CityArchRiver

gary kreie · PostDec 09, 2017#6512017-12-09T22:45+00:00

I see in the newest pictures of the entrance, there is a flower bed around the fountain pool at the new Arch entrance. I don't think I remembered that in some of the original drawings. That explains where they appear to be laying dirt in around the front of the fountain pool now.

Here area some nice updated pictures from James Carpenter Design Associates Inc., the folks doing the Museum.

Here is the link to the other pictures at James Carpenter Design Associates, Inc. web site:

http://www.jcdainc.com/projects/museum- ... -expansion

PostDec 23, 2017#6522017-12-23T15:36+00:00

I left this question about the Arch entrance fountain on the Arch Foundation web page:

"It kind of looks as if one could walk right into the pool from the back side. Is that intentional -- in other words, will kids be able to wade in the Arch entrance fountain/pool? Just wondering."

And they responded:
Gateway Arch Park Foundation: "The fountain will be about 2 inches at its deepest point, and people will be able to enter the fountain."

So I think that will be fun to have kids playing in the Arch fountain at the entrance in the summer.

PostJan 04, 2018#6532018-01-04T22:57+00:00

Per the RFT, our US Congressional Delegation is sponsoring bills to change the name of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial to just "Gateway Arch National Park."

"... a bill that recently passed the U.S. Senate would do away with the clunky Jeffersonian reference in favor of 'Gateway Arch National Park.'
Sponsored in the U.S. Senate by Roy Blunt (R-Missouri) and co-sponsored by Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri), the proposed legislation passed with a voice vote on December 21. The House version of the bill, sponsored by Rep. Lacy Clay (D-St. Louis), boasts a similarly bi-partisan list of co-sponsors in Republicans Blaine Luetkemeyer and Ann Wagner."

https://www.riverfronttimes.com/newsblo ... teway-arch

I was wondering it the change was partially driven by the discovery that Jefferson had children with slave Sally Hemings.

In Paris, the Arc de Triomphe was rededicated to memorialize new conflicts well after the original war for which it was erected, including adding a flame for the unknown soldiers of WW I.

Similarly, I have always thought that someday the Gateway Arch might be rededicated to memorialize more that St. Louis's role in the purchase, exploration, and settling of Louisiana . I suspected it could someday become a monument to national reconciliation between North and South, East and West, Black and White, possibly after some new defining event/resolution. With two giant legs meeting at the lofty apex, it is a great symbol of coming together, just as the confluence of the great rivers come together just upstream.

framer · PostJan 05, 2018#6542018-01-05T02:56+00:00

Perhaps "Gateway Arch National Monument" or "Gateway Arch National Memorial" would be more appropriate.

gary kreie · PostJan 05, 2018#6552018-01-05T16:29+00:00

framer wrote: ↑
Jan 05, 2018
Perhaps "Gateway Arch National Monument" or "Gateway Arch National Memorial" would be more appropriate.

I agree. The Gateway Arch is really a monument. Devil's Tower National Monument is really a National Park. I guess it goes back to the original legislation or decree that established the sites.

wabash · PostJan 05, 2018#6562018-01-05T18:32+00:00

Hopefully it stays a National Park. If it's made into a National Monument Trump and Interior Secretary might open it up for oil drilling and mineral extraction!

urban_dilettante · PostJan 05, 2018#6572018-01-05T18:42+00:00

"Gateway Arch National Expansion Memorial" would make the most sense since that's what it is.

aprice · PostJan 10, 2018#6582018-01-10T15:41+00:00

If anyone else wants to email CityArchRiver / Gateway Arch Park Foundation today asking them to open the Highway Cap entrance to the Park, please do so. The surface work in this section has been done for several months with no sign the construction fence is moving any time soon. This is a huge detriment to tourism and the health of downtown right now.

Screen Shot 2018-01-10 at 9.38.44 AM by Alex Price, on Flickr

framer · PostJan 10, 2018#6592018-01-10T20:11+00:00

One of 15 Most Noteworthy Museums Opening This Year, according to Architectural Digest:

https://www.architecturaldigest.com/gal ... ening-2018

aprice · PostJan 10, 2018#6602018-01-10T20:54+00:00

So this is the third year in a row for this recognition?

imran · PostJan 31, 2018#6612018-01-31T01:38+00:00

Saw this on Facebook (not sure of credit)

Almost a century later and we are still spending millions to cover up bad decisions. I get excited about the new landscaping and museum upgrades but then something like this pops up. 'Paris on the Mississippi' indeed

bwcrow1s · PostJan 31, 2018#6622018-01-31T13:36+00:00

Wow. I had never seen that shot before. Incredible.

What they should be doing instead of 1849 St. Louis miniatures is doing 1930s St. Louis to show the reality of what was torn down.

