urbanSTL

I honestly doubt that they will be able to close Chestnut. There will be just too much opposition.

Details as per PD

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/miss ... 6ef8e.html

Mayor Francis Slay signed over control of Soldiers' Memorial on Wednesday, entrusting the downtown landmark with the Missouri Historical Society.

The society, which governs the Missouri History Museum in Forest Park, has planned a $30 million renovation project to remake the memorial. The complex, which was built in 1935 in honor of World War I veterans, includes a World War II memorial called the Court of Honor directly across Chestnut Street.

Hard to tell if Chestnut will be closed.

^ it is staying open, but will be getting some kind of road diet.

Will reopen next Veterans Day. Sounds like the major work will be done soon-ish.
http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/ren ... s-day-2018

This quote is alarming.

Another change: The memorial site will no longer host entertainment festivals, such as St. Louis Ribfest, that are unrelated to its mission of honoring military service and history.

“Part of the agreement when the historical society entered into the operations agreement with the city of St. Louis was that the historical society would control the two blocks from Market to Pine and from 13th to 14th,” Goering said. “We want to be sure that activities on these two blocks of the Soldiers Memorial and Court of Honor are mission-related — that they honor the service of those in the military. So completely unrelated activities will no longer be taking place here.’’

Does this mean no downtown events anywhere in that area, like Pridefest, etc? Those are the only things, other than Scottrade events, that really bring life to the area.

Yeah, what the hell is the point of redoing an area, if you can't use it??

Those two old photos. Jesus. How much green space is necessary?

Out of towners must have been really ***** flabbergasted when they crossed the river to see an entire 40 block swath demolished and buildings falling down all over the place. Christ. "This is the 4th largest city in the US?"

Torn on the usage thing. I get it. And we have other areas downtown that can host events. But... dead space is not good. So I hope that's not what it becomes.

Maybe Pridefest and other events held in the Gateway Mall will move East towards completed arch grounds and Kiener Plaza. That is a bummer though.

I'm still curious about Taste of St. Louis. With renovated plaza space, wondering if they'll come back downtown as Fair St. Louis has. That Chesterfield location is just so awful. Last year, I parked at chesterfield mall and took a bus to get to a muddy soccer field of hay and sprawled food tents. Felt more like a parish festival than anything. Lost all of its uniqueness.

Can we please bring those types of lightings back to the downtown area instead of this ugly cobra lighting!
I'm curious what are they going to do about the homeless that constantly invade that area specially once soldiers memorial reopens?

After more thought, what about all the 5k/10k/marathons/other runs? There's some event in that area a huge percentage of weekends per year.

Hopefully this control over events is overstated.

eee123 wrote: ↑

Nov 09, 2017

After more thought, what about all the 5k/10k/marathons/other runs? There's some event in that area a huge percentage of weekends per year.

Hopefully this control over events is overstated.

If most of the Running events and other events got moved more to Kiener plaza and Market street I wouldn't be upset (I think several festivals have already moved there). I think it's a better space for that kind of stuff.

Re-opening is Nov. 3.

http://mohistory.org/memorial/reopening-week-events/

The fence around the building is down already, though things are not quite finished. You can walk around in there. Chestnut is so calmed in this one block, it's like 1/8 of its normal width. Fantastic. The four massive statues are all cleaned up and now have their titles on their pedestals. Courage, Vision, Sacrifice, and Loyalty. I don't remember them having visible titles before.

The Mayor wrote:

bwcrow1s wrote: ↑

Nov 08, 2017

Those two old photos. Jesus. How much green space is necessary?

Out of towners must have been really f***ing flabbergasted when they crossed the river to see an entire 40 block swath demolished and buildings falling down all over the place. Christ. "This is the 4th largest city in the US?"

I don't think St. Louis was the 4th largest city anymore by the time the 30s rolled around. Even if it was, nearly every city in America was running massive clear cut urban renewal plans for interstates, public housing and other projects. Detroit, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cincy, KC, and dozens of others all lost huge chucks of their cities. What you see in those photos wasn't all that out of the ordinary in most cities of the time, in fact most people considered it hugely progressive since the cramped and crowded spaces of the city were often full of public health issues. We obviously, and rightfully, think of it differently now but back then people thought these types of things were what was going to save cities. I believe St. Louis and many others modeled these areas off of the City Beautiful movement which was a pretty widespread movement back in the day.

I believe that is entirely correct. There was in the late twenties or early thirties a city plan calling for building a system of parks and broad boulevards linking areas together. I don't believe the Gateway Arch grounds was a part of the original master plan, but there had certainly been plans for more or less that site, and most of the Gateway Mall. Only a small part of it was implemented: mostly the parks and a few plazas. The broad boulevards, believe it or not, mostly weren't built. I recall part of the plan was to have Grand and Kingshighway both as massive tree-lined parkways running in parallel more or less from Fairgrounds to Carondelet. I believe there was a third closer to the riverfront, maybe more or less along Broadway. There were select east/west corridors intended to link them. Market was almost certainly one, but I no longer recall what the others were. The street widenings we got were pretty scaled back by comparison. These were to have been six or eight lane monstrosities with enormous linear parks down the centers and broad tree lawns on both sides. There's a copy of the plan floating around in the stacks at Ellis Library in Columbia. It's pretty eye opening. On the other hand . . . the interstates we did get really aren't any smaller. And maybe decomissioning some of them and turning them into giant-tree lined linear larks with modest surface streets down the middle might be the best possible use at this point. Anyway . . . looking forward to seeing Soldier's Memorial open.

Does anyone know what the plan is with Chestnut in front of the Memorial? It's been blocked off with cones since it opened.

It's nice that you can bike through the bike lane now, but I don't understand the everpresent cones blocking car traffic.

It also seems pretty weird that someone decided a Soldiers Memorial security car was a good expenditure for a two-block patrol area.

eee123 wrote: ↑

Dec 06, 2018

Does anyone know what the plan is with Chestnut in front of the Memorial? It's been blocked off with cones since it opened.

It's nice that you can bike through the bike lane now, but I don't understand the everpresent cones blocking car traffic.

It also seems pretty weird that someone decided a Soldiers Memorial security car was a good expenditure for a two-block patrol area.

If this turns into another City Garden situation, I'll be angry.

I'll look into it, I think the contractor is finishing up some outstanding items.

"New ownership is bringing the 15-year-old fixture back to its original location.

"I was looking at photos from before, and I was envious of that, of those crowds," said Chuck Justus, executive director of the new ownership organization, Taste It Productions.

More people came to Taste of St. Louis when it was actually in St. Louis, he said."

https://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/ ... 11197968c6