Saint Louis

[staubio]

Okay, against my better judgement, I'm going to post my honest report of my trip from last week. STL forumers, please realize that these are my impressions and notice that for every negative thing I'm saying, I'm saying a lot more that is positive. I'd love to hear where I'm on target and where I'm off base.

After doing a lot of reading and discussing about STL, I realized it was time to get back there and get a more intimate look.  On previous trips, I didn't have a ton of time to really explore the neighborhoods and get an idea of the flow of the city. It has been stated repeatedly by STLers that the city's strength is in its neighborhoods over its downtown, so I wanted to go see what it was all about.

So Kard, a mutual friend and I set out for STL with our bikes.  Unfortunately we weren't able to find a good spot downtown so we opted for Clayton as it would give us a good entry point into the city for riding.  We arrived around lunchtime on Saturday and got checked and then promptly hit the road.

Our navigation system was a combination of former resident Kard's expertise and my intuition going where the city leads me. It worked out pretty well except there aren't many boring streets in the inner parts of the city. In some neighborhoods, it was very difficult to pick a direction as there were things to see everywhere. STL is full of a ton of amazing architecture and even in run-down areas, most of the buildings remain (on the south side, at least) even if not inhabited.

We set out doing a stroll around Clayton. It is a bizarre place with the built environment of a downtown but predictably no organic feel at all. Retail was mostly chainy stuff.  We headed north through the neighborhood and started to realize something that is true almost everywhere in STL: there really isn't a true grid in a lot of places. Many streets are gated or blocked to prevent through traffic. There is a very distinct and dramatic separation of uses in most places, even in the hippest neighborhoods.  More on that later.

So we made our way to Delmar, where we naturally wondered how traffic would be.  Kard was apprehensive. We blasted out of the neighborhood and onto the street when we were pleasantly surprised by something that should be expected but that us Kansas Citians aren't used to: a bike lane. A nice wide, well striped bike lane all the way to the Delmar Loop.  STL has a great series of bike lanes and signed corridors that made riding in the inner city areas a breeze.

We popped out of the residential area and abruptly hit the loop, a very linear district of shops and restaurants obviously aimed at the hipster/college crowd. A cool mix of places with a good mix of chain and local, this was a neat street.  The street narrows, lots of on street parking, lots and lots of street life and a lot of interesting places. Very few breaks in the streetwall, most of which were the fault of the chains. It is probably about 6 blocks long and pretty much only on Delmar. This strict division of use came up again here. One block to the south, the neighborhood ended abruptly into a gated area of single family homes, a surprisingly abrupt change in density. To be fair, though, even a single family neighborhood in STL is pretty dense.  To the north, there were a few rows of multifamily buildings and then it dropped off into a sort of industrial area.  That stretch of Delmar is a great urban street but it is strange that it doesn't really serve as a node to the surrounding neighborhood.  It doesn't have dense corridors connecting it and it doesn't really have rings of density surrounding it. 

I found this to be true in most of the places in STL.  Stand alone, drive in/drive out attractions for the major areas. Exceptions would be the CWE, which did have large apartment/condo buildings and neighborhood amenities, and obviously downtown. In neighborhoods without dense centers, though, the housing is dense enough to support little corner shops, bars and restaurants lightly sprinkled throughout. Not that exciting if you are looking to check out a cool street, but very cool if you are wanting a nice livable neighborhood in a single family home with walkable neighborhood stores.

From Delmar, we headed north for a little bit to do some exploring. We made our way to Fountain Square and started to notice the hints of blight that you hear about with STL. This is a neighborhood where I had a lot of trouble letting my whims guide me as there were cool buildings on every horizon. We ended up finding an old rail corridor which looks like it is used for bus service now and we rode down that for awhile, seeing the backs of buildings. 

From there, we weaved our way down to the Central West End, where there was an art fair in progress. From my perspective, this neighborhood has two parts on both sides of Lindell. On the north side, it is another instance of one dense street of shops immediately surrounded by single family gated on both sides, with no transition at all in uses. On the south side of Lindell, the neighborhood is a bit more of what you'd expect.  It has a core of commerce with outlying residential towers. The ugly parking lot that absolutely destroyed the neighborhood's flow before is being developed into a very impressive condo tower. Looks like the neighborhood is healthy.  Unfortunately, it dead ends right into the Barnes-Jewish hospital. I guess a universal truth in cities is that hospitals don't make great neighbors.

