Bohemian Hill Mixed Use Development/ Georgian Square

matt drops the h · PostAug 29, 2007#5262007-08-29T16:30+00:00

Steve Patterson had a great post a couple months ago about the folly of defining neighborhoods with edges as major streets. Thus, Cherokee street should be the center of one neighborhood, not the boundary of two.

I believe the same with Frenchtown. A historic district that envelops LaSalle Park, Soulard, Lafayette Square, and this tiny portion that remains of Bohemian Hill should all be included.

As I said in an earlier post, Frenchtown should be given the decorative beauty it deserves. That includes lamp posts, placards, benches, ornate/modern bus stops, historical markers, home improvement awards, I could go on. I'll even help whatever CDC wants to do this write the grant!

shadrach · PostAug 29, 2007#5272007-08-29T16:40+00:00

^this is why I love this forum. I'm full of 'they oughta do this' ideas but the business of running a city, right and wrong, gives so much contextual backstory. Thanks for that post, Matt.

(now if we could just find a way to save those building!)

tge-atw · PostAug 29, 2007#5282007-08-29T17:15+00:00

If the owners decide to sell, there is virtually nothing that can be done. Especially because there is no demolition review for the area. The only thing that can be done is to make the Alderman (whomever it is when the deal goes down) aware of how unpopular demolition would be. That is, if demolition were to be truly unpopular. Also, to make Gilded Age and even Koman possibly realize that 1: there are better options available, and 2: that they would severely damage their reputation and become "those guys that demolished Bohemian Hill." To what extent either of these is possible is up for speculation.

matt · PostAug 29, 2007#5292007-08-29T18:04+00:00

I think the "thematic" improvements are coming. LaSalle Park had period lighting a little too early maybe and it wasn't always cared for. The challenge in Soulard is getting enough residents to see the value in some finer historic amenities.

I'd like to peel off the asphalt and reveal the brick streets but some of my friends are strongly opposed to the idea.

shadrach · PostAug 29, 2007#5302007-08-29T18:10+00:00

If you're going to tear down and build new in the area, wipe out McDonalds/Quizos, DQ, Lift for Life, HUB furniture. Build a 4-6 story "cutesy Boulevard" like across the Galleria, create pedestrian streetscape along 7th and establish an eastern bookend for the Soulard neighborhood.

(glad to get that off my chest!)

matt drops the h · PostAug 29, 2007#5312007-08-29T23:00+00:00

shadrach wrote:^this is why I love this forum. I'm full of 'they oughta do this' ideas but the business of running a city, right and wrong, gives so much contextual backstory. Thanks for that post, Matt.

(now if we could just find a way to save those building!)

I'm kind of uneasy about this. I'm not sure if this is sarcasm or not.

framer · PostAug 30, 2007#5322007-08-30T05:02+00:00

Matt Drops The H wrote:Steve Patterson had a great post a couple months ago about the folly of defining neighborhoods with edges as major streets. Thus, Cherokee street should be the center of one neighborhood, not the boundary of two.

Very good point.

shadrach · PostAug 30, 2007#5332007-08-30T12:57+00:00

Matt Drops The H wrote:I'm kind of uneasy about this. I'm not sure if this is sarcasm or not.

Relax--no sarcasm at all.

matt · PostAug 30, 2007#5342007-08-30T15:25+00:00

For a rich taste of authentic historic ambiance and an overwelming sense of place, take a stroll up the alley in Soulard between 9th and 10th streets across the street from 1860s. Preferably in the daylight when sober - notice the nooks and crannys, brick street, architectural details, vistas, etc...

gelatinousendive · PostSep 06, 2007#5352007-09-06T17:27+00:00

Matt wrote:For a rich taste of authentic historic ambiance and an overwelming sense of place, take a stroll up the alley in Soulard between 9th and 10th streets across the street from 1860s. Preferably in the daylight when sober - notice the nooks and crannys, brick street, architectural details, vistas, etc...

The block of 8th street in Soulard, between the market and St. Peter/Paul complex, is lovely, too. It's a winding street with some houses perched on the sidewalk and other houses with a bigger set back.

This street was used in filming a TV movie years ago.

bonwich · PostSep 06, 2007#5362007-09-06T19:19+00:00

A TV movie, or the Bill Murray elephant movie? (Actually, it might have been both. I do seem to remember the Lea Thompson movie that filmed all over town having shot a bit there as well.)

gelatinousendive · PostSep 07, 2007#5372007-09-07T20:24+00:00

bonwich wrote:A TV movie, or the Bill Murray elephant movie? (Actually, it might have been both. I do seem to remember the Lea Thompson movie that filmed all over town having shot a bit there as well.)

I am thinking of the Mare Winningham "She Stood Alone" 1991 TV movie.

There's nothing in IMDB that shows it being filmed in St. Louis (filming location is blank) but on the cast list is "Linda Kennedy" who I am certain is our local Black Rep star.

Ok, did Lea Thompson do a film here too, or are you mxing up Mare Winninghma with Lea? I ask because on the IMBD chat boards there are several people who confess to mixing up the two.

trent · PostSep 10, 2007#5382007-09-10T13:54+00:00

I remember the Lea Thompson movie, she was filming a period movie that was being shot on main street in St. Charles, among other locations. Greg, from Dharma and Greg was also in this movie.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0149441/

A Will Of Their Own...shoot. Thank god for imdb.

bonwich · PostSep 10, 2007#5392007-09-10T14:37+00:00

True St. Louis "small world" story: A chunk of the interiors for the Lea Thompson movie was shot at the home of the woman who's opening the martini/chocolate bar in the Locust Business District (see related thread).