Hindsight is 20/20. We could have had an amazing Downtown.

aprice · PostJan 31, 2018#6632018-01-31T17:07+00:00

I would never seek to defend their decision, especially because of their frankly racist motivations. But I'm not overly caught up on this. Yes, these streets were beautiful, or at least had the potential to be. But so was rest of downtown and it was torn down anyway. The block that became the Stadium East Garage was STL's Chinatown. Olive between 6th & 7th was a strip of stunning buildings known as Terra-cotta row. Mill Creek Valley (which looked like a cross between Lafayette Sq and the eastern portion of CWE) was replaced with what's mostly become grass and Wells-Fargo Advisors. Yes, these photos are amazing but even if the riverfront wasn't cleared (I'm always sure to distinguish between the clearing of the Riverfront and the construction of the Arch, they were two different projects), we would have lost 90% of these buildings anyway. We'd still be sitting here today looking at how beautiful our riverfront could have been. A very small portion of our society could have predicted the historic preservation movement that's developed over the past 50 years.

symphonicpoet · PostFeb 01, 2018#6642018-02-01T05:14+00:00

To be incredibly frank, even some of the most famous old and even ancient buildings came at the expense of earlier neighborhoods. The famous boulevards of Paris were largely a product of Napoleon III's grand scheme of public improvements int he middle of the nineteenth century. (It is his favored architectural style that we call the "Second Empire" style, since he built a second Napoleonic French Empire.) In a lot of ways Haussman's rennovation of Paris for Napoleon III serves as the model for the urban renewal scheme that ultimately led to both the Arch and the Gateway Mall. (And virtually every other similar modern scheme.) The area Haussman "renovated" had been a crowded and quite poor neighborhood that was seen as a hotbed of not only disease, but also dissent and armed revolt. So he raised it. And planted trees, built lakes, and widened roads enough to march an army through. He resettled the mostly poor residents of the buildings he tore down in new modern housing further from the center of the city and in less fashionable wards. Sound familiar? Yes, we lost a lot, and yes, there's more work to be done. But . . . I'll keep the Arch anyway. There's none finer on the boulevards of Paris. A decent one, to be sure, but nothing any better. And there's no getting back what was lost. What we can do now is resolve to do better and repair the scars. And maybe make the Mall and Arch Grounds as lovely as possible.

moorlander · PostFeb 01, 2018#6652018-02-01T08:53+00:00

I’ve posted this before but it seems appropriate again now. Grab a box of tissues....

Pictures of the riverfront before the arch:
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthr ... light=Arch

framer · PostFeb 03, 2018#6662018-02-03T02:20+00:00

I can't wait to see this scale model of the STL Riverfront in the year 1852 (part of the new museum):

http://stlouiscnr.com/departments/news/ ... dium=email

http://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/a ... a6bb1.html

PostFeb 03, 2018#6672018-02-03T02:32+00:00

Short video here:

http://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/vide ... cfb31.html

imran · PostFeb 03, 2018#6682018-02-03T03:04+00:00

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑
Feb 01, 2018
But . . . I'll keep the Arch anyway

Sure, the arch is iconic and cool. it's the surrounding acreage of grass that I have issue with. Typical false choices. Could have had BOTH. Old Saint Louis could have been demolished more surgically had the powers at the time only had the wisdom to retain a grid and human scale (a la Haussmann). The footprint of the arch sculpture hardly justifies clear cutting 40 blocks of cast iron treasures and evicting ?400 businesses in the process.

bwcrow1s · PostFeb 03, 2018#6692018-02-03T14:37+00:00

Yeah. Agreed.

Our only hope right now is to revitalize Chouteau and Laclede's Landing, though, and work from there. It's what we have left, and Chouteau's Landing is barely hanging on as it is. It's a shame to have lost all of those beautiful buildings -- unfortunately I was like -55 years old when they tore apart the first building. Heck, I might have seen the entire situation differently too.

eee123 · PostFeb 07, 2018#6702018-02-07T06:08+00:00

It's been roughly a year since all significant work was completed here, but the Washington Avenue entrance is still not opened. Nobody was even working on Tuesday afternoon.

They may have a bit of landscaping left, or have to occasionally drive machinery through here, but I see no reason for this entrance to be closed.

The same with the main highway lid park entrance. If highways were done like this project, they'd have the Poplar Street bridge closed for six months out of every year.

As someone who walks more than drives, this totally disparate treatment of roads vs. pedestrian paths is infuriating.

Sidewalk: close it for three years.
Road: Don't close it at all, ever, unless absolutely necessary.

symphonicpoet · PostFeb 07, 2018#6712018-02-07T06:38+00:00

In essence I agree with you, but I can't help myself, because it still irks me . . .

eee123 wrote: ↑
Feb 07, 2018
Sidewalk: close it for three years.
Road: Don't close it at all, ever, unless absolutely necessary.

. . . Except Washington. Close that forever. (Making Laclede's landing virtually inaccessible from the west. I've had to drive in there from downtown a few times lately. My god is it a mess. You better know the secret [Lumiere] password. And I really really feel for every other business in there.)

aprice · PostFeb 07, 2018#6722018-02-07T15:08+00:00

I've heard that CityArchRiver has actually been pressuring the contractor about this and the cap but the contractor just doesn't care. That Washington entrance could have had a temporary path for about a year now. Not only providing a much more direct path to the Arch grounds for hotel and convention visitors but also providing a safer, more direct, and more attractive path to the Landing and Metrolink from downtown. The Cap could have been open since November.
That being said, I still blame CityArchRiver.
e.g. The sidewalk up against the old cathedral at the end of Walnut had been poured two years ago and was torn up and replaced this past summer.

MattnSTL · PostFeb 07, 2018#6732018-02-07T16:55+00:00

^That sounds like passing the buck on the part of CAR. CAR hired the contractor. They can tell them to open pathways if they want to. With the way CAR has (mis)managed this whole renovation for years, nothing about that surprises me.

framer · PostFeb 13, 2018#6742018-02-13T05:38+00:00

City Arch River is looking for vendors to fill ten spaces along Wharf Street:

https://www.archpark.org/updates/blogs/ ... riverfront

bwcrow1s · PostFeb 13, 2018#6752018-02-13T16:22+00:00

So... continue to make it difficult for businesses on the Landing? Great.

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