urbanSTL

dweebe wrote:I knew something was going to happen this summer in the Delmar Loop when a younger and rough crowd started hanging out.



Early in the summer on a Tuesday night after a Cardinal game a group of friends and I went to Ciceros for a late-night bite.

-In front of Vintage Vinyl were around 50 to 60 teens and pre-teens (yes, all were black). I wondered if some big CD was being released, but VV was closed.



-There were another 20 teens hanging out in front of Qdoba.



-Another 15 to 20 were hanging out in front of St. Louis Bread Co.



After we were seated at Ciceros and ordered, I asked the waitress where all the teenagers came from? Was there a show at the Pageant or some sort of artist meet-and-greet at Vintage Vinyl? She said no, it looks like the thugs and punks have decided to make this their summer hangout. She said she refuses to work the outside tables anymore and that she's afraid they'll destroy "The Loop". (BTW: the waitress was black.)

A friend who works at one of the retail outlets in the Loop has said the same thing. His boss (owner) is not planning on renewing his lease when it's up. Sad.

krykel wrote:This makes me sick. Seeing the loop come back to life is amazing, hopefully they can take care of this before it gets out of hand.

We have the perfect example of what can happen when measures aren't taken - Gaslight Square.

phoaddict wrote:It also makes me angry at the "system" for creating a reason for these kids to justify in their minds that this is ok.

What makes you think these kids need to "justify" anything "in their minds"?



They're just bored, and having a little fun. And its certainly more fun, not to mention much safer, to hang out and stomp people when you are travelling in a large group. Cops will even think twice about messing with you! So what somebody has hospital bills and probably has permanent vision loss, and an entire family is traumatized? It's their fault for being such punks! Can't they see that it was all just in fun - I mean, its not like they killed anyone?!?



Man, why does everyone always have to hassle young black men and spoil it when they are just out trying to blow off some steam. And then people actually wonder why those same young black men eventually get bored and frustrated and turn to crime! Young black men have rights too; we need to get the ACLU out there in the Loop to follow the U. City and St. Louis police around to keep them from harassing our youth, and if they do we're gonna sue their asses!

has there been reported chaos by the groups of people at the loop or something? Or are they just standing there? I've been out there and I've spoken with a number of them and they just seem to be hanging out. They often say there isn't much to do out there. They happen to live around/in the neighborhood and there's nothing but a bunch of boutiques in the loop.



They noted to me they wish they had some place they could hang out, themselves. Their own spot and own stores. They didn't pick a bone with me either. I think you guys are just a wee bit too stand offish. You should say hello or something. The worst that'll happen is some kid will make a joke about your appearance and well if you can't take that then, well I don't know.



I certainly wouldn't call them thugs though if no violence has broken out, especially with groups that large. The loop should probably integrate them into its community.



I mean nobody gives a rats ass when a thousand red shirts are mobbing up and down Clark street, w/ a good portion of them having had a beer or two.

it just doesn't make sense for them to have no place to hang out.



you can't put metal detectors on the street but you can put them in the door of a building. So it seems to me giving the kids some place to go, some outlet would do a great deal better to curb the "violence" than shoving them off to be some other area's problem. Or installing a curfew.



tavoli doesn't play anything but 4 movies and rarely are they new movies they're often independent art house movies. Its their prerogative sure, but the truth is not everyone wants to see Schindler's List.



there's about 10 coffee houses up and down delmar how many central perks does one street need?



st. louis bread co?



I visit four spots whenever I visit the loop, tops. Chipotle Vintage The Comic Book Store and Messugah's occasionally.



Most of the black owned businesses have relocated to the southside of the loop and there weren't that many to begin with. Then of course you have that God awful intersection at skinker where someone is often trying to hit you and churches chicken in an over sized parking lot. It divides delmar so disgustingly.



The city is making the same mistakes its always made. Being reactive instead of proactive. You want more police there in case something happens. Well if you put police there, then they won't be somewhere else and you'll have an outbreak there.

^would something like this work?



http://www.theonion.com/content/node/55466

southsidepride wrote:^would something like this work?



http://www.theonion.com/content/node/55466

There's a possibility something like that would spill over into the street. Bruised egos and what not. A lot of people are cowards. You might get a few of them into boxing though but there isn't one definitive solution.



