Showing posts with label Luther Ely Smith Square. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Luther Ely Smith Square. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

House On Haunted Hill


That's what the light made me think of. I was walking around the area that will become the new entrance to the Arch grounds and museum, seeing if there was anything to shoot yet. It's taking shape but has a way to go. When I turned around I saw the sun peeking through dark late afternoon clouds onto the surrounding buildings. The Hyatt hotel and Old Court House had an ominous look.              

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Some Progress

Luther Ely Smith Plaza 2015-12-05 1

The renovations around the Arch have made quite a mess. One little bit of it is finished and reopened. This is Luther Ely Smith Square, where the city streets end at an expressway in a trench below street level, followed by the Arch itself. The old square was, um, rather plain. The new plan has made it more attractive. A deck was built over the road so pedestrians can walk directly from downtown onto the Arch grounds. That's an improvement.

Mr. Smith was a prominent citizen of St. Louis some decades ago. He was instrumental in creating the civic effort that led to the Arch's construction. I bet you couldn't find one local resident in ten thousand today who could identify him. I had to look him up on Wikipedia.

There will be more of this type of post as the overall plan moves forward. Some time I'll write one of my occasional rants about the awful things the project is doing to downtown traffic patterns.       

Luther Ely Smith Plaza 2015-12-05 2