urbanSTL

JivecitySTL wrote:

stlmike wrote:What Agent is trying to address is this, and I pretty much agree with him: When people drive to say Washington Avenue in the Loft District or Delmar in the Loop and park in one of the MANY parkinglots that are lined behind the action, it feels like a movie set. Driving, parking, and then walking down ONE major street, neglecting to stray off the path for fear of seeing those ugly parking lots and breaking the illusion of a healthy city, is a somewhat frusterating experience for anyone who has lived in a city without these problems.

That's okay, 10 years ago there was no reason to even park in those lots. It won't happen overnight, but I firmly believe that eventually those lots will be built upon. Look at the SkyHouse proposal. Would you have ever imagined that would be taking place this soon on Washington?



btw, I don't think personal attacks are appropriate for this discussion either.

I think you're a little wrong- 10 years ago was 1997 and the lots were full then too- i remember full lots in 1994 with the bars/clubs, full lots when my husband started working at wash/tucker in 1995 and full lots when we enrolled our child at DCC in 2000.



I like Washington Ave a lot and think it looks great, but for me it's like when everyone discovers your favorite band. It was a little more fun when you were the only one who appreciated it.

Thanks TGE-ATW - that's what I was trying to say.



"No one goes there anymore - it's too crowded." - Yogi Berra

63104mom wrote:

JivecitySTL wrote:

stlmike wrote:What Agent is trying to address is this, and I pretty much agree with him: When people drive to say Washington Avenue in the Loft District or Delmar in the Loop and park in one of the MANY parkinglots that are lined behind the action, it feels like a movie set. Driving, parking, and then walking down ONE major street, neglecting to stray off the path for fear of seeing those ugly parking lots and breaking the illusion of a healthy city, is a somewhat frusterating experience for anyone who has lived in a city without these problems.

That's okay, 10 years ago there was no reason to even park in those lots. It won't happen overnight, but I firmly believe that eventually those lots will be built upon. Look at the SkyHouse proposal. Would you have ever imagined that would be taking place this soon on Washington?



btw, I don't think personal attacks are appropriate for this discussion either.

I think you're a little wrong- 10 years ago was 1997 and the lots were full then too- i remember full lots in 1994 with the bars/clubs, full lots when my husband started working at wash/tucker in 1995 and full lots when we enrolled our child at DCC in 2000.



I like Washington Ave a lot and think it looks great, but for me it's like when everyone discovers your favorite band. It was a little more fun when you were the only one who appreciated it.

Well there are certainly more reasons to park there today than there were in '97. And even now there is certainly no parking shortage around Wash Ave.

innov8ion wrote:I recommend this thread for most worthless of 2007.

Does that mean it gets a spot in the Urbanstl hall of Fame below all HOF worthy quotes?

innov8ion wrote:I recommend this thread for most worthless of 2007.

^At first I chuckled at this remark. Indeed, much of this thread has been worthless when considering the ugly tone throughout.



However, the thread may not be entirely worthless. Apparently, "fake vs real" is an important, sensitive subject. Perhaps it should be discussed if a more civilized tone is possible.



When younger I despised "fake" new neighborhoods filled with fake people with selfish motives. Suburbs Bad, City Good. But, I have gotten old enough to see those same neighborhoods mature & become attractive in a real way - at least in my opinion. Now I can look back with a broader view and a softened opinion. Those neighborhoods are now called "mid-century" and are being discovered.



When thinking of fakeness, the thing that comes to mind are the pre-WWII neighborhoods that are filled with tudor & colonial revival houses. Or the European style mansions of our Private Places, set apart from the real world by grand gates. It is totally fake. An atmosphere was created by the developers and purchased by the original owners. Those neighborhoods are among the most treasured in the United States. The Country Club Plaza is often called fake, but it is one of the most beautiful and viable neighborhoods in the country and lives like a "real" neighborhood. Is New Town another revival style that will become treasured in the future? Time will tell. It is still an experiment and should be enjoyed by all as such. Watch it and see what happens.



One of the most talked about developments in STL is Ballpark Village. Many people consider it a no brainer. One could call it fake. "Let's build a downtown neigbhorhood". Is Washington Avenue fake? Well, the original builders were certainly trying to create an atmosphere when they constructed those amazing buildings. And now all hands are on deck, developers, builders, retailers, residents, government, forumers, bloggers, journalists, etc. are all part of creating a viable downtown neighborhood. By most accounts the effort is successful and the beginning of much more. We are far beyond a few crafty urban pioneers carving out a place in the Garment District/Red Light District. Big time developers are creating an enviable atmosphere. I am glad of it. In the favelas of Rio, people build structures with found materials. They aren't much more than shelter. They are what they are. We are fortunate that most of us live in a building/neighborhood that was designed and created. Not many of us are living in homemade shacks. Of course, if someone has a homemade shack and added shutters and welcome mat, it could be called fake. But, I would call it an improvement.

steve wrote:


Don't follow you there, bud. There are plenty of cities, in this country and around the world, that have very old buildings with new windows and fashionable people inside. Old does NOT equal, poor, dirty etc. (God I hate that mentality).



