clayton
By the time you read this, you might not be able to buy goodies at Lake Forest Confections anymore. The storefront at 7801 Clayton Road (at Bemiston Avenue), pictured at top, has gone out of business. This is not to say you’re out of luck if you have a hankering for its chocolates. Lake Forest is still a much-loved brand, and has been available since 2012 at the Dan Abel family’s Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate Co. factory and store on The Hill … plus, for the last few years, at 230 Dillard’s stores. Alas, it’s still a sad story for metro residents who remember the original Lake Forest Pastry Shop, which stood vacant since closing in 1999 and didn’t meet the wrecking ball until a decade later. (Inside the new building, which houses Ladue Nails & Spa, they made my toes less hideous once.) But forever lost is a classic store that had been there for eons, down to the vintage neon sign. Lake Forest Confections managed to make a go of it for a dozen years just across the street. They made gooey butter cake and other luscious StL staples there until the baker retired last year. They even had a couple of metered parking spaces dedicated to the men who ran in and right back out after scoring sweets for their sweeties during the holidays, a birthday or Valentine’s Day. According to Dan Abel Jr., that was part of the challenge: parking. Plus, the Clayton-sized lease was coming up, and continuing to keep the shop open when manufacturing was being handled elsewhere just didn’t prove viable. Weep no more: You can apply chocolate salve to your wounded sweet tooth with a visit to the plant, just north of I-44 and Kingshighway Boulevard, at 5025 Pattison Ave., where free tours are offered six days a week.
Matt Crosby, the former Rock Hill police officer who has remained in a wheelchair since he was shot answering a domestic disturbance call in April 2010, was able to attend the ribbon cutting last month for a business that has been raising money on his behalf. The new Planet Fitness in Shrewsbury donated the first month’s membership fees collected for two weeks from new members, handing Crosby a $10,000 check toward building a ‘smart’ home that will be wheelchair accessible and meet Crosby’s many other needs. In December, elementary pupils held a hot chocolate fundraiser that raised more than $1,000. On Jan. 12, Crosby’s birthday, dozens of area restaurants donated a percentage of that day’s receipts toward the same goal. A longtime friend of the family has established an account at gofundme.com, which has so far raised just under $17,000 toward its goal of $150,000. Crosby fights depression and recently was bedridden for months following surgery to repair a pressure sore he received from the wheelchair. Things will never be the same—his mother testified that she hopes the shooter stays in prison as long as her son remains trapped in his—but even while confined to bed, Crosby has been able to enjoy video games with his two sons. He recently gained the ability to drive again. In 2012, his assailant was sentenced to life in prison plus 45 years.
st. louis
The oft-overlooked Soldiers Memorial— now the Soldiers Memorial Military Museum under the umbrella of the Missouri Historical Society—has been undergoing $30 million in renovations. In late February, the Historical Society shared renderings of its planned collections, which will more than double the existing exhibition area and make sense of a hodgepodge of donated military artifacts that have occupied the lower floor of the magnificent Art Deco building. Its exterior will be cleaned of 80 years of soot. The four monumental Walker Hancock sculptures representing Loyalty, Vision, Courage and Sacrifice, which stand with ‘the horses they rode in on’ at the north and south sides of the building, will be restored to their original glory. Soldiers Memorial Military Museum will set itself apart from many other war memorials because St. Louis is central to the story. Once dedicated to ‘The Great War,’ Soldiers Memorial opened in 1938, just a year before the world was plunged into the worst conflict in history. When the memorial reopens in 2018, it will tell the stories of our town’s servicemen and women and their families, as well as St. Louis’ contributions during war efforts from the War of 1812 to the War on Terror, with a large portion dedicated to World War II. One more community forum will be held 9 a.m. March 18 at American Legion Post 422 (2601 S. 11th St.) to welcome additional public input about the latest plans for renovations and exhibit design.
university city
Coming attraction: A total eclipse of the sun Aug. 21. An eclipse is akin to lining up a cosmic billiards shot—the sun, moon and earth are so arranged in the cosmos to obscure all but the corona, the sun’s atmosphere. It will be a sunless Monday, at least for a few unforgettable minutes, as a 70-mile-wide moon shadow advances across the country from Oregon to South Carolina. Much of Missouri will be in shadow awhile after noon. At 1:19 p.m., the shadow’s midpoint will cross the Mississippi River here. OK, it isn’t time to start digging a bunker or get out the tinfoil hat … but you might want to plan hanging out in the Delmar Loop the day before the Great American Eclipse at the Loop Eclipse Festival. With a hotel named Moonrise featuring a restaurant named Eclipse, what better place to celebrate this once-in-a-lifetime event than the Loop? The daylong festival on Sunday, Aug. 20, will feature activities along the Loop Planet Walk, plus food, drink and music. MoonPies, if you can stomach them, will be available. (Cat Stevens will almost certainly NOT be here, but you can see him play his 1970s hit song “Moonshadow” anytime on YouTube.) All this and that said, if you’re truly on a quest for more than two minutes of totality, best to travel west day after the festival to Columbia or southeast to Carbondale, Ill.
With a name like Webster Groves, you know it’s a community that loves its tree-lined streets. But a pest that first reared its ugly little green head in Missouri in 2008— the emerald ash borer—is starting to take its toll here. City workers already have removed dozens of ash trees, and will need to cut down more than 200 overall. It’s not the beetles themselves, but their larvae, that are fatal to ash trees. They burrow through the bark, eventually killing the tree. Chemicals can slow the process, but once infested, a tree will die. Meanwhile, falling branches pose a hazard to pedestrians and cars below. Native to Asia, the nasty bug was first spotted in Michigan and Canada about 15 years ago and gradually migrated south. It’s a shame. What we really need to import is a bug that dines on sweetgum balls.
