A well-preserved but disused sign on Gravois Avenue. When I was young and the quality of cars was much worse, the fabric on seats could deteriorate. Repairs ranged from a complete re-upholster to slip-on outer covers. Shops like this were common. The seats are tougher now, or maybe their American occupants are softer.
Our public radio station's photo walk ended in a secluded area at one end of the Arch park. The circular area in the center of the picture is known as the Explorers' Garden. We divided into several small groups to discuss our impressions about what we saw and the issues confronting our city. Peaceful ending.
Seen along the public radio station's downtown photo walk. A young man sits alone on a tree stump by the reflecting pool (and yes, it has algae), playing his guitar and singing. Sadly, he was out of earshot. Our group left him to his reverie.
One of the stops in the downtown photo walk was the Old Courthouse, whose history is too long and rich to discuss here (although it's part of the Arch national park and well worth a visit). The ironwork on the outer fence is covered with turtles and there is a cute story. A 19th Century building caretaker named James Quigley had a pet turtle. It lived in the outdoor fountain in the warm months and inside the rest of the year. It was beloved by locals and its springtime return to the fountain was noted in the newspapers. It died in the 1870s and received an obituary in the papers. Quigley himself never did.
We have a marvelous public radio station. In something new for them, they organized a downtown photo walk yesterday, starting in a central plaza and ending in a peaceful garden in the park north of the Arch. It was cosponsored by a local arts organization called Loutopia. Thirty or forty people came. We split into groups, talking about and recording our urban core and its history, emphasizing what unites and devides us. More to come.
Curtain call at the last production of Opera Theatre of St. Louis' season, Andre Previn's interpretation of A Streetcar Named Desire. It was stunning, a story by itself tight to the breaking point intensified by perfectly matched music. Stella!
A big sinkhole developed on the north edge of downtown about a week ago. A break in a large water main caused extensive subsidence. It's right under a major elevated highway that has been closed since. I wanted some pictures but so many streets were closed I couldn't get close. Looking around, I saw the iconic giant bottle of a local soft drink company. It used to rotate. That's a casino in the left background.
Finished with the Circus Flora images so back on the street. This is a puzzle. It stands beside a nondescript, one-story commercial building. It has the name of some random company with no other information. The sign is clean and well-maintained. Maybe it's from a previous occupant. I don't mind a smile as I drive down a busy street.
A couple of final pictures from Circus Flora (which closes this weekend for locals who haven't been). Carlos Carballo, the Number 1 guy on the Wheel Of Death, jumps rope at the top of the arc. Then he puts on a black hood and keeps walking over the rotating drum. Beyond my understanding, but that's what makes Circus Flora so much fun.
I had my lumbar nerve root ablation on Monday and things are getting better. It takes awhile to see the results but it's time to get back on the street.
A last picture of Elayne Kramer at Circus Flora, shooting a bow and arrow using her feet. The bow must have been spring loaded or something like a cross bow. I was shooting at five frames per second and was super lucky to get the arrow in the air. And, yes, the balloon popped.
Elayne Kramer is doing something I would not have thought possible. She is literally hanging by her teeth and jaws with her body impossibly balanced. The vertical rod is topped by something made of leather or rubber. I don't remember how long she hung there because I was stunned. And then she uncurled safely. Big applause for Circus Flora.
The atomic makeup of a protein molecule is not its only important characteristic. How the elements are folded onto one another is, I've read, critical. How the human body can be folded is a subject of comfort, activity and circus gymnastics. Elayne Kramer from Argentina is an international star in hand balance and contortion. I'll show more.
Amanda Pennino and Ermes Zamperla doing their thing again at Circus Flora. I usually post a single photo but the strength and balance of both performers was just so striking. Don't know if this will work in the Facebook version.
I get front row seats when we take the grandkid to the circus. It's not that expensive. Jack up the ISO, make the f stop wide open, set the focus to continuous tracking and hope for the best. This one worked, although the huge horses inches from my lens was intimidating. Amanda Pennino and Ermes Zamperla make an art of acrobatic horseback riding.
Who remembers the old song, https://tinyurl.com/7pactxb4 ? Now it's definitely not just men, as seen yesterday. The whole Wallenda family participates. Mrs. C was so impressed with them that she was talking about going back to see the show again. It only runs for nine more days so I don't think we will have time.
The Flying Wallendas are American circus royalty. https://wallenda.com/ They appear at Circus Flora every year, and every year they amaze. I edited a bunch of pictures of them yesterday and had to decide on one for today, so there may be more to come.The pater familias, Tino, must be in his 70s, and he was up there. Eight year old Matteo is learning high wire balancing skills, which he demonstrated a meter off the ground. Stay tuned.