The article was pretty sarcastic. I hope you weren't being sarcastic as well by posting it.

^um, it was an Onion article. Asking if I was being sarcastic by posting it is like asking if a bear sheets in the woods.

^^:roll: sad. the future superintendent of SLPS.

This is a bit from a letter I sent to Metro after a pack of kids roughed me up at that station in late June:

It is clear to me that security at the FP station needs to be improved, especially after dark; something much worse could happen than what happened to me. Apparently having a security guard down on the platform is not sufficient to maintain order at the entrance on DeBaliviere or at the 90 bus stop. I know that Metro is having some financial problems, but I believe that it’s worth the $12/hr or so for a security guard at the top of the stairs, at least after dark, in order to avoid violent incidents at what is arguably the most important train station in the system.

I think what happened to the family of five definitely qualifies as much worse, especially the son whose eye socket got busted.



Although, I used that letter to plead for one more security guard at the top of the stairs. I don't know what one security guard is gonna do against a pack of 50 or 60 kids.



My hope is that the problem goes away when school starts, but who knows.

About 6 or 7 years ago, IIRC, there was a similar phenomenon in the CWE where literally hundreds of black teenagers began regularly congregating on Euclid during summer evenings, to the extent that the street and sidewalks were often effectively blocked from West Pine northwards. There was no particular event or other attraction to account for this - it seems they just spontaneously decided this was the place to hang out. While I don't recall any reports of violent incidents, owners of restaurants and other businesses complained that the crowds were driving away customers and making it impossible to use their sidewalk dining areas. I don't know how the situation was resolved in the end, though I seem to recall that some sort of public order ordinance was invoked to deter the gatherings. Whatever the explanation, the situation doesn't seem to have recurred since.





On the subject of the Forest Park station, the platform will be particularly busy this coming weekend as the Shrewsbury line will only be operating as a shuttle to FP on Saturday and Sunday - anyone wishing to go further east will have to board a train from Lambert at FP. I hope the security personnel will be out in force, if only for the sake of appearances...

Last night and this morning on KSDK and KMOX it was reported that security at the Delmar and FP stations would be stepped up including a police helicopter. Might be annoying for those trying to sleep. Hopefully showing this kind of force once or twice will take care of the problem.

throatybeard wrote:

Arch_Genesis wrote:
Most of the black owned businesses have relocated to the southside of the loop and there weren't that many to begin with.

I don't understand what this means. The Loop runs east to west. So the "southside" of it would be...the south side of the street? Huh?

Er, ya. Don't waste your time throaty.

jlblues wrote:

throatybeard wrote:

Arch_Genesis wrote:
Most of the black owned businesses have relocated to the southside of the loop and there weren't that many to begin with.

I don't understand what this means. The Loop runs east to west. So the "southside" of it would be...the south side of the street? Huh?

Er, ya. Don't waste your time throaty.

if kingsland/delmar intersection is north then south would be in the opposite direction. black businesses have relocated further than the metro link station. that's where the black businesses start. one guy owns a childrens bookstore and the other is taylor made barber shop. its the "southside" of the loop. hopefully that helps. and jlblues you're really starting to irritate me.

^^



but back to the topic. on the news this morning it said only two teens both 17 were charged with 3rd degree assault. You can't label a whole demographic based on two bad apples.

Arch_Genesis wrote:You can't label a whole demographic based on two bad apples.

Who are you trying to convince...me? Or yourself? Because I didn't see anyone label a demographic because of this. I'm sure there are much more black residents that are just as outraged by this than there are that are okay with it.

JuiceInDogtown wrote:

Arch_Genesis wrote:You can't label a whole demographic based on two bad apples.

Who are you trying to convince...me? Or yourself? Because I didn't see anyone label a demographic because of this. I'm sure there are much more black residents that are just as outraged by this than there are that are okay with it.

On stltoday.com there's a thread dedicated to this incident and the sweeping generalizations came in waves. I wasn't trying to convince you. I wasn't even aware you posted anything in this thread.



edit-- the stereotyping just seems to be pretty common in st. louis.