The Crowd Last Saturday - And Today?

Big downtown parades usually start in front of Union Station (lots of German-influenced architecture) and proceed east down Market Street, the main downtown east-west thoroughfare, towards the Arch. This was the scene last Saturday before the start of the St. Patrick's Day parade.

Today, the same space will hold our iteration of the national March For Our Lives. It was spurred by high school students from Parkland, Florida, after the massacre at their high school. The motivating idea it that our safety, our civil society, our very lives, are more important than the unbridled ownership of semi-automatic firearms. The main demonstration will be in Washington but local marches will take place in hundreds of cities across America. The activism and outrage of these students may bring a tipping point in the gun debate in our country.

The weather forecast for here looks miserable, cold and raining, but my wife, my daughter, my granddaughter and I will be there until we are soaked through.        

Nice Light

It's Thursday and the Arch is in there somewhere. Looking east down Market Street from about 22nd Street.

Taking a quick visit online through my phone to post this. Violent thunderstorms again yesterday. Our power at home has been down since mid-afternoon.  

Et heureux fête nationale à nos amis français! 

City Daily Photo Theme Day: Shop Windows

It's the American way. Consumption fuels the economy and trashes the planet. Found in the arcade in Union Station.

Peek in shop windows from around the world at the City Daily Photo theme day page here.                

Look At Me

No pictures of Denver yet. From what I've seen so far, downtown is bigger and more modern than The Lou and full of really boring architecture.

So I dug this up from an event at Union Station a few weeks ago. The entertainers are on something of a bridge at the far end of the old train hall, looking down at the audience. The singer really wanted to attract attention and he succeeded.

The guitar player's hat say BRONX on the front. He don't know from The Bronx, as we used to say. I went to high school in The Bronx. I could tell him something.                

In Your Face

Hello from Indianapolis. It is a city in our region, four hours drive away, which is modest by Midwestern standards. It's someplace I have driven through many times going back east but not a place I really know. Downtown, where my conference is, is less derelict than central St. Louis, but has little interesting architecture, less spunk, no Arch and no Mississippi River. It's nice and plain.

So this is another image from Train Day at Union Station. I don't understand juggling, being the least coordinated person I know. Their art is magical to me.                 

Thursday Arch Series

A look down Market Street with a long lens. The Arch is maybe a mile and a half away. The statues and fountain I've been showing lately are just off to the left of the frame. The architectural fruit salad of the Civil Courts is left center and the tower of Union Station to the right.                            

The Great Hall Of Union Station: More Architectural Details

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These photos give a good idea of how the nearly-identical ends of the barrel vault are designed. I like the standing classical figures on the balcony with their lantern, balancing the arch full of their sisters above. But imagine what their arms must feel like after doing this for 116 years! One of these days I have to go back and take some shots from those balconies.

When doing a little more research online, I found that Union Station was once the largest and busiest train station in the world. All things must pass.

Today's post on Downtown St. Louis 365 considers the transformation

of a local landmark into scrap.

The Great Hall Of Union Station: Architectural Details

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To say that the barrel-vaulted main hall of Union Station has a grand sense of design is an understatement. Above, behind a pair of graceful arches at one end is the hotel front desk. My vigilant editor, Mrs. C, points out that although the property was a Hyatt for many years, it is now a Marriott. Below, the opposite end of the hall. Note the pattern of seven classically garbed women in a semicircle, holding torches high above them, and the pair of friends over the balcony in a similar pose. Maybe it represents St. Louis lighting the way to the future. Whether we succeeded is up to you.

Tarzan returns from the jungle today on Downtown St. Louis 365.

Union Station: The Allegory Window

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Back to the great hall of Union Station and one of its most beautiful features, the stained glass window displaying an allegory of the American railroads. On the left is San Francisco, in the center St. Louis and on the right New York, the major rail terminals of the day. It's nice to think that there was a time when our city could claim this position without pretense. I think we were once the fourth largest city in the country, after New York, Philadelphia and, I forget, Boston or Chicago. No more (although note that these figures are for the city proper, not metropolitan area. We do quite a lot better by that measure.)

If you believe in magic, stop by Downtown St. Louis 365 today.

Possibly The Most Beautiful Room In America

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My brain is so crowded I sometimes forget simple things. This blog is almost four years old and I keep meaning to go to this place and I never remember to do it. Until Sunday.

This is lovingly restored great hall of Union Station, once one of the country's largest railroad terminals. It fell into grim disrepair as passenger traffic collapsed. Eventually, the tiny number of passenger trains run by Amtrak were moved to a double-wide trailer a few blocks away (known locally as Amshack; it's been replaced with a permanent structure). It is also the lobby of the Hyatt Hotel that now occupies the "head house." I think it is among the most beautiful rooms I've ever seen. Sure, it's not Versailles' Hall of Mirrors and there must be lots of other fabulous rooms in the U.S. but I have not seen the equal. (I must say, though, that I am fond of the main reading room at the Boston Public Library.) It is turn of the 19th to 20th Century grandeur at its most brilliant.

We will explore this over the next couple of days. However, according to hysterical TV forecasters, we may be sliding into the worst ice and snow storm since, I don't know, Lewis and Clark last went looking for a beer in Laclede's Landing. If so, and the local streets can be walked without crampons, I may have to go out and document it.

We question reality today on Downtown St. Louis 365.

TUESDAY MORNING UPDATE: the National Weather Service has issued a blizzard warning for the first time in the history of the St. Louis office. We are expecting significant ice followed by heavy snow and high winds into tomorrow morning. I closed our office today. Got to get out with my camera if walking isn't unsafe.

8 AM this morning outside my house.
Tiny pellets of ice are falling now, bouncing off surfaces. Snow later.