st. albans
Way out west, Manchester Road (Hwy. 100) dwindles to a winding, hilly country road. It’s paved, though. Turn into the lane alongside the golf course at St. Albans, and you may feel as though you’ve been transported to Scotland. The hilly community on the outer edge of the metro near the Missouri River, once charted by Lewis and Clark as the country’s western frontier, feels unlike anywhere else in these parts. And it’s experiencing another transformation that respects the surrounding architecture and landscape: The Inns at St. Albans (pictured at top) is expanding with a $3.6 million lodge for guests of weddings, corporate retreats and weekend cooking school events, doubling the 14 rooms presently available for overnight stays. Construction will begin in September and is scheduled for completion by summer 2021—on the site of a home that once housed the Chesterfield Day School near the historic Head’s Store. Indeed, there’s good reason a visit to the village feels like arriving at another place in a different time. Theodore Link, world-renowned architect who designed St. Louis Union Station, built The Studio Inn here.
forest park
Pulitzer Prize-winning photos are images that you can’t unsee. You can’t help but feel something when you encounter them for the first time, and the feeling returns whenever you see them again: rage, astonishment, sorrow, joy. Many of us remember where we were the first time we saw them, whether in the Post-Dispatch, Globe-Democrat or TIME and LIFE magazines. Everyone has seen the flag-raising on Iwo Jima after U.S. Marines fought bitterly to take the tiny Pacific island from the Japanese. It was made into a statue, which tops the Marine Corps War Memorial near Arlington, Virginia. Many cannot forget the Post’s prize-winner from 2015, a Ferguson protester clad in an American-flag shirt hurling a tear-gas canister back at police. Some of these photos changed the course of history. Protests against the Vietnam War swelled after stark images were published: The South Vietnamese police chief executing a Viet Cong officer with a single shot to the head; the naked girl screaming as she flees exploding napalm. They captured a national mood, as with the exultant family racing across the tarmac to welcome home a returning service member. Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs are family photos. The family? All of us. Pulitzer winners—from when the photography prize was established during World War II to Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald to Ferguson to the migrant caravan—are on display through Jan. 9 at the Missouri History Museum in Forest Park. They’re larger and clearer than the first time we saw them, which was typically on a grainy newspaper page. The arresting images are part of a traveling exhibition from the Newseum in Washington, D.C., where each and every prize-winner is on permanent display.
ferguson
In an effort to improve and revitalize a city rocked by civil unrest just five years ago, local leaders have joined together to address Ferguson’s needs along the West Florissant corridor—the heart of the community and the epicenter of protests and violence. The nonprofit Health & Homes STL, which involves local business and community leaders, has begun an ambitious revitalization project. The first piece is already under construction. A $12.4 million Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater St. Louis Teen Center of Excellence is scheduled to open in October. The three-story, 26,000-square-foot space is designed to serve 1,500 community members between the ages of 12 and 18. Mercy plans to break ground by year-end on an adjacent 11,000-square-foot clinic that will provide primary care and women’s services, plus behavioral health and other social services. All of this will be surrounded by 12,000 square feet of sidewalks, 17 new crosswalks, almost 4 miles of improved curbs and gutters, and street lighting. The overall plan, known as WestFlo District, is to serve as an area for residents to work, live and play. In addition, Health & Homes has raised $8 million and secured 4 acres of land for long-term plans, which include the construction of better housing, a new grocery store and improved storm water management.
the metro
The creepy, nefarious Yahoo Boys are at it again, as though they’d ever stopped. These ruffians lurk at Internet cafés overseas, beyond the reach of western law enforcement in Benin and Lagos, Nigeria. The wily scam artists are as close as a few clicks of the mouse or thumbstrokes on your smartphone. I’ve met them on Facebook and Instagram. Maybe you’ve encountered them. They pose as attractive members of the opposite sex and cast wide, electronic nets to snare the lovelorn, the clueless, the men and women who feel trapped in bad marriages. The New York Times and Voice of America have written stories about the crooks who take millions of dollars monthly from foreign victims; like Robin Hood, they’re local heroes amid poverty. So, why is this important to anyone in the StL? Hopelessly hopeful men and women from St. Peters to Maryland Heights to Ladue can be bilked for thousands by someone who allegedly needs a plane ticket to visit their newfound online love or a few hundred dollars to upgrade a cell phone. Before blocking or ‘unfriending’ them, I’ve messed with the heads of a few would-be ‘suitors’ who want to message me on Instagram or become fast Facebook friends. These clowns typically follow thousands of Instagram accounts and have a few hundred users following them, but they only post a couple of ‘teaser’ photos. They’re never who they appear to be. They hijack the profiles of beautiful women and handsome men. A deployed U.S. Marine recently disconnected himself from all social media after The Times proved that his photos had been usurped hundreds of times. Yahoo Boys know enough English to flatter suckers everywhere, and keep inventing schemes to suck cash from them. Don’t be the next sucker.
notable neighbors
hampton hills
This Friday, Aug. 16, is the 42nd anniversary of Elvis Presley’s untimely death. The ‘King of Rock and Roll’ was 42 when he died of a heart attack at his home in Memphis. Elvis had not been well, having performed his last concert earlier that summer—June 26, 1977—for a crowd of 18,000 in Indianapolis. They’d paid only $15 for a ticket. Morgan Aron Bluestein, 10, could probably tell you all of that; well, maybe not the exact date, the crowd size or the admission price. But he can tell you pretty much anything else about his idol because Morgan is an ETA—Elvis Tribute Artist. Elvis impersonators are a dime a dozen, but few of them just started sixth grade. Morgan has the moves down pat … and the look, as you can see from his photo. (That’s quite the sneer!) He comes by his fanaticism honestly. His father, Mark, 42, spelled his only child’s middle name with the solitary ‘A’ on purpose because that was how Elvis Presley’s parents, who were practically illiterate, spelled his middle name on the birth certificate. (Hmm … all of those 42s. Coincidence?) Morgan’s dad has dozens of live Elvis performances on DVD. And Morgan (or ‘Mo’ or ‘L’il E,’ if you will) has watched them since before he could walk or talk. For many years, the Bluesteins have made the mid-August pilgrimage from their home in Hampton Hills to Graceland to commemorate the passing of ‘The Artist of the Century.’ Mandy, Morgan’s mom, can be seen in the 2017 video of Today show host Jenna Bush Hager chatting with L’il E, who was wearing a distinctive pair of Elvis-style sunglasses, across the street from Graceland on the 40th anniversary. For the Bluesteins, Memphis is mecca: Mark sprinkled the ashes of his parents, Carol and Terry, over the side of a bridge at Graceland. He has an ‘ELV1S’ tattoo (for his No. 1 hits album) on his upper arm with ‘TCB’ and a lightning bolt, which is also the decal on the back window of his Camaro. (‘Taking care of business in a flash’ was a motto Elvis used in the 1970s; the TCB Band was his rhythm section.) L’il E interrupts his dad: “I’m the biggest Elvis fan!” He started school Aug. 6, but on Aug. 16, he will be in Memphis in full ’70s Las Vegas rehearsal regalia. The blue suede shoes he got in first grade finally fit. He hasn’t performed in Memphis (yet), but he did have a gig in Branson last March, complete with scarves and a towel to wipe off the sweat. The fan girls screamed as he went through a repertoire that included live favorites “Polk Salad Annie” and the “Mystery Train/Tiger Man” medley in a red silk shirt. Whither goeth Morgan Aron? Well, even though L’il E has been taking voice lessons, his dad says it won’t be into a recording studio anytime soon.