The circus has to have a dog act every year, or at least ours does. We've never had a dog, being satisfied with a geriatric cat our granddaughter adores, so I don't know anything about training. I did notice that the handlers did not give the pups a treat when they performed a stunt, something we have seen with other species.
Next up at Circus Flora. This group of teens and children appear every year. Known as the St. Louis Arches (heh, get it?) they know no fear. How do they train, and for how long, to learn this? Their trust in one another is complete.
High level baton twirling is hard. It requires exceptional hand and finger dexterity, a degree of coordination I can't imagine. Then take three batons, twirl them and juggle them. Cody Carter, the first act at Circus Flora, had the crowd gasping.
There are a lot of good things about this town, and one of them is that we have our own resident circus company. Circus Flora opened its 40th season yesterday and we took the granddaughter. Mistress of ceremonies Cecil MacKinnon has been with the company since the beginning and her son, Jack Marsh, is the executive and artistic director. More to come.
I was driving around the South Side of the city the other day looking for anything to shoot. After rounding a corner I was confronted with Slovakian and Czech flags, countries we visited in April. Turns out they were flying over something called the American-Czech Educational Center, new to me. I may return to that but the circus opens tonight and we're taking the kid. They let you take all the pictures you want.
I've read about hip-hop's purported origin, spontaneously at a block party in the South Bronx. (I went to high school in the Mid Bronx. We didn't know about this stuff.) No criticism, but the style, the culture, the sound is alien to me. I'm an old white guy who went to his first symphony concert at 11 and got hooked (you can see me with the glasses off Lenny's left shoulder - https://tinyurl.com/mt52k9jx.) Generations pass.
Walls Off Washington has a central nave, the alley between the painted buildings. It is usually shrouded in shadow but light filters down from above. The place can feel like a secular cathedral, which, of course, needs appropriate windows.
The alley between the buildings of Walls Off Washington is narrow. It is hard to get a good perspective,even with digital editing. This tropical image, a bit reminiscent of both Gaugin and STL's summer climate, is called I Dance, Too, by Rowan Bathurst. I don't, though.
A corner at Walls Off Washington, where a six-limbed dinosaur threatens a human with a torch. The beast seems to radiate like Godzilla. The St. Louis Big Top is in the right background, home of our own Circus Flora. The season is about to start and we're taking the grandkid on Saturday.
The monumental statue of Saint Louis atop Art Hill, looking out over clouds and blue sky. There is even a rainbow towards the bottom.
The collection of CDP skygazers is at https://citydailyphoto.org/2026/05/25/june-theme-sky/
This image is a zoom into one of the sections in Walls Off Washington. The plaque underneath says it is called My Sky Sings Joy by Shinique Smith. It may be hard to see on a screen, particularly a phone, but individual elements are amazingly detailed. Look, for example, at the green paisley-like area. This took a lot of planning.
That's what it looks like to me, late Matisse, his birds painted or made with paper cut-outs. I don't know it that was the artist's intention for this section of Walls Off Washington but it is carried off well. It does seem, though, to have a bit of irony, peaceful symbols covering all those volts.
A small connecting building between the larger ones in The Walls Off Washington. All the other surfaces have designs, figurative or abstract (or a mix). This part makes for a good transition.
Why haven't I ever gotten through here? Walls Off Washington has been around for a few years, another project supported by the Kranzberg Arts Foundation. Kranzberg is a major sponsor of the St. Lou Fringe Festival, which, as long-time readers know, is a big interest of mine. Most of the wall art is along an alley between buildings mostly devoted to arts organizations. You can't see much from the street. More to come.
Almost curtain time at Opera Theatre. This is the lobby of the Loretto Hilton Theater on the campus of Webster University, a smaller local school less than 10 minutes from our home. (No one remembers why it's called that.) It is just under a thousand seats if all the back and side bays are open, with an unusual thrust stage. The opera shares the venue with the St. Louis Repertory Theatre. The acoustics are excellent.
Apologies to Manet. Lots of people bring picnic dinners or order catered meals to have on the lawn outside the theater before our opera performances. There are many tables under the tent. We always go early to get a place there out of the sun or rain, but the tables extend much beyond the view in this photo. It makes for the start of a very civilized evening.
One of the nice, unusual things about our Opera Theatre is that it takes place on the leafy campus of a small university. There are broad lawns and gardens. Many people come early and have dinner al fresco. The crowd can be interesting. These two look like a mismatch. She was looking for attention. What you can't see here is that she was wearing just-under-the-knee black leather boots with three inch chunky heels. She made her point.
