%]
The city shouldn’t replace Tucker so the homeless can stay in place. 2 0.95%
More thought Larry Rice was just using the issue than genuine concern for the homeless. Two people actually voted to not replace the bridge so the homeless can keep living under the roadway as it collapses!
Here are the “other” answers:
Move them if need be, then allow them to move back when construction is complete
Larry Rice put these tunnel dwellers in the tunnel to gain publicity/donations.
Rice takes advantage of the homeless. They had no rights to the property.
The city should find a place for these people to live.
Bill Siedoff is doing a great job. He is very caring
There was a small fire in the Ville neighborhood on this day in 1941. The fire was intentionally set, but it was not arson. Before we get to 1941 we must start more than 20 years before.
In 1919 Annie Malone (at age 50) donated the first $10,000 to build a new building for the St. Louis Colored Orphans’ Home. In 1922 the cornerstone was set in place. Annie Malone’s Poro College opened in 1917, selling beauty products to black women, had made her wealthy by any standard at the time.
ABOVE: Site of Poro College occupied now occupied by a vacant housing building for the elderly
Poro College was a major cultural and employment center in the Ville neighborhood.
“In 1930, the first full year of the Depression, as Annie Malone entered her sixties and moved her headquarters to Chicago, she was financially devastated by a divorce (her second) and, soon thereafter, by two civil lawsuits. The lawsuits (for liability to an employee and a St. Louis newspaper) partially crippled her ability to conduct business, which, a few years later, in 1943, during the middle of World War II, was further ravaged by a lien to the Internal Revenue Service. After fighting the lawsuits for eight years, she lost Poro to the government and other creditors who took control of her business.”
The above gets ahead a bit. When the mortgage on the orphans’ home was was paid in 1941 a ceremony was held to celebrate the occasion.  Annie Malone, in her early 70s and having the issues described above, came back to St. Louis from Chicago to light the paid note.
ABOVE: The Annie Malone Home built in 1922 as the St. Louis Colored Orphans' Home
Malone was the president of the board of the home for decades. Five years after the note was paid the board renamed the home after her.
“This home began as the St. Louis Colored Orphans Home in 1888 at 1427 North Twelfth Street. Its site had been purchased for a home for black soldiers after the Civil War. In 1905 it relocated on Natural Bridge Avenue until moving to the present location. An important annual event in the black community is the Annie Malone May Day Parade, a fund raising activity for the Home.” (source)
Here is a short KETC (PBS) video on Annie Malone:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVOOjnbJ-EU
Additional reading on Annie Minerva Turnbo Pope Malone (1869-1957):
I’m very impressed with her accomplishments. Few women born in 1869 became millionaires or lived so long. Her business was an important element in the segregated city, providing jobs to the neighborhood. I can’t help but wonder why she moved Poro College to Chicago in 1930. She had been in St. Louis for 28 years at this point and with a public divorce and fight for control of the business she might have been embarrassed to stay. But I wonder if the business had outgrown it’s impressive building in the Ville neighborhood? By 1930 much of the city and the Ville neighborhoods where blacks could live were fully built out. Finding land to construct a larger building may have been impossible for her. The description of her Chicago campus and the photo of the administration building (see list above) lead me to believe that although she had strong ties to St. Louis, she realized greater personal opportunities in Chicago.
The St. Louis Centre skybridge across Washington Ave.,  more than a block from the entrance to the convention center, will be gone in a few weeks. For so long officials have focused on the bridge as a eyesore:
Kitty Ratcliffe, president of the St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission, has long advocated for the removal of the skybridge, which is located a block away from the entrance to the city’s convention facility, America’s Center.
“The bridge over Washington Avenue makes people think our city is dirty, that it is unsafe and that we don’t really care about our city,” she said. “This is going to change that dramatically. It’s going to make a very different impression.”
Yet visible from the convention center is an atrocity that is never mentioned — the 1975 parking garage for U.S. Bank:
ABOVE: 1975 parking garage at 8th & Washington Ave
Hmm, what does this garage say about our city? When built it was then then Mercantile Bank and the convention center was two years from opening and when it did it stopped a block to the north. In the mid-1990s the Cervantes Center was renamed and expanded a block to the south and given a prominent entrance aligned with 8th Street.
When visitors leave the convention center they see two buildings across the street — the ugly U.S. Bank garage and the Renaissance Grand hotel.
The hotel is obviously fine but the garage is so out of place. It needs to go away and be replaced with a structure of similar massing but with say doors and windows.
Last week the state controlled St. Louis police board had a leadership change:
Todd Epsten, the last Board of Police Commissioners member appointed by Governor Matt Blunt, abruptly resigned on Wednesday after he was ousted as president by a Nixon appointee, Bettye Battle-Turner.Epsten said later he believed the board’s three other appointed members acted at Nixon’s request. Nixon appointed all three, and all came on within the last 15 months.
Nixon denied personally asking his appointees to select a new president, but said he would not be surprised if his senior staff had not talked to those three members.
“I thought it moved more quickly than I perhaps thought it would, but I think it got to where it was going to get, and now my focus is on making sure that we get a quality appointment to fill out the board,” Nixon said. It will be his fourth; the board’s fifth member is fellow Democrat Francis Slay, the St. Louis mayor. Slay supported Epsten in Wednesday’s vote.
The three remaining appointed members, Nixon said, share his philosophy that day-to-day operations of the department should be left to chief Dan Isom. He would not directly answer if he thought Epsten micromanaged.
“I mean we’ve all seen stories over the many years of the police board,” he said. “Obviously I’ve been in law enforcement and elective office for many years. I just think my philosophy has been that this is a board that should provide guidance, should provide support.” (Source: St. Louis Public Radio)
The poll this week asks for your thoughts on this matter. Do you even care? Will it matter on the street? Was Epsten micromanaging as Gov Nixon says?
The Old Post Office Plaza opened in April 2009. All last year it was a bit, um, harsh. Lots of concrete and no relief from the sun.
For 2010 the plaza now sports tables, chairs and large white umbrellas.
I’ve yet to see anyone playing chess at the new tables but in time that should change. New Planters attached to the railing of the ramp going to the overlook is also a needed touch. One thing is still missing: bike racks.
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