Poll on displacing homeless living under the Tucker bridge

Last Friday was the final deadline the City of St. Louis gave to the homeless persons living in the old railway tunnel under Tucker Blvd.

The homeless living in a place called ‘Hopeville’ have to be out from the Tucker Tunnel before 8 a.m. Friday in preparation for the City of St. Louis’ $34 million construction project. However, some homeless have resisted the move, waiting until the last minute.

Two homeless men are hanging onto what they call home at Tucker Tunnel.  (KSDK)

The name “Hopeville” is a recent name for the space under the road.  Others have called it scary and dangerous.  The deadline is now past and the removal of the tunnel and collapsing road will proceed.

The poll this week seeks to find out your thoughts about removing the homeless to reconstruct this stretch of Tucker Blvd.  The poll is in the right sidebar.

– Steve Pattersoon

Bellefontaine Cemetery dedicated 160 years ago today

On May 15, 1850 the city’s newest cemetery was dedicated (per St. Louis Day By Day by Frances Hurd Stadler):

The story of Bellefontaine Cemetery, a non-sectarian, perpetual care cemetery, begins with the year 1849, when many prominent citizens of St. Louis, who had the welfare of the City at heart, recognized that the old cemeteries located along Jefferson Avenue would soon have to be abandoned, since they were directly in the path of the City’s westward growth. (source)

This cemetery is one of the most beautiful and fascinating places in the city.  If you haven’t been I suggest you plan to do so, it is located at 4947 West Florissant Ave.

Notable Bellefontaine burials from Wikipedia:

• Thomas Hart Benton (1782-1858), U.S. Senator
• Kate Chopin (1850-1904)Famous American Author
• Henry Taylor Blow (1817-1875), politician, statesman
• Susan Blow (1843-1916), educator
• Francis E. Brownell (1840-1894), soldier during the American Civil War, Medal of Honor recipient
• Don Carlos Buell (1818-1898), American Civil War general (Union)
• William Seward Burroughs (1857-1898), inventor
• William S. Burroughs (1914-1997), author
• Adolphus Busch (1838-1913), brewing magnate
• Robert Campbell (1804-1879), frontiersman, banker, real estate mogul, steamboat owner
• William Chauvenet (1820-1870), scholar, educator
• Martin L. Clardy (1844-1914), U.S. Representative
• William Clark (1770-1838), explorer
• Charles B. Clarke (1836-1899), prominent architect, designer of the Fagin Building (1888)
• Nathan Cole (1825-1904), U.S. Representative and Mayor of St. Louis
• Alban Jasper Conant (1821-1915), artist, author, educator
• Phoebe Wilson Couzins (1842-1913), pioneer suffragette
• Ned Cuthbert (1845-1905), baseball player
• James Eads (1820-1887), engineer and inventor
• Aaron W. Fagin (1812-1896), milling magnate, millionaire, and builder of the Fagin Building (1888)
• Gustavus A. Finkelnburg (1837-1908), U.S. Representative and Federal Judge
• Della May Fox (1870-1913), actress, singer
• David R. Francis (1850-1927), statesman, United States Secretary of the Interior
• Frederick D. Gardner (1869-1933), governor of Missouri and St. Louis funeral director and coffin manufacturer
• Jessie L. Gaynor (1863-1921), composer of children’s music
• Henry S. Geyer (1790-1859), U.S. Senator, lawyer
• James Eads How (1874-1930), son of wealthy St. Louis family, known as the “Millionaire Hobo”
• Benjamin Howard (1760-1814), first governor of Missouri Territory
• Anthony F. Ittner (1837-1931), Missouri politician, brick manufacturer
• Caroline Janis (1864-1952), painter and sculptor, member of “The Potters”
• Albert Bond Lambert (1875-1946), aviator
• John Edmund Liggett (1826-1897), owner of Liggett and Myers Tobacco Company, South St. Louis
• Theodore Link (1850-1923), architect of St. Louis Union Station
• Naphtali Luccock (1853-1916), a Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church
• James Smith McDonnell (1899-1980), founder of McDonnell Aircraft Corporation
• John McNeil, Civil War general (Union)
• Charles Nagel (1849-1940), last United States Secretary of Commerce and Labor, lawyer
• Trusten Polk (1811-1876), elected both governor and U.S. senator in 1856
• Sterling Price (1809-1867), American Civil War general (Confederate)
• Mary Marshall Rexford (1915-1996), Red Cross worker and the first woman to land on Utah Beach on D-Day
• James McIlvaine Riley (1849-1911), Co-founder of Sigma Nu International Fraternity
• Irma S. Rombauer (1877-1962), author of The Joy of Cooking
• James Semple (1798-1866), Illinois state senator
• Henry Miller Shreve (1785-1851), inventor
• Luther Ely Smith (1873-1951), founder of Jefferson National Expansion Memorial
• Theodore Spiering (1871-1925), violinist, conductor, and teacher
• Edwin O. Stanard (1832-1914), Lieutenant Governor of Missouri and U.S. Representative
• George Strother (1783-1840), Virginia congressman and lawyer, collector of public money in St. Louis (reinterment)
• Sara Teasdale (1884-1933), Pulitzer Prize-winning poet
• Charlotte Dickson Wainwright, within architect Louis Sullivan’s 1892 Wainwright Tomb
• Erastus Wells (1823-1893), U.S. Representative and businessman

Impressive!  Interestingly a few hours before I had a massive stroke on 2/1/2008 I called Bellefontaine for information on plots.  The information arrived in my mail just days later while I was sedated in ICU.  I’ve since decided on cremation.

– Steve Patterson

Sidewalk collapsing into vault on 8th Street

Many of the buildings downtown have vaults under the public sidewalks.  These are spaces that extend the basement past the exterior wall to fill the space under the sidewalks, but the sidewalk can show signs of stress.

Such is the case of the sidewalk on the west side of 8th Street between Olive and Chestnut Pine, adjacent to the vacant Arcade Building..  The sidewalk has reached a point where it needs to be addressed so that it doesn’t collapse as someone walks across it.

– Steve Patterson

Urban Review Radio tonight at 7pm CST

Tonight (Thursday May 13, 2010) at 7pm CST I will be taking your phone calls on my online “radio” program.  The title for tonight’s show is: Open Chat with Steve Patterson.  Creative huh? The toll-free call-in number is 1 (877) 259-0877.

If you can’t listen live the show will be available for playback on demand.  The shows can be found at UrbanReviewRadio.com. If you have topics you’d like me to talk about please list them in the comments below or call in tonight.

– Steve Patterson

Poll results: Readers think Arizona’s immigration law is unconstitutional

The following are the results of the poll from last week:

Q: Thoughts on Arizona’s new immigration law? Pick one:

1. The law is unconstitutional. 63 [38.89%]
2. Something was needed, but this law goes to far. 40 [24.69%]
3. The law is just right, good job Arizona. 38 [23.46%]
4. The law doesn’t go far enough, should be tougher. 13 [8.02%]
5. Other answer… 6 [3.7%]
6. No opinion 2 [1.23%]

During the week the #2 & #3 answers switch places back and forth.

The “other” answers provided by readers were:

1. Pandering to angry whites; won’t be enforced.
2. Bad law, but Federal Government’s fault for not addressing immigration refo
3. Maybe we can attract more immigrants to STL instead of Arizona! We have the room!
4. unconstitutional and needs to ban any illegal immigrants from all over the world
5. Could they make the police state any more blatant?
6. It’s unconstitutional. But it highlights the failures of the Federal govern

If a silver lining exists it is that the issue may now get the proper attention in Washington.

– Steve Patterson