Yesterday was opening night of the 51st season of Opera Theatre of St. Louis. We've been subscribers for somewhere in the mid-upper 40s. They do four productions in rotating repertory in May and June, all in English with super titles. This year kicked off with a wacky and hilarious production of Pirates of Penzance. The man who played Major General Stanley may hold the record for the fastest comprehensible speeech in the English language.
When my son and granddaughter were in town recently, the mandatory first stop for the kid was the ride to the top of the Arch. It is triangular in cross section, with one apex pointing inward. The little slit windows point out and down. The Illinois side in the background is very flat, less so in Missouri.
It's opening night of our opera season later today, a big deal for us. I'm sure to get a few snaps.
This modified freight container sits in the rides and amusements section of St. Louis Union Station. We sometimes refer to our town as The Lou. However, I'd wager that most people who pass by here don't get the British-ism. There are the usual symbols on the doors to the right, which solves the problem. It's clever, but does it communicate well?
Would that it were so simple.
There is a restaurant at St. Louis Union Station simply called The Soda Fountain. It serves kid-pleasing, bad nutrition food, cheeseburgers, hot dogs, mac and cheese, curly fries, etc. The big draw is outrageous, huge ice cream concoctions. The one my son ordered for the table, called The King, was too much for the four of us. No one felt quarrelsome when we left.
In the entry hall of the St. Louis Aquarium. The watery projections constantly change but the circle in the center is a window into the world of real fishies. Son Andy and granddaughter Josie stare into the depths.
Of course, this is in our once-grand railway station, hence the arch with the indication To Trains. The corridor leads to a mock train car, whose windows take you on a spectacular VR ride through and over the city, and down into the Mississippi.
Because it is, as Ben Stein used to say, your moment of zen. The St. Louis Aquarium, in addition to the usual wet things, has hourly mini-shows with a variety of dry things to amuse the kids. This little armadillo kept pushing around a plastic toy as if it was its purpose in life. Maybe it was.
A kid tour of St. Louis includes the Aquarium at Union Station. It's not Seattle or Chicago, but it's not bad. I always get pictures of the jellyfish, sub-phylum Medusozoa, named to the mythological Medusa, who has snakes for hair. They are unperturbed by our presence.
We look Andy and Josie out to dinner at a local restaurant famous for its flaming desserts, particularly cherries jubilee. Josie's big sister, Audrey, talked it up big after she experienced it. I don't know the whole recipe, but after cherry sauce caramelized sugar, the server pours in brandy, tips the edge of the pan towards the burner and foooom! It's quite a show. Tastes great, too.
A day out with son Andy and granddaughter Josie. First stop was the mandatory ride to the top of the Arch. Back underneath, there was a VR experience, wandering around the bustling Mississippi riverfront in 1850. Josie must have been interested enough that she didn't notice that her hoodie was falling off.
Son Andy and granddaughter Josie, 7, are flying in early this morning for the weekend. They will take our light rail downtown from the airport, meeting us for breakfast at a locally famous hash and chili parlor. Then it's up to the top of the Arch for all of us. The afternoon plan is the zoo, and we have an exceptional one.
New stuff, in two ways. Time for some fresh material, and there is a lot of good outdoor sculpture around. (Although someday I'll do a series about the public artwork at St. Louis University, which has the worst collection of sculpture I've ever seen.) Also, while we were in Europe, the shutter crapped out on my main camera, a Fujifilm X-T5. (After only 47,000 actuations! Harrumph!) So I wanted a quality, very small camera to take anywhere, and settled on a Sony RX100 VII. I took it out for a test drive yesterday.
This is a Tom Otterness piece simply called Mouse, on Manchester Avenue at the entrance to the district known as The Grove. Its head seems to be quizzically tilted, as if wondering who is coming through.
More Route 66 neon. It would not occur to me to travel anywhere with an overnight stay without booking a hotel online in advance. It didn't used to be so. I remember a family road trip in my early teens up through New Hampshire to Quebec City. My father, who was, um, a bit of a character, drove up to the door of the Chateau Frontenac, expecting to put us up in style. Je suis désolé, monsieur, mais nous n'avons pas de chambres disponibles. Then we drove around for what seemed like a long time before ending up at Helen's Motel (sic., in English), which I recall being a bit of a dump but the kids loved it because they had a big trampoline. Vacancy.
Possibly signs that appeared along old US Route 66, or maybe just neon from a bye-gone era. Now the displays are all LEDs and Route 66 has been replaced by sections on the Interstate Highway system. More from the Missouri History Museum.
The classic cars I've been showing for the last few days were part of a program at the Missouri History Museum. It's a pretty interesting place but more about our local area than the whole state. A sign in the central hallway sets the theme. The graphic is a section of the city's flag, representing the meeting of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, as well as the fleur-de-lys of our French origin.
