town and country
It’s time to pull out the calendar—on that awesome computer those millennials occasionally use as a telephone—and look a week past Thanksgiving to the holiday concert by The St. Louis Children’s Choirs at Powell Hall. It’s at 1 p.m., Thursday, Dec. 2. (That’s maybe a month after the first seasonal music started playing at malls and other retailers, but who shops retail anymore?) There is more than usual to celebrate with the choirs this year, as it’s their 40th anniversary. With a focus on including all young people who love to sing, regardless of where they live or attend school, the choirs feature 460 talented young singers (ages 6 to 18) from more than 200 schools and 85 ZIP codes in Missouri and Illinois. These young artists bring their musical talents and love of classical, sacred, contemporary and world music to the concert stage for everyone to enjoy. Program scholarships are provided on a needs-based, sliding scale.
frontenac
Since last spring, some of Frontenac’s finest (pictured at top) have been taking corners on two wheels in this fair city, as well as in Huntleigh and Crystal Lake Park. We must note at the outset that the cops aren’t flouting the laws they’re sworn to obey, traveling at high rates of speed or screeching from here to there. They’re on Trek bicycles, three of them—that’s six wheels total. Frontenac’s community policing program has been pedaling along since another jurisdiction kindly donated the bicycles, and cops and residents are giving it two thumbs up so far. Bicycle-mounted officers can be proactive in engaging with the public, wherever they may be, from parking lots to block parties. They’re more approachable than the typical cop in a squad car. Kids are not as intimidated and are more likely to absorb bike safety messages from a fellow cyclist. Maybe now there’s hope, at least within Frontenac city limits, that the occasional gaggle of ‘serious’ cyclists who think nothing of hogging one whole lane of Clayton Road from the city to West County will learn how to behave. (Of course, everyone puts on a brain bucket—you know, a helmet—before going on a ride of any distance. Right? That even goes for you hat-to-the-back numbskulls who think it’s safe to ride on the sidewalk.) Frontenac’s bicycle patrol officers are required to complete a 40-hour course sanctioned by the International Police Mountain Bike Association (IPMBA) … which, btw, has begun registration for its annual convention next June 4 through 9, right here in the StL!
ladue
The towering evergreen looks like it could have been plucked from a mountainside in the Pacific Northwest’s coastal range, the Cascades, and transplanted in Ladue. But it’s an impostor. A little too symmetrical, it’s situated right behind Ladue’s new fire station that opened this year at Price and Clayton roads (right across from what was the late, lamented Busch’s Grove and is now PALM Health). It’s a cell tower, hiding in plain sight, decorated with faux-liage. Actually on the Village Lutheran Church property, its ‘needles’ camouflage all sorts of the sticky-outty antennae and other space-age gadgetry required to transmit cellular signals. The tubular metal ‘trunk’ is painted to resemble the real thing, many different shades of taupe, ochre … well, brown … to impersonate bark. You have to really look at it before realizing it’s out of the ordinary, but mimicking any deciduous species such as the mighty oak or average sycamore would be impractical. Plus, even indigenous evergreens have limbs of varying sizes that branch out every which way. That would make the tower ungainly in appearance, naturally kind of random—well, unscientific, unless one were to employ the type of science favored by the EPA or select school districts throughout Kansas. We’re talking physics and engineering here, not botany. The city requested an aesthetic approach, and we think the result is attractive, as camouflaged cell towers go. If not worthy, at the very least, of a snicker. Maybe even an LOL or VBG. At least it’s not another ‘left’ coast variety, say, a palm tree from L.A. or a saguaro from Arizona.
university city
The Centennial Greenway is a beautiful thing, for most of the way. But getting from here to there at Delmar and McKnight has been daunting since the section between Olive Boulevard in U. City and Shaw Park in Clayton was completed. For those of you frustrated by the three (!) crossings you have to make at the intersections, Great Rivers Greenway is going to make significant changes to reduce the hassle and, most importantly, improve safety for anyone walking, running, rollerblading, cycling or using a wheelchair. As it stands today, the northbound I-170 exit ramp at Delmar Boulevard is immediately to one side of the Greenway, and an exit/entrance to Schnucks is almost as close on the other side. Southbound Greenway users must cross the northbound entrance ramp to the interstate. It can be nerve-wracking for drivers, too. Over the summer, Great Rivers heard from nearly 100 metro residents about what could be done to improve the intersection. Among the most requested intersection elements are striped crossings, refuge medians and protected intersections. Without any impact to vehicle traffic, the proposed changes include:
» Additional traffic signals and painted crosswalks
» Making the turn lanes narrower so walkers and cyclists have a shorter distance to cross
» Median ‘refuges’ so that people in the crosswalk may cross only one direction of traffic at a time and can stop in between
» A larger plaza so users are more visible and can slow down or stop to cross safely
» Incorporating features to make it fully ADA accessible
» New signage to alert motorists and help walkers and cyclists navigate
With the proposed changes, Greenway visitors will have to cross traffic only twice—on streets, never having to cross an interstate ramp. Coming from the south on the Greenway, users will:
» Cross Delmar Boulevard on a painted crosswalk, with a traffic signal for walkers and cyclists and a spot to stop halfway across if needed
» Walk on the sidewalk or bike in the bike lane (buffered from traffic by a curb) north along McKnight Road
» Cross McKnight Road at another traffic signal, on another painted crosswalk, with a spot to stop halfway if needed.
Metro residents have through Nov. 22 to make additional suggestions online. Officials anticipate the project will be completed late next year.