From CWE, we turned into Forest Park, where we spent a ton of time. What a great park! It makes me dream about what it would have been like if Kessler's dream for Penn Valley came to fruition and the art museum and all major civic buildings would have been located there. Forest Park has the zoo, the art museum, the Missouri history museum and the STL equivalent of Starlight (Muni) all in one place. The park is almost too big, though, so connectivity between these attractions is tricky. There are a lot of buses flowing around and I assume there are other services, but I bet a lot of people drive from place to place around the park. Too much auto traffic and a TON of cars parked everywhere unfortunately ruined some of the peace. The park also offers a nice view of some of the towers of the CWE popping up above the trees, including a sharp new condo tower. Very cool wanna-be Central Park type setting, it feels big time.

From the southwest corner of the park, we headed south, randomly checking out neighborhoods.  We ended up being stuck against some tracks and made our way east to Hampton to cross over.  This road was a pretty suburban-esque feeder road and the housing stock around the immediate area was newer suburban but it turned impressive after going a bit east. We made our way south and east of Hampton and discovered the small lot super-density single family neighborhoods you see so often in aerial photos of STL. These neighborhoods are perfectly and completely preserved, so house after house right next to each other fills in each block. Again, not super nodes of density, but with that many houses per block, a lot of small corner places were dotting the neighborhood.  No real "center" to this part of town but the density of the houses and nice small services make for a great neighborhood feel with a ton of character.  Very impressive.

We made it as far south as Francis Park (a park bookended on each side by churches), where we looked for a geocache (www.geocaching.com) and played some frisbee.  There was a carnival in the park, so we took off and headed back north and east. We weaved through more of the same until we got to Arsenal (go gunners!).  Another exceptionally bike friendly street with good markings, Arsenal tracks the edge of another great park in Tower Grove before it intersects with South Grand.

This is yet another linear street in the middle of mostly single family with all of the attractions really focused on the 5 or 6 blocks immediately on Grand. This seems like the W 39th Street of STL with a nice mix of ethnic restaurants and a few other interesting shops. It seemed to me that the area is in a bit of a transition, but that is a feeling I got and it is not based on any historical information.  Still, a very interesting street for a date or something but not a blockbuster attraction.

From there, we headed north, enjoying a bike lane on Grand all the way, until we hit Russell, where we enjoyed a quiet street until we turned north to check out Lafayette Park.  Awesome. A square with solid historic townhomes on all sides.  This is most certainly a pricey area, though, as there were absolutely no young people around. In fact, we didn't see a lot of young people anywhere outside of the Delmar Loop on the whole trip.

We stopped into a brewery just off the park to grab some food and beer and both were overpriced and underwhelming.

Seeing that the Cards were losing, Kard opted out of heading to Busch and we weaved around the neighborhood of rows upon rows of preserved 150 year old houses until we hit the tracks.  We did some weaving, ran into a bar with a giant rooftop patio seemingly in the middle of nowhere and then found a bridge.  We headed straight to the Schlafly Tap Room, where we'd spend the rest of the evening sampling their beer. I've always been underwhelmed by their beers but they did have something on cask that was absolutely wonderful, so we drank it up until we felt like retiring.

In lieu of riding back, we opted to ride to Union Station and hop on Metrolink. I know a lot of people have been rough on this system but I think it is top notch. Easy to use, goes places you want to go, clean and seemingly popular. The signage looks great and the trains running around town and stops give the city some serious legitimacy. We waited for one Lambert bound train to pass and then the Clayton bound train came 10 minutes later, which isn't bad for almost 1:00 in the morning. We hopped on with our bikes, chatted with some other folks on the train and hopped off in Clayton, where we rode 4 blocks to our hotel and crashed.

The next morning, we loaded up and headed downtown to get started. We went straight to Soulard, where we enjoyed a great breakfast at the Soulard Coffee Garden, per chrizow's suggestion. Cozy place. Soulard is another interesting place. Again, it is mostly single family buildings and a few old-fashioned duplexes, dense as always in STL, but very few true multi-family buildings. This neighborhood had a more random mix of commercial and residential, though, so you could have a bar on the corner next to a house next to a coffeeshop, all of which randomly sprinkle across a 15 or so square block area. Certainly a neat vibe and a variety of architecture made this my favorite neighborhood we saw. I still don't have a great sense for its character, though.