As for the other,

In 1991, Eric Mink in the P-D wrote:Tonight's broadcast of ''She Stood Alone,'' a new made-for-TV movie airing at 8 on NBC (Channel 5), marks the national premiere of the latest of a growing list of film projects made in and around St. Louis.

Most of the action of this fact-based movie takes place in the 1830s in the area of Canterbury, Conn., with one sequence in Boston. Locations in the Soulard neighborhood and St. Charles, the Bissell House and Oakland House and several buildings at Boonesfield Village at Defiance, Mo., were converted by local craftspeople and props hunters into the northeastern U.S. sites.

Also in 1991, Ellen Futterman in the P-D wrote:Nearly all of the movie is being shot at one of five St. Louis-area locations: Eighth Street in Soulard, including a shuttered day-care center on the block; the Bissell House Mansion; the Daniel Boone Home in Defiance; Oakland House in Affton; and Missouri's first state Capitol, in St. Charles.

In several cases, what wasn't right for the production was easily corrected, said White, with some simple camouflaging, known in Hollywood terms as set decorating. For example, a painting of pine trees wrapped around a chain-link fence on the Soulard street eliminated the threat of an anachronism, since no fences of the chain-link variety were around in the 1830s. Lattice windows replaced ones with glass panes.

''We brought in horse-drawn carriages and constructed a makeshift outdoor market that was typical of the period, similar to the one you have in Soulard,'' White said. ''Since the street was brick and brick streets were popular in Boston in the 1830s, we didn't need to do much except cover it with straw.

''We shot the scene low to avoid the concrete street lights. We parked a wagon at the south end of the block to keep out the traffic behind.''

watcher · PostOct 03, 2007#5402007-10-03T14:16+00:00

So Gilded Age put up a sign. This is progress?

I thought that it was supposed to start in August. Or is this in their ten year plan?

jmmnq6 · PostOct 03, 2007#5412007-10-03T21:44+00:00

Here is what Trace Shaugnessy sent residents of the Georgian a month or 2 ago regarding Georgian Square:

"The third phase of the Georgian, Georgian Square , will be comprised of City Market, Walgreens, Starbucks, and several other tenants. Site work should begin on this portion of the project in October of this year with a target completion date of October of 2008."

We'll see if they live up to that.

watcher · PostOct 26, 2007#5422007-10-26T16:38+00:00

There is a bulldozer here this morning knocking down all the trees. Depressing....

Alex Ihnen · PostOct 26, 2007#5432007-10-26T16:40+00:00

Good - those trees really annoy me.

alphalfa · PostOct 27, 2007#5442007-10-27T02:31+00:00

Watcher wrote:There is a bulldozer here this morning knocking down all the trees. Depressing....

Which particular tree were you so enamored with? Or was it all of them in general?

framer · PostOct 27, 2007#5452007-10-27T04:42+00:00

I like trees. Even in the City, we should try to save as many trees as we can. Think what the CWE would look like without all those great old trees.

alphalfa · PostOct 27, 2007#5462007-10-27T10:04+00:00

Back in the days of my youthful optimism I suggested to all the residents of our cul de sac South Side street we request the City to install curb trees. The existing ones where in a rather gap toothed status similar to a good many South Sider's teeth back then.

Well one old gal replied as she took out another filterless Camel "We had all them trees torn out years ago. They were too dirty. What with leaves and all...........". The others silently nodded assent or snickered quietly at me.

I felt forced to concede to her superior experience. I did get the City to install a fine Linden tree which still prospers today, and litters up the street each fall. I admire its progress each time I go by the place.

63104mom · PostOct 27, 2007#5472007-10-27T12:43+00:00

Framer wrote:I like trees. Even in the City, we should try to save as many trees as we can. Think what the CWE would look like without all those great old trees.

I generally agree, but the city has a lot of junk trees that need to come down: silver maples and bradford pears. Any arborist would tell you these trees are disease prone, unstable in wind and dangerous. There are so many great trees that are better suited for the city.

matt drops the h · PostOct 29, 2007#5482007-10-29T01:19+00:00

In New Orleans, here more than anywhere else, I have seen what trees can do for a streetscape.

Often in the city, some of the poorer neighborhoods lack basic streetscape amenities like sidewalks and curbs, and most are marked by a tangle of overhead powerlines and little in the way of street trees. Despite their flamboyant Creole double shotguns, they look dangerous and unwelcoming.

All of the reinvested areas have a common element--lush greenery and, specifically, magnificent tree cover. It's just unbelievable. There are amazing canopies over even the largest of streets. Then I think to streets like Kingshighway and Hampton and think how much trees would help to humanize these autocentric streetscapes.

No one wants the junk trees, but the greening of St. Louis should be a high priority. That is not to say St. Louis has no impressively forested neighborhoods. I think of Tower Grove East near Grand as more of a city in a forest than a forest in a city. Still, St. Louis needs work in this area.

debaliviere · PostOct 30, 2007#5492007-10-30T19:57+00:00

Greenville, South Carolina seems to have figured it out. Why can't we?

Check out these pics from SSP:

Link

alphalfa · PostOct 30, 2007#5502007-10-30T22:46+00:00

One of Vince Schemoel's (sp?) first acts as mayor was to plants hundreds of the pin oaks you see along Jefferson, Gravois, and other thoroughfares. It is now 15+ years later, I'll let you be the judge as to how successful that program was. Traffic and disease has taken a toll, but a fair number still survive.

Bohemian Hill Mixed Use Development/ Georgian Square

Choose Display Mode