midtown
The polls have closed, the results are in and St. Louis’ newest district is named … drum roll, please … Prospect Yards. The name reflects the district’s early 20th-century roots, when an area west of Grand was the Prospect Industrial District, one of 17 in the city and home to an extensive rail yard and numerous businesses. The 150-acre district in Midtown connects SLU’s north and south campuses and is bordered by Laclede and Chouteau avenues, Grand Boulevard, and Vandeventer and Spring avenues. (Other districts in the metro: Cortex is part of the CWE; The Loop is part of U. City.) SLU students and staff, SSM Health employees and community members at large cast about 6,000 votes. Of the four options presented—the other three were The 1818, The Circuit and The GRID—Prospect Yards came out on top. (Ballot-counters also received many write-in suggestions, some playing on the ‘Prospect’ theme.) Prospect Yards includes projects under way such as construction of the City Foundry STL, Element by Westin Hotel and a $50 million redevelopment of the historic Armory building. The umbrella developer for the larger, 400-acre area is St. Louis Midtown Redevelopment Corp., owned by SLU and SSM Health. Executive director Brooks Goedeker says Prospect Yards will have a logo, signage and web presence. We’re not bitter that they didn’t choose ‘The Ozzie Smith District.’ That’s what we might have suggested, had we been notified about the poll in time. But we weren’t. And we’re not … bitter. The last thing in the metro named after a Hall of Fame baseball player was Stan Musial-Veterans Memorial Bridge over the Mississippi. The words following the hyphen were required by our friends on the right side of the river, who kicked in millions for the bridge: the state of Illinois. We still have a bone to pick with Illinois (those silly hoosiers). Not that we have anything against veterans, mind you, but lots of stuff is already named after them; e.g., Veterans Memorial Parkway in St. Charles County, which runs alongside I-70 … it’s the frontage road, for veterans’ sake.
the metro
Planes, Trains & Automobiles: Actually, two new travel options throughout the metro do, or will, involve only one of the three modes featured in the 1987 Steve Martin/John Candy comedy. The first is a rideshare approach to bicycle —dockless—which means you just unlock and ride. For this, cyclists need an app … you know, one of those whiz-bang, high-tech thingies on a smartphone that lets you do all kinds of neat stuff. As the oft-befuddled longtime owner of a flip phone, which at least one of my friends ridiculed until 2016, I learned only recently that an app is as cool as an 8-track, I mean CD player, I mean iPod, I mean smartphone is for your music. Two bike-share companies are in negotiations to get hundreds, if not thousands, of two-wheelers on the streets of St. Louis; one company already has Alton, Illinois, locked up. And an app is necessary to unlock it. A bike, that is. Meanwhile, a second public transportation option for seniors (60-plus) and residents with impaired vision (21-plus)—Independent Transportation Network, or ITNGateway—will begin operations May 9 in the county. The nonprofit has been operating in St. Charles County for eight years. Think Uber, but with mostly volunteer drivers. Riders will go door to-door and get help with packages, walkers and so forth, 24/7. There will be a $50 annual fee, $75 for couples; each ride starts with a $2.50 pick-up fee, plus $1.50 per mile from then on. To volunteer or to find out whether your ZIP code is in the coverage area, visit itngateway.org.
As many as 15,000 people went to the StL iteration of March For Our Lives, a worldwide protest against lax gun laws and the next-to-last (!) fatal school shooting on Valentine’s Day at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Florida, where 14 students and three teachers died in semiautomatic rifle fire. Two true ‘blue’ members of Congress from our very ‘red’ state—U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill and U.S. Rep. Lacy Clay—joined the march here on a chilly, cloudy Saturday, March 24, as an estimated 800,000 compatriots did the same in Washington, D.C. Among the ‘Never Again’ and ‘Enough Is Enough’ signs were these: ‘If kids are old enough to be SHOT, then they’re old enough to have an OPINION about being shot.’ And, ‘Claire McCaskill has received $0 from the NRA.’ Meanwhile, over the past few weeks, it has come to mind how guns have altered my own family’s lives … several times. My grandfather, C.S. Coats, was a federal revenue agent in North Carolina during Prohibition. One raid of an illegal whisky still didn’t go well for Coats; a bootlegger shot him. He survived but was a less-than-responsible gun owner. When I was a kid, my grandparents spoiled me something terrible. Whenever they were going to town, I’d beg them to buy me a toy. I rarely hit up my grandfather, then a sheriff’s deputy. But one day in 1962, I asked him to get me a gun. I was 8. When he returned in his green pickup after work, I asked about the gun and he replied, “It’s in the glove compartment. Don’t touch it.” He went inside the house, and I climbed right into the truck, opened the glove compartment and pulled out a handgun that looked nothing like the cowboy’s six-shooter I expected. It was a snub-nosed .38. I had my finger on the trigger, and it fired. All I remember was a deafening blast, the cab filling with smoke, my eyes with tears. Four years later, in 1968, C.S. Coats was behind the cash register of a state-run liquor store when a robber shot him, paralyzing him from the chest down. After doing time, the robbers walked. Coats never walked again. An armed criminal is one thing. But gun owners who don’t put the safety on or neglect to lock up their guns are another—accidents happen, and people are killed or wounded. There’s little to no reason a civilian should have an AR-15. They’re designed to kill people, either immediately or from grievous wounds. CPR won’t save them. Students and most of the public demand legislation that raises age limits for gun purchasers, requires mental health screenings and bans military-type weapons. But money talks. NRA money practically shouts at legislators. It’s time to muzzle the NRA.
u. city
Already a literary star, Ridley Pearson is now a brass star. Pearson was honored Monday on the sidewalks of U. City as a metro luminary along the St. Louis Walk of Fame. Pearson joins 150 or so famous people, and plenty who should be, including Miles Davis, Tennessee Williams, Maya Angelou and Vincent Price. Each brass star features the name of an honoree; the accompanying bronze plaque features a biography summarizing his or her achievements and connection to the city. Pearson’s initial success came in crime fiction, with series heroes like detective Lou Boldt and novels such as The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer, which topped best-seller lists in 2002. Pearson, however, really hit his stride after reading Peter Pan to his daughter. He was inspired to co-write 2004’s Peter and the Starcatchers, a prequel to Peter Pan that spawned a best-selling series and a Broadway adaptation that won five Tony Awards. In 2005, Pearson introduced young fans to Kingdom Keepers, a Disney-themed adventure series. Among the dozens of other notable local folks honored with brass stars and bronze plaques: Ulysses S. Grant, Stan Musial, T.S. Eliot, Tina Turner, Josephine Baker, Yogi Berra, Phyllis Diller, Lou Brock and Cedric the Entertainer. (There’s at least one architect. See this issue’s TT Trivia for our special question that includes extra credit. You know, to amaze your friends.)
You’ll have to be off your rocker to get on the plane. Rows of red rocking chairs, about eight each, are lined up near departure gates at St. Louis-Lambert International Airport. On a recent Thursday morning, it was standing room only near a row facing the jetway. Whenever the loudspeaker announced a plane was boarding, in a game of musical rocking chairs, they’d all empty … and fill up again immediately. It was quite amusing. But one lonely row of rockers had a sole occupant. It was sad. There’s plenty to watch at Lambert, people and planes for starters, but this row faced I-70 through the windows opposite the gate and all you could see was a dirty embankment.