Local Interest Weekend

During installment #64 of a long and rambling conversation we’ve been having about general St. Louis City stuff, I promised Jason I’d post of couple of links, so here they are.

The 2007 New York Times article I mentioned, Hopes for a Renaissance After Exodus in St. Louis, refers to our local collective sensitivity regarding population statics, the recent crime ranking, and what I generally think of as the subtle inferiority complex that possibly results from, as UMSL prof Richard B. Rosenfeld put it in the article, “the distance we’ve fallen from the status of being a major national city.”

(Never fear, it also went on to discuss recent revitalization, although at that time it only mentioned the downtown and Lafayette Square areas specifically, and concluded with our hope to see a population increase in the 2010 census results.)

“Successfully integrated neighborhoods”- a phrase that came up in the same conversation, and that I credited, erroneously, to the NY Times article, turns out to be from the Wikipedia entry on “Crime and Social Issues in St. Louis, Missouri”:

For the past 25 years, St. Louis has a number of successful integrated neighborhoods in the “central corridor” stretching from Soulard and Lafayette Square near the Mississippi River to the Central West End near Forest Park. More recently, a number of near south side neighborhoods, especially around Tower Grove Park, have also successfully integrated. These areas have seen an influx of African-American residents, as well as Vietnamese residents and recent immigrant groups. Since the upheavals in the former Yugoslavia, many Bosnian refugees have been settled in South St. Louis City, particularly in the Bevo neighborhood. Although white, they have brought a minority religion (most are Muslim). They have been responsible for an upturn in the economic situation there as they have opened stores and restaurants and other businesses in abandoned storefronts. Many of the suburbs in North St. Louis County became more integrated during the 1990’s. Indeed, the 2000 Census revealed that more African-Americans live in St. Louis County than live in St. Louis City. Of the African-American residents in the City, less than half live north of Delmar Boulevard, the traditional boundary for “North St. Louis.”

I first read this wiki paragraph sometime last week, while researching something else entirely, but thought of it again on Saturday at the Cherokee-Lemp History Festival. Although the primary draws for us were proximity, the promise of a tasty breakfast at Mississippi Mudhouse (I recommend the dirty chai), and the St. Louis Rehabber’s Club used book sale (at which we scored!), I am so, so glad we decided to forgo that second bloody mary in favor of the walking tour. We ended up doing the last of the afternoon tours by local historian and author of note NiNi Harris, which, apparently like her books, covered not only the physical, architectural details of the place, but the histories of the people who lived and worked there. I did learn about dating buildings by the texture, smoothness, and detail of the bricks used to build them, but the main focus was the unique mix of nationalities of the immigrants who built and settled the eastern most blocks of Cherokee Street. Although I was hearing about the predominately French and German immigrants who settled those few blocks, creating what was at one time a major commercial destination in the city, I was also thinking about the above line “They have been responsible for an upturn in the economic situation there as they have opened stores and restaurants and other businesses in abandoned storefronts,” referencing the equally varied ethnic populations in south city now, which is probably what attracted me - directly or indirectly- to the area in the first place. (The tour was wonderful by the way; I can’t begin in this little blog post to write about the fascinating stories we heard.)

Wikipedia also addresses north city, and apropos, also on Saturday we got to hear a few brief comments from the local architecture enthusiast responsible for the shedding light on the neglectful practices of developer Paul McKee, most recently a string of north side fires and the collapse of the chapel wing of the James Clemens house.

And after the history tour, we swung by well attended first annual “Blues in Benton Park,” an afternoon free concert organized jointly by the Benton Park and Benton Park West neighborhood associations, areas that I would consider “successfully integrated.”

All without starting up the trusty automobile, how about that? Unfortunately, I forgot a camera, and since we were walking, didn’t go back to get it, so I have no photos. However, there are tons from Cinco de Mayo a couple weeks ago, which I’ll post soon.