From there, we headed down to the Bud brewery to see where the beer I avoid is made. Obligatory.

After that, we headed downtown. Downtown baseball is the real deal. People were walking around! The stadium area was buzzing hours before the game and it looked and felt awesome. Not having downtown baseball is a huge disadvantage for KC. It also put a lot of people on the MetroLink and busses, which is great.

We made our way over to Washington Ave, which I was familiar with, and got a fresh look. Looks like it is almost completely built out now and it looks great. The preserved building stock and the street wall here is AMAZING. Imagine 8th street in our Garment District spread over about 6 blocks and you have Washington Ave. The sad thing is that it is suffering from the linear thing happening all over STL. Directly to the north, it is almost completely desolate, with dirty empty parking lots. It seemed like ALL of the development and energy was concentrated on one block without much context.  We breezed by the City Museum, which I still need to see, and then headed over to Tucker to head north and check out the infamous grit of the north side.

Once the street turns to Florissant Ave, you've arrived. Amazing stoic structures crumbling everywhere. Blocks with only one or two houses standing. Amazing contrast to the almost complete preservation of other areas. These areas are typical poverty, with lots of people loitering in the street and lots of derelict buildings. These bombed out areas were sprinkled with amazing churches and spots of commerce. Some of these buildings were more interesting than others on the south side, but most of them were beyond saving.

We tried to cross the river on the McKinley Bridge up there, but it was blocked off, so we headed back south along Broadway (a street with lots of neat building stock sorta like the West Bottoms on a smaller scale that could be a very interesting area) and ran into the Landing. I've heard that this area is just a mini-party district. It is. About 4 square blocks of bars. Despite its location on the river, the context is pretty uninteresting. It looks like they are doing some building in the area, though.

We caught the Eads bridge, an absolutely gorgeous bridge that accommodates the MetroLink as well, and headed into East St Louis. We didn't have time to look around much but it looks like there are a lot of interesting buildings and streets in this area too.

From there, Kard wanted to go buy rare beer in Granite City, so we went that way and then headed home.

All in all, I was very impressed with St Louis, but was left feeling like it doesn't fit into any urban design convention. It is a paradox, but in that, it is immensely interesting. I'm eager to read more about its history and its planning, or lack thereof, as it was formed. I'd also like to know what key areas I'm still missing out on.

I have a GPS track of the bike routes if anyone is interested, though I'm sure it isn't the ideal way as we just winged it, and I have some pictures I can post, though not many as I was more interested in seeing it than photographing it.

Thanks, STL, for a great weekend! 

[staubio]

Ha, I realize that this beast is unruly but I just can't post something brief about something so important.

I forgot to mention Lindell further east, around SLU. There is about a 3 block section that is very impressive, with huge buildings of various styles towering on both sides. Lindell is an excellent street that makes its way right through Forest Park and right into downtown.

I fought it difficult to remember that closer to downtown is farther east, not farther north!

[ComandanteCero]

hater!

nah, i kid.  Great city report, looks like you got around to many of the city's highlights.  I think the linear development issue is common around the country.  Before streetcars and other forms of mass transportation were invented, most retail was neighborhood specific and dependent on customers arriving by foot.  Because of this, you often found retail establishments dotting the neighborhood (i.e lots of corner stores, or clusters at intersections), of course even then, heavily trafficked streets had a disproportionate amount of retail compared to less trafficked streets (and thus developed a linear form).  But generally, retail was more diffused.  After the introduction of cablecars/streetcars, folks could travel longer distances in the city (if they could afford it) and had more retail options beyond what they could buy within walking distance.  Thus streets served by these mass transit lines often became disproportionately retail intensive, and as development expanded along street car lines this pattern became more pronounced (with retail generally following the mass transit line, and surrounding streets being residential).  Anyway, this is how things worked into the 20th century until the automobile radically altered everything.  These days the only areas that can support non-linear retail and activity are those that are either high density places or high volume destinations where the foot traffic travels in various directions, and retail doesn't depend just on through traffic. 

Soulard is a great example of a pre-streetcar neighborhood, where you still find a lot more corner commercial stores spread throughout the neighborhood, rather than clumped along one main street.  The Delmar Loop is a great example of the opposite (since it was directly birthed by the street car line that "looped" at its western end), everything is clustered along Delmar, and residences are off a block.