Second, Wash Ave is not a former slum. It was the second busiest garment district in the country, full of people, life, and can you believe it? fashionable shops.



Does Tribeca seem weird to you?



I may be wrong, but it just seems like you have the mentality of OLD=POOR.

No, you're wrong.



Never seen Tribeca, but i don't think Old = poor. I think Old = old. I mean, c'mon, if you saw a 90 year old man walking around with Ipod earphone in their ears, you'd look twice and think it was odd. Now imagine if an entire bus full of geriatrics got out and was wearing Jay-Z t-shirts. It's kinda the same thing.



It's weird for me at least, to drive down a former slum (the people who remember wash ave as attractive are well over 60 years old by now. It's been a slum since the 1960s.) and see these old buildings with hyper new uses in them that are ultra clean. Old people have wrinkles, gray hair, moles, skin blots etc. Old buildings, by comparison, usually have similar signs of aging, albeit in masonry.



And Jmed, new doesn't equal sterile, but sterile does equal a perception of fake. If you look in a magazine and see a model, she looks perfet, but do you for one second believe that it's natural? She's been airbrushed or has makeup on or had surgery - nothing about these sterile images are fully "real", and it's the same perception with an old building turned new. Perhaps if these buildings were done slowly, over the course of a decade or so, it might appear differently, sine the impact wouldn't be felt so quickly. But with so much being done in just the last 3 years, it's just been such a fast impact that it honestly looks like 15 new buildings with old cladding were dropped in Wash Ave.



Again, gentrification is good (to a degree), I'm just saying it looks weird.

Washington Avenue was not a slum. It was a warehouse district.



And it may be strange to see a bus full of old men in t-shirts. It wouldn't be strange to see a bus full of old men in brand new up to date suits, shiny new shoes, and best silk ties that money can buy.



Washington Avenue looks fantastic. And so do most buildings in STL that are being renovated/rehabbed. If done properly, a rehab/renovation/reuse is a beautiful thing. But, that is my opinion and if you think it looks weird, that is your opinion.

I should clarify that when I nominated the thread for worst of 2007, I didn't mean Jive's excellent and spot-on beginning to this thread. I was referring to much of the drivel that has followed.



I don't see how buildings look fake. Now, some of the people going into some of those buildings (esp. Copia and LPG) look fake, but I just don't get that vibe from the avenue in general. And in the last couple of years, the additional retail and restaurants that have located along this stretch have attracted a more diverse crowd, which make the neighborhood appealing for a broader range of residents and visitors alike.

Washington Avenue looks fantastic. And so do most buildings in STL that are being renovated/rehabbed. If done properly, a rehab/renovation/reuse is a beautiful thing. But, that is my opinion and if you think it looks weird, that is your opinion.

Well stated...I don't see what the problem is with WashAve...but to each his/her own I suppose.

migueltejada wrote:No, you're wrong.



Never seen Tribeca, but i don't think Old = poor. I think Old = old. I mean, c'mon, if you saw a 90 year old man walking around with Ipod earphone in their ears, you'd look twice and think it was odd. Now imagine if an entire bus full of geriatrics got out and was wearing Jay-Z t-shirts. It's kinda the same thing.



It's weird for me at least, to drive down a former slum (the people who remember wash ave as attractive are well over 60 years old by now. It's been a slum since the 1960s.) and see these old buildings with hyper new uses in them that are ultra clean. Old people have wrinkles, gray hair, moles, skin blots etc. Old buildings, by comparison, usually have similar signs of aging, albeit in masonry.



And Jmed, new doesn't equal sterile, but sterile does equal a perception of fake. If you look in a magazine and see a model, she looks perfet, but do you for one second believe that it's natural? She's been airbrushed or has makeup on or had surgery - nothing about these sterile images are fully "real", and it's the same perception with an old building turned new. Perhaps if these buildings were done slowly, over the course of a decade or so, it might appear differently, sine the impact wouldn't be felt so quickly. But with so much being done in just the last 3 years, it's just been such a fast impact that it honestly looks like 15 new buildings with old cladding were dropped in Wash Ave.



Again, gentrification is good (to a degree), I'm just saying it looks weird.

I wonder if you even know the true definition of "slum" because it sure as hell doesn't and never could be used to describe Washington Avenue. A "slum" is a densely-populated residential area full of very, very, very poor people, where crime is rampant and unsanitary living conditions are the norm. Perhaps you should pick up the book The Urban Wilderness by Sam Bass Warner, Jr. to better grasp what a real slum is.



And while you're entitled to your opinion that rehabbed old buildings look "fake," I wonder what you think of historic cities like Boston, New York, Philadelphia and just about every city in Europe that renews their aging buildings for new uses? Are they all fake too? Do you even realize how ridiculous this sounds to people?

