Thurman Ave Needs To Be Reopened

Exciting things are happening in neighborhoods like Shaw.  For example, Shasha’s on Shaw at Shaw Blvd & Thurman Ave is a great wine bar.  Suppose you live just to the north a couple of blocks  among the recently built homes in Botanical Heights (formerly McRee Town) and you wanted dinner and a glass of wine, walking to Sasha’s would be ideal. Except…

Walking the short distance via the most direct route takes you along Thurman Ave, long closed to vehicles and looking rather abandoned and unsafe.

Neither end is accessible so pushing that baby stroller will require effort to get over the high curb.  Not sure exactly when or why Thurman Ave was closed to traffic, it has been closed for at least 20 years.  My guess is it was done to contain crime in the area to the north of I-44.

More important than walking to a wine bar is access to transit.  Two bus lines run on Shaw Blvd (08 & 80). The 80 bus also runs on 39th so residents living near that street can catch that line there.

Now that investment is happening on both sides of the highway keeping Thurman Ave closed just doesn’t make sense. Tower Grove Ave to the west and 39th to the east are both open but the distance between them is more than a half mile. This stretch of Thurman Ave between DeTonty St and Lafayette Ave is entirely within the 17th Ward, which ends at Shaw Blvd.  I saw Ald Joe Roddy last Friday but I didn’t get a chance to discuss this issue with him, he might support opening the street for all I know.

Tomorrow’s post will be about more investment just north of I-44.

– Steve Patterson

Is Gentrification a Problem in St. Louis?

The word “gentrification” is often used as a negative term against many developments in St. Louis, but is the use valid?  The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines gentrification as:

“the process of renewal and rebuilding accompanying the influx of middle-class or affluent people into deteriorating areas that often displaces poorer residents”

To me a key part of the definition is “often displaces poorer residents.”  The dictionary says the first use of the word was in 1964, a very different time than 2011.

Here is the opening to the Wikipedia entry:

Gentrification and urban gentrification are terms referring to the socio-cultural displacement that results when wealthier people acquire property in low income and working class communities. Consequent to gentrification, the average income increases and average family size decreases in the community, which sometimes results in the eviction of lower-income residents because of increased rents, house prices, and property taxes. This type of population change reduces industrial land use when it is redeveloped for commerce and housing. In addition, new businesses, catering to a more affluent base of consumers, tend to move into formerly blighted areas, further increasing the appeal to more affluent migrants and decreasing the accessibility to less wealthy natives.

Urban gentrification occasionally changes the culturally heterogeneous character of a community to a more economically homogeneous community that some describe as having a suburban character. This process is sometimes made feasible by government-sponsored private real estate investment repairing the local infrastructure, via deferred taxes, mortgages for poor and for first-time house buyers, and financial incentives for the owners of decayed rental housing. Once in place, these economic development actions tend to reduce local property crime, increase property values and prices and increase tax revenues.

Political action, to either promote or oppose the gentrification, is often the community’s response against unintended economic eviction caused by rising rents that make continued residence in their dwellings unfeasible. The rise in property values causes property taxes based on property values to increase; resident owners unable to pay the taxes are forced to sell their dwellings and move to a cheaper community.

Gay men have often been accused of gentrification because we’ve seen the potential of many rundown areas, back to the same Wikipedia entry:

Manuel Castells‘s seminal work about gay men as “gentrifiers” in San Francisco, California, shows that “many gays were single men, did not have to raise a family, were young, and connected to a relatively prosperous service economy” is a pattern replicated in other North American cities.

The documentary Flag Wars (2003), directed by Linda Goode Bryant, shows the social, class, and gender tensions in the Silk Stocking neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio, between an urban African-American community and the mostly white gays and lesbians moving in to the neighborhood, whom the original residents accused of gentrification and racism. In turn, the new residents accused the community of homophobia.  In 2006, in Washington, D.C., a religious congregation in the black Shaw neighborhood opposed the granting of a liquor license to a gay bar that was to open across the street from the church.  The bar was successfully opened and has since been replaced by another gay bar at the same location.

Gay people are not always the gentrifiers: real estate valuation trends can push out poor gay people, as in the Polk District in San Francisco: radical gay activists saw the value of a poor neighborhood as refuge for the economically and socially marginal.

Gentrification is the topic of the poll  this week (upper right).

– Steve Patterson

May Amphitheater On Leased Land

The west end of Kiener Plaza containing the Morton May Amphitheater was built long after the east end, the city only owns a small amount of the land, the rest of the west block is owned by the Southern Real Estate & Financial Co, presumably established by the May Co.  The land is leased by the City of St. Louis.

– Steve Patterson

Mmm, Cupcakes From A Truck

Last fall I spotted these ladies lining up to buy cupcakes from Sarah’s Cake Shop.  Purely for research purposes I got a carrot cupcake, just to test out the experience.  I love street & truck vendors as well as those who operate brick-n-morter locations.  To me, increased activity on the sidewalk means more business for everyone.

– Steve Patterson

Railings on ADA Ramps Aren’t Bike Racks

I’m not upset with the owner of this bike, they had nowhere else to safely secure their vehicle.  It is the lack of bike parking at the Chase Park Plaza that upsets me.

Most likely a “dish drainer” bike rack is stuffed in a dark corner of the parking garage, completely out of sight to the transportation cyclist. I was able to get past this bike in my power chair, but I’ve encountered times where I had less room.  But the continuous railings are there for a reason, so someone can make their way along the ramp while always holding the railing.  Break the railing with a bike and suddenly you can present a major problem for someone that needs to hold the railing.

– Steve Patterson