urbanSTL

The Central Scrutinizer wrote:

DeBaliviere wrote:Forced Clark's and 20 North out of business, demolished buildings

Are you sure you are remembering this correctly? I seem to recall Clarks going out of business a long time ago.



And 20 North was no loss. Just a dive bar with a dreadful Greatful Dead cover band.

Clark's closed right before my freshman year, which was 93-94. I'm not sure if John Clark still owned it at that point though. It later became a coffee shop and was eventually torn down.



I didn't go to 20 North all that much since I never got into the Dead, but I liked having it right there on/off campus.

DeBaliviere wrote:

The Central Scrutinizer wrote:

DeBaliviere wrote:Forced Clark's and 20 North out of business, demolished buildings

Are you sure you are remembering this correctly? I seem to recall Clarks going out of business a long time ago.



And 20 North was no loss. Just a dive bar with a dreadful Greatful Dead cover band.

Clark's closed right before my freshman year, which was 93-94. I'm not sure if John Clark still owned it at that point though. It later became a coffee shop and was eventually torn down.



I didn't go to 20 North all that much since I never got into the Dead, but I liked having it right there on/off campus.

I defer to your memory. However, I am quite certain that John Clark had sold out many years earlier (although it's possible he still owned the actual building).

I see your point, JMed, and upon further reflection, I guess I should have made a different argument. Specifically, that Midtown/Grand Center is or was something of a lost cause. We can criticize Biondi today, but that's only because of the tremendous strides the city has made over the past six or seven years in reclaiming its urban heritage. Ten years ago, you heard nothing but naysayers about the city's rebirth. Now they all look a bit foolish. Downtown and the CWE look better than they have in decades. However, SLU's nabe does not have the assets that those two areas do. I guess it's my contention that without SLU, there wouldn't even be a Midtown to talk about.



In the end, it takes a lot more than just a desire to turn an urban neighborhood around. We can wish Biondi would have done this or that, but we're not in his position, i.e., we don't know all the variables that go into development. And even with SLU being in the position it is in today, it's not like developers are knocking down the door to develop in the area. But then again, look at all the good that has happened. The Lindell Towers, the Coronado. the Moolah, the Continental, the new Aquinas digs, the University Village/Warehouse of Fixtures development, the SLU Art Musuem in the old St. Louis Club Building. This all just within the last couple of years.



Some have said that it will take ten more years for downtown to be completely that. If that's true, it'll probably take Midtown twenty. Cut the man some slack.

The Central Scrutinizer wrote:I defer to your memory. However, I am quite certain that John Clark had sold out many years earlier (although it's possible he still owned the actual building).

That sounds right - I think someone else may have been operating the bar under the Clark's name.



Cold beer. No flies.

DeBaliviere wrote:Cold beer. No flies.

What more could someone want from a bar?

This just in...

SLU is attempting to move their Fine and Performing Arts Department (Theatre, Music, Art, et cetera) into a building in Grand Center so that they can integrate them into the arts community.



Would this encourage the students to live where they go to class, creating more of a happening and hopping neighborhood? I think yes.

That is an outstanding idea and something I've long hoped they would do. Perhaps with a new facility, the department will receive extra funding/emphasis.

The assertion that SLU and Wash U had and have disparate adjoining neighborhoods is correct, but misses the larger picture: Wash U jumped over Ames Place, which was single-family residential and not applicable to student housing, and took a lead role in redeveloping the multi-family part of the Loop and similar stock in Skinker DeBaliviere. (Not to mention its much earlier activities in reviving the CWE north of the Wash. U. med school.) And believe me, Eastgate and Clemens and Cates in the late '70s were every bit as deteriorating as Westminster and Olive and Washington near SLU.



I hope the intermediate poster's claim about the performing arts department is correct. I've been led to believe that SLU under Larry actively encouraged students not to venture up into Grand Center; it's long since time that SLU tried to facilitate interaction between the 15,000 or so people who are on campus every day and the potentially vibrant neighborhood immediately to the north.

While it's true that the Department of Public Safety--DIPS, as I refer to them--is a tad alarmist about the neighborhood, I wouldn't say they're totally off base. The little SLU oasis, which in my mind includes Grand from Lindell to Delmar, is surrounded by some very rough neighborhoods. There are criminals who purposely prey on the student body, and while I used to walk around there late at night, I wouldn't say it was without a small degree of apprehension. Even though not really by campus, I was mugged at the Phillips 66 on Vandeventer.



