webster groves
There still may be time to register to participate in or volunteer for the Ivory Crockett Run for Webster on Saturday (Oct. 15), sponsored by the Webster Groves School District Foundation. The event features a 5K, a 1-mile fun run and a 100-yard dash for kids. The cost is $25 for adults and $15 for children 12 and under. And you can finish it all off with a pancake breakfast afterward, included in the price of the run.
st. louis
They’re heeere. Evil clowns are marauding St. Louis neighborhoods all over … well, at least (reportedly), in Pevely and Granite City. But no one in the metro has been able to produce even a grainy image of the Loch Ness Bozos, much less a cell phone image of some creep in a clown costume, even though reports of them have been popping up from coast to coast for more than a month now. Around here, actually, malevolent clowns are nowhere to be found, unless you want to spread a rumor in U. City, Frontenac, Eureka or elsewhere … OMG! I just saw one outside a McDonald’s! (False alarm. That was just a 3-D likeness of Ronald.) We’d surmise there have been plenty of copycat calls to any number of area jurisdictions since the first alleged clown sightings in South Carolina … or, maybe it was somewhere else. Wait, this just in from our intrepid reporter wandering the Wildwood woods; No, another false alarm! Oh, why do folks freak out about clowns anyhow? Beyond the fact that serial killer John Wayne Gacy dressed up as one and painted them, too. But what’s that have to do with you or me? OK, I admit to being terrified, maybe even driven to tears, by a TV clown named Bozo in Baltimore back when I was about knee-high to the much taller clown who wore a white skullcap with frizzy orange hair escaping in all directions—and oversized shoes, to which I exclaimed, ‘Those look like flyswatters!’ Whereupon he exaggeratedly slapped his soles on the tops of my Buster Browns, then responded, ‘And those look just like flies!’ True story. No, I don’t have a clip—it was 1960, before there was color television or more than three broadcast channels, and decades before videotape. So you’re about as likely to see little Billy with Bozo as you will a bona fide scary clown—until a couple weeks from now.
st. louis
The Hamiltons are at it again—local rehabbing phenoms and Vin de Set owners Paul and Wendy Hamilton, that is. These urban pioneers have bought a half-acre lot at 2101 Chouteau Ave., which consists of 12,000 square feet of mostly warehouse space. The Hamiltons may seem like they’ve been here forever, but it was only back in 2005 when they bought a building at 2017 Chouteau in an industrial district and converted it into the popular destination restaurant and wine bar on a rooftop with wonderful panoramic views of downtown (pictured above). On the first floor are banquet spaces monikered Moulin Events & Meetings. In the subsequent 11 years, they also have opened PW Pizza, Grand Petite Market and 21st Street Brewers Bar … all in a 35,000-square-foot building that the previous owner recommended should be knocked down. The previous owner? Jerry Silverman, a regular patron of the Hamiltons’ first fine restaurant, Eleven Eleven Mississippi (1111 Mississippi Ave., natch) in the northernmost section of the Lafayette Square neighborhood just three blocks south of Chouteau. The Hamiltons have managed deftly to blur the line between the tony urban residential blocks of Lafayette Square and the commercial area along Chouteau. In 2014, they purchased a second property from Silverman at 2023 Chouteau and redeveloped that into Jefferson Ballroom, another banquet space (4,000 square feet). The former parking lot is now the beer garden for 21st Street Brewers Bar. And upwardly mobile we go … The new lot is the former location of a truck parts store co-owned by Silverman, and will be converted into a ‘mixed-use commercial property’ with multiple tenants. The Hamiltons say they are looking for businesses to complement their other properties. Worth the wait.
central west end
Sensory Saturdays at the Saint Louis Zoo is a program for kids with special needs held the second Saturday of every month (with the inaugural session taking place last week). Here’s a glimpse at the unique opportunities during the Nov. 12 session, from 9:30 to 10 a.m. for children from birth to age 8: dimmer lighting, reduced sound, and a sensory-break area with fidgets (self-regulation tools to help with focus, attention, calming and active listening), pillows and the like that you may have at home. Zoo staff members are experienced working with special needs children and enjoy helping them get the most from the gallery’s offerings—on their own terms. Families may enter the zoo from the north entrance and will be met by staff at the Living World complex, where they’ll be escorted to Monsanto Education Gallery and the zoo’s Wild Wonder Outpost. Only on these special Saturdays, it won’t be as wild as it can get during regular Outpost sessions—Monday through Friday at 12:30 and 1:30 p.m. and on weekends at 9:30 and 10:30 a.m. and 12:30 and 1:30 p.m.
chesterfield
Some may tell you that Halloween has overtaken all other holidays and that the not-all-that-scary observance is even more popular nowadays than Arbor Day, even. But some folks in Chesterfield say it is absolutely going to the dogs … and they have good reason, what with the ‘Yappy Howl-O-Ween Pawty’ this Friday afternoon (Oct. 14) at Eberwein Dog Park, 1627 Old Baxter Road, from 4 to 6:30 p.m. (Further puns are to be excused. Hey; they started it.) Costumed or not, if they care to paws for this worthy cause, all dogs must ensure their owners have on-hand a copy of the canine’s most recent vaccination record. All critters must be spayed or neutered … and older than 4 months; no itty-bitty puppies, please. Although the event is free and open to the public, participants are asked to bring a small donation—dog or cat food, kitty litter, or perhaps a new toy—to benefit Open Door Sanctuary, the no-kill shelter in House Springs that’s expected to bring some of its own celebrity dogs (and maybe some kitties, we hope, because kitties are our friends) looking for permanent homes with regular folks like us. From 4 to 6 p.m., the pupparazzi (OK, a photographer) will be snapping pawty pics! Dog owners are invited to bring beverages to complement the Yappy Hour hors d’oeuvres that will be available for the people; our four-legged friends may select from the goodies brought in by Treats Unleashed and may help themselves to all the water they can lap up. Some of the best costumes we’ve seen: a pup as the Pope in Holy Hound vestments (pictured) and a toy poodle as Tyrannosaurus Rex (which almost made me spew coffee all over my laptop).
