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.
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.
Another piece by Igor Mitoraj downtown, but in a place with less traffic than Eros Bendato, seen here a number of times (https://tinyurl.com/nhj8hufr). It's called Torso Di Ikaro, Torso of Icarus, and I find it puzzling. It looks to be neither flying or crashing to earth, although the six-pack abs are ready for great effort. The hollow and its shell could become a balloon, ready to challenge the sun in a way a whole body could not. There is a bit of discussion at https://racstl.org/public-art/torsi-di-ikaro/ .
This picture was taken yesterday, Friday. By the time you see this post the sculpture will probably be gone from the site. Synergism by William Conrad Severson and Saunders Schultz has sat at this corner downtown for 50 years (some background at https://racstl.org/public-art/synergism/). It is a mirrored stainless steel cube within a cube within a cube, playing wonderful visual tricks with its surroundings. There was an article in yesterday's newspaper, https://tinyurl.com/2zkx6um5, stating that it is being removed today for extensive restoration. At a later date it will be reinstalled in a park in the nether suburbs. Another loss for downtown.
Mariposas, butterflies in Spanish. This unusual work is found on the side of the Central Branch of the St. Louis Public Library, a wonderful building worth exploring for its own sake. It seems like a perfect metaphor for the wonders of reading. Now, if I could only get my granddaughter's face out of the Roblox screen , , ,
Passenger rail service in the US. This is the Amtrak train coming into downtown from Chicago, the only one that comes from this direction. None of the sleek lines of the Shinkansen or TGV, but it’s something. Outside of the Boston - Washington corridor, we just dont' have the population density. This is America. We drive or fly.
From the downtown gray-day cruise, another old commercial building newly converted to apartments. That is wonderful but I wonder about the occupancy rate. Downtown has one good-enough grocery with a pharmacy, a shrinking number of restaurants and some issues about safety. Maybe the residential population will reach a critical mass.
No new material so I went out driving under leaden skies. Terrible light, iffy images, but I needed something and the Arch is always available. I worked in downtown St. Louis for 47 years and have been retired more than 4. The pandemic hit downtown hard. Over the last 4 or 5 years, it has become more and more desolate, although there are a couple of big redevelopment projects on the boards. Hope they work.
Not in the sense of final, but rather shoe manufacturing. St. Louis once dominated shoe making in the US before it all went offshore. (And we had more big breweries than just Anheuser-Busch, as well as a second - terrible - major league baseball team. It was said that we were first in shoes, first in brews and last in the American League.) This building was the headquarters of the International Shoe Company and a shoe last is a mechanical form shaped like a human foot, used by shoemakers to create and repair shoes. BTW, obscure reference in the title: https://youtu.be/Metv95k5VrY?si=dtWWai1lv9lYEP--
A locally notorious signpost downtown near the nexus of several highways. Imagine being a visitor trying to find your way, approaching this at 30 mph / 50 kph. Good luck.
It may be hard to see depending on the size of your screen, but those are the words over the door of this old, wildly painted commercial building. (14th and Delmar for the locals.) The only other signage indicates storage space. Maybe there is an urban farm on top. If so, the roots seem to go deep.
Most of the first floor of the Old Courthouse contains historical exhibits and it’s very well done. This room is about the building itself. I mentioned that it had been constructed in phases. This model shows the small original structure surrounded by a clear plastic model of what exists now.
The statue of Dred and Harriet Scott I posted yesterday is outside the building we call the Old Courthouse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Courthouse_(St._Louis). It was built in stages during the 19th Century and became the seat of state and federal legal proceedings. It is now part of the National Park system and underwent a big restoration recently. The view is inside the rotunda from the first balcony, which is as far up as they let you go.
It’s unusual in recent years for us to get snow this early, but when it happens I think I should do something with it. Igor Mitoraj’s Eros Bendato in Citygarden.
More aftermath of last week’s fire. Brick can collapse when the support behind it burns away. Concrete stands. The small building in the foreground, although close to the collapsed structure, survived.
While we were away last week a five alarm fire broke out in an area of old, vacant warehouses south of the Arch. The fire and smoke ball was so big it showed up on weather radar. The district was to be part of a big redevelopment project, whose future is now uncertain. I went by yesterday to see what was visible in the snow.
An iconic view of Kansas City, taken from the hill that contains the Liberty Monument and World War I museum. In the foreground is Union Station, which still gets a few trains but now contains other attractions. Downtown is behind. The four narrow towers at left center support the roof of the convention center.
The president and his sycophants claim that the people at the No Kings rallies in every state were left wing loonies [sic], Hamas agitators, Antifa operatives (as if such an organization exists, while we are reminded that every American soldier who fought in World War II was antifa) or cranky, out of touch geezers (like me). All lies, and yet more lies.
In general, I think that mixing religion and politics creates a volatile brew. Your reaction may depend on whether you support or oppose the point being made this way, but in either case rational analysis suffers. Using religion with satire is maybe not so bad.
And that was the universal tone at No Kings. No America haters, just people who want to preserve the values of our democracy. And it was the same all across the country.