That being said, the Symphony and shows at the Fox offered discounts to students, and they posted fliers on the campus. Noone at SLU said "don't go up there." In fact, I'd say they encouraged it. And when you think about it, why would a student walk up Grand unless it was to go to the Fox or Powell Hall or Jazz at the Bistro?

Well, in my day, we did so to go to El Sarape or Garavelli's or Best Steak House. Best, at least, is still there, so I hope at least some of the more urban-friendly students wander up there from time to time. But your question begs a larger question: Why aren't there things for students to walk up Grand for? Again, the 62xx-66xx blocks of Delmar weren't exactly full of great shops and restaurants 30 years ago, but a natural constituency of consumers from a (much smaller than SLU) nearby university helped transform it into what it is today.

SLU TV wrote:Alonzo is right. SLU is trying to move its F & P Arts department into Grand Center, according to VP Brady.



We're SLU TV, Saint Louis University's only campus television station. You can watch us on Channel 22 on campus, or on youtube at <a href="http://www.youtube.com/slutv">youtube.com/slutv</a>.



Anyway, Here are the video excerpts from the SGA meeting on Wednesday, in which Kathleen Brady talked for about a 50 minutes on developments at SLU.



Sorry the quality is not better. SGA meetings are typically snooze fests, and we didn't anticipate this goldmine of information to be there...plus, we had an executive board meeting at the same time, so we had no one (wo)man the camera.



(Part 5 might not work quite yet, as I just uploaded it to youtube just this second, and it takes about 20 minutes for them to process a video.



<a href="">VP Kathleen Brady, Part 1</a>



<a href="">VP Kathleen Brady, Part 2</a>



<a href="">VP Kathleen Brady, Part 3</a>



<a href="">VP Kathleen Brady, Part 4</a>



<a href="">VP Kathleen Brady, Part 5</a>

Wow, that's definitely encouraging news. Thanks for sharing. Although it does sound like that Target/Trader Joes/Gap development sounds like it will end up like the Brentwood Boulevard.

Can someone please tell me where SLU's visual and performing arts facilities are now? All I'm familiar with is MOCRA on campus, and the museum on Lindell.

Framer wrote:Can someone please tell me where SLU's visual and performing arts facilities are now? All I'm familiar with is MOCRA on campus, and the museum on Lindell.

FPA is in Xavier Hall. The main theatre and the studio theatre are on the ground floor, music department + practice rooms on the first floor, theatre production offices on the back of the first floor, then the art studios are on one of the upper floors (third floor, i think), and then there is another big practice performance room on the top floor.

Xavier is directly across from Fusz, the hall MOCRA is located in. Like many other buildings on SLU's campus, Xavier Hall was not orginally designed as a college building. It was the home of a now-defunct Catholic girls high school.

Although it does sound like that Target/Trader Joes/Gap development sounds like it will end up like the Brentwood Boulevard.

I don't think I'd mind this too much, especially if it's an urban boulevard and not the horrible Italian/Spanish/Disney street with 1 ft wide balconies. A Boulevard type development would have to face out as well as in and hide parking garages - this would work well on this site because of the number of people within walking distance (v different than in Brentwood).



Put retail streetside on Grand/FPP/Vandeventer - run Clark west across Grand (and use 45-degree parking instead of the half-dozen parallel token spots at Brentwood) for retail and put off-street, garage parking up against 40.



http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Saint+Lou ... 75&iwloc=A

^Maybe I have the name wrong, but I meant the development off 40 with the Target Greatland in it, not the development across from the Galleria with the Crate & Barrel.

Ah yes, the Promenade. With such distinct, place-setting, tell-tale names I can't understand why people can't keep these straight (the Commons, Galleria, Promenade, Boulevard, The Shoppes, Centre . . . )

I lieu of listening to all 50 minutes, could someone post a "where" on this alleged Target/TJ's development?

There's a smelting faciltiy that fronts Forest Park at Spring, on the southwest corner. It goes all the way back to Forty, and according to Humphrey that's where this proposed development will be.

^

Isn't that plant owned by Federal Mogul (automotive components)?



Is it just me or is this not really the greatest spot for retail? Maybe if they re-opened Spring Avenue to the south, it would help in terms of accessibility.

I'm not sure who owns it, but whoever it is she said they were going out of business.



As far as the location is concerned it's not that bad. Forest Park is a major thoroughfare, and it'll have good access to and visibility from 40. To get such a big parcel of land in this part (or really anypart) of the city is a challenge.



I kind of question this proposal though. Humphrey said that in their plan, the development was to go all the way to Grand. This is clearly impossible since a SLU dorm is located at Grand and Forest Park.