I think this is a common pattern around the country.  To get non-linear retail you either have to have developed pre-mass transit, or currently be very high density area (or both).

[staubio]

That certainly is understandable, but St. Louis is more pronounced. I'm used to seeing nodes of density, with uses being more mixed and trickling away from the center of the streetcar point. Look at Broadway around Valentine in KC.  Broadway is certainly the commercial street, but it gives way to tall residential buildings immediately on its perimeter, then 4 and 6 plex collonades, then single-family homes.  W 39th in KC is similar to what I saw everywhere in STL, but even that has rings of apartment buildings and multi-family units along the few blocks of each side.

I guess the big surprise is how most of the density in the city is from tightly packed single family homes, almost everywhere. When you think density, you think lots of people in tall buildings. It was just a surprise.

[kman]

interesting, concise post, Thanks.  Like to see some photos.

[nota]

That certainly is understandable, but St. Louis is more pronounced. I'm used to seeing nodes of density, with uses being more mixed and trickling away from the center of the streetcar point. Look at Broadway around Valentine in KC.  Broadway is certainly the commercial street, but it gives way to tall residential buildings immediately on its perimeter, then 4 and 6 plex collonades, then single-family homes.  W 39th in KC is similar to what I saw everywhere in STL, but even that has rings of apartment buildings and multi-family units along the few blocks of each side.

I guess the big surprise is how most of the density in the city is from tightly packed single family homes, almost everywhere. When you think density, you think lots of people in tall buildings. It was just a surprise.

I like it that all cities are different and have all kinds of different make ups. It would be boring if all cities were exactly the same. I love STL. One thing I loved about living there is that STL is the easiest place to find your way around. Waaaay easier than KC. But I love KC too. But comparing cities isn't productive. It goes to personal preference which is different for everyone.

[staubio]

As warned, I didn't take a ton of photos as the camera was in my bag and we were just trying to see as much of the city as we could, but I did manage to pull it out when we stopped.

The sampler at the Square One Brewery in Lafayette Square:


The Square One Brewery's bar:


Kard's dramatic Schlafly photo:


Waiting for MetroLink, I guess it was only just before midnight:


A typical Soulard street:


The Soulard Coffee Garden:


Another Soulard Street:


Bike signage on Washington Ave, these signs were all over the place marking routes:


An all too typical scene in North STL:


A North STL street scene:


...and another:

[Chazarelli]

That is sad that such beautiful building are in such horrible conditions in a horrible area.  Let us hope that they are found and fixed before they are all gone forever.

[staubio]

The bike route for Saturday. Some elements are missing as the GPS didn't acquire quickly in Clayton and I lost it a few times when hitting bumps that jarred the batteries loose. This is my biggest complaint with Garmin's eTrex series, but that is another post.

[JivecitySTL]

Great recap.  Sounds like you hit a lot of great 'hoods.  I'm surprised the city left you with the impression of being comprised mostly of single-family homes.  In fact, the predominate housing types in the city are 2 and 4-family flats.  The Census indicates that about 57% of city residents live in multi-family buildings. 

But great recap nonetheless, and I'm glad you found St. Louis to be as interesting as we do!

[staubio]

Great recap.  Sounds like you hit a lot of great 'hoods.  I'm surprised the city left you with the impression of being comprised mostly of single-family homes.  In fact, the predominate housing types in the city are 2 and 4-family flats.  The Census indicates that about 57% of city residents live in multi-family buildings. 

That is surprising. I guess a lot of what looks like typical rowhouses could be 2 and 4 family flats as it all blends in. You just don't notice many distinctly multi-family buildings like you do in KC with our collonades, aside from the towers.  I guess the key is that the structures themselves are smaller and more densely packed, so there must be a lot of buildings with split levels and people living in small apartments on each level or something.

Thanks for that insight, Jive.

[chrizow]

excellent city trip report, staub.

i love st. louis very much.  it has always been awesome, but it is coming back in a big way.  there is so much potential in its great intact old building stock just waiting for some tlc.  

one area i wasn't very familiar with but was impressed with on my last trip to STL was an area west of downtown between downtown and midtown...the building stock reminded me of the Crossroads in KC (1-3 story industrial).  there are random light industrial businesses but it's clear that hip businesses (e.g. design firms, ad firms, etc) are rehabbing things and moving in.  my buddy's company (TOKY) is doing work on a building.  what is this area called?  anyone?  

i like the obvious nodes of activity in STL like the Loop, WashAve, South Grand, etc. but i am even more in love with the neighborhood-type stuff.  i love how restaurants and shops are mixed in with dense residential in places like The Grove, Benton Park, etc.  extreme south city along broadway is very interesting as well, like something from a Bruce Springsteen video - bikers, american flags, 150 year old buildings, industrial riverfront bidness.  

like Jive i have to disagree somewhat on the "single-family housing" thing.  a lot of what appear to be single family houses are often duplexes or are otherwise divided.  there are tons of 6-plex apartments in the skinker area.  lots of attached houses as well.  

[staubio]

one area i wasn't very familiar with but was impressed with on my last trip to STL was an area west of downtown between downtown and midtown...the building stock reminded me of the Crossroads in KC (1-3 story industrial).  there are random light industrial businesses but it's clear that hip businesses (e.g. design firms, ad firms, etc) are rehabbing things and moving in.  my buddy's company (TOKY) is doing work on a building.  what is this area called?  anyone? 

This is the vibe I got from the area around the Schlafly Tap Room at 21st and Locust. Is that the general area you are describing?

[dangerboy]

St. Louis is much denser than KC, but it's still on a very human scale.  At its peak the city had over 700,000 people living in an area the size of KC between the river and 85th Street.  At our peak we probably had 350,000 in the same area.

[staubio]

St. Louis is much denser than KC, but it's still on a very human scale.  At its peak the city had over 700,000 people living in an area the size of KC between the river and 85th Street.  At our peak we probably had 350,000 in the same area.

I guess that was why I was so surprised to see so few larger buildings in the neighborhoods. I think you've captured it perfectly: it is wonderfully human scaled while being dense. It achieves the density by filling every inch of space with smaller, more intimate structures. Unlike KC, there really isn't any part of the geography that isn't easily developed, so the neighborhoods are completely built up with small houses on small lots.

I guess that when the north side mirrored the south side and it was all built densely, I can see how they got 700k into the area.

[JivecitySTL]

St. Louis at its peak (1950) had about 860,000 people packed into 61 square miles.  That's about 2,000 people per square mile more than the City of Chicago's density today.

[GRID]

St. Louis is much denser than KC, but it's still on a very human scale.  At its peak the city had over 700,000 people living in an area the size of KC between the river and 85th Street.  At our peak we probably had 350,000 in the same area.

I think that area of town (original city limits) once had over 500k.

But yea, StL had and even still has, some serious density.  It's amazing just how large and important that town once was.

[kard]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louis, ... mographics

"in 1950, it had a population of 856,796"

[kc-vino]

Staubio, what a great post.  I trust your incite and ability to be unbiased.  Any more reflections would be great.  Did you find that the neighborhoods were as divided as they are hear in KC?  From my limited experience in STL it seemed like neighborhoods flowed better from one another.  Not as many highways or railroad tracks smashing through highways.  Anybodies thoughts?

[staubio]

Staubio, what a great post.  I trust your incite and ability to be unbiased.  Any more reflections would be great.  Did you find that the neighborhoods were as divided as they are hear in KC?  From my limited experience in STL it seemed like neighborhoods flowed better from one another.  Not as many highways or railroad tracks smashing through highways.  Anybodies thoughts?

Hey Vino, glad you enjoy my post, especially because it ended up being a book.

In terms of my sense of the divisions of neighborhoods, I'd agree with your observations. I think this has more to do with topography than anything else. While there is a swath of railroad tracks and a freeway tearing right through the city and dividing it up north and south pretty significantly, on the smaller level, the neighborhoods flow seamlessly into each other. The fact that there aren't a lot of significant destination districts means that there sometimes isn't anything at all disconnecting two areas, the buildings just transition slowly and suddenly you are in a completely different area.  Even when that transition is dramatic, it is seamless.  You hit the Delmar Loop right out of a neighborhood and you are suddenly in the middle of activity. 

In terms of racial seperation, it is hard to tell and I've been told that STL is less segregated, but I only saw black people on the north side and only saw white people on the south. I suspect some of the areas we went through southwest of Forest Park were more integrated as they seemed like humble blue collar neighborhoods.

Of course, it is impossible to tell.