In many Asian cultures, historic structures of all kinds (temples/homes/bridges/etc.) made of wood are regularly completely dismantled and rebuilt using historically accurate methods and materials. Historic structures 1,000 years old may have been rebuilt 10 times or more and no part of it may be more than 200 years old. I remember thinking at the time that this made it "fake".

Just for the record, a bus full of old guys is funny in any situation.

Agent009 wrote:--- Washington Avenue sometimes it does feel a bit like a movie set.

I think that might be a better way to say what i was getting at, at least it doesnt bring up so many other ideas, or stir up so much emotion that way.

How ironic that an area once used as a movie set because of its desolation is now compared to a movie set because of its revitalization. hmmm.



I see what 009 is getting at, while being happy at Wash Ave's progress we should be honest about what it is at this moment in its evolution - an upscale, fairly homogenous urban community. Anytime a huge amount of money gets poured into a place, whether its new construction (like New Town) or an entire rehabbed neighborhood (Wash Ave.) it's going to come out rather homogenous. As others have mentioned it's still early in the revitalization game for this area (I've yet to see the urban community that went straight from desolation to fine-grained urbanism).



What would make Wash Ave. more urban? A more diverse residential population (maybe more students and families) and better transit options so that more people can live without a car. These are a couple of hallmarks of truly urban places that downtown lacks right now.



To Grover's earlier point about re-using buildings, yes that's a very urban thing to do, but when you have an entire neighborhood of old buildings, all rehabbed within a couple of years of each other it leads to the kind of "urban theme park" feel that I think some people are bringing up. Wash Ave is obviously urban in its physical makeup, but because of the flood of money in the last few years it has an upscale suburban feel in its social makeup. Like you say, there's a good discussion to be had here about what constitutes an urban community (many seem to think it's only the physical environment and uniqueness of the buildings) and how well Wash Ave. fits this in its current state.

If you guys feel this way about Wash Ave, do you all feel the same way about the OPO square? Do you guys feel that way about the Wainwright/Paul Brown/ Marquette/Cornado or Lacledes Landing?

.....or ANY old building in Boston or Manhattan? Most were all "slums" of one sort or another at one time......

That's one of the peculiar things about this forum, it is for the short posts, but it's also a true discussion board. People really do read through mega posts and really go into detail. It's a different beast than most forums. And thank you all for turning this back around. This was too god of a thread to lock, because there is a lot of good stuff in it if you are willing to sift through. And I like the outright arguments every so often. Loosens people up and relieves a little rage. As long as it doesn't get personal, which some of you did, and there is no obvious baiting, which I think there may have been a little.

Look at the time of that argument from last night. I think we were up way too late and hyped up on caffeine for our own good. When someone suggested Agent was a kid that really ticked me off for some reason and I ended up coming off as an old geezer... "call the fire department. This things out of control! sniff sniff Its poop again!" Im not some old geezer though. No true old guy could joke about Grand Theft Auto and the Big Lebowsky. Why cant we all just get along and be friends and love STL?

jefferson wrote:...I see what 009 is getting at, while being happy at Wash Ave's progress we should be honest about what it is at this moment in its evolution - an upscale, fairly homogenous urban community. Anytime a huge amount of money gets poured into a place, whether its new construction (like New Town) or an entire rehabbed neighborhood (Wash Ave.) it's going to come out rather homogenous. As others have mentioned it's still early in the revitalization game for this area (I've yet to see the urban community that went straight from desolation to fine-grained urbanism).



What would make Wash Ave. more urban? A more diverse residential population (maybe more students and families) and better transit options so that more people can live without a car. These are a couple of hallmarks of truly urban places that downtown lacks right now....

Hi all, I've stayed out of this one up until this point, partially because I forgot my password and couldn't log in at work yesterday.



I wouldn't say that Washington ave. is 'artificial', the way, say, those Walt Disney "towns" in Florida are. But the problem is that so far the rebirth of the area has been concentrated mostly on one street. By itself Washington looks great, but when you compare it to the neighboring blocks north and south, there is a disconnect -- at least west of 10th street -- and perhaps that is part of the reason Agent and others see washington as contrived.



The other thing, I think, is that over time the gentrification effect should balance out. Right now Washington might seem overly gentrified to some because so many resources have been put into the street in such a short time. In a few years as resources are put into neighboring streets and new tennants come and go on washington, some of the missing diversity will return.

Tysalpha wrote:I wouldn't say that Washington ave. is 'artificial', the way, say, those Walt Disney "towns" in Florida are. But the problem is that so far the rebirth of the area has been concentrated mostly on one street. By itself Washington looks great, but when you compare it to the neighboring blocks north and south, there is a disconnect -- at least west of 10th street -- and perhaps that is part of the reason Agent and others see washington as contrived.

There does seem to be more concentrated new development on Washington from 20th to the River than any other parallel street. Aside from that, there is a hell of a lot of development in the core of downtown. And as the core strengthens over time, I believe that new development will radiate outwards and increase connectedness.

If most of the development on the western edge of downtown is focused on just one street, Washington Ave, that might be a good thing. It creates critical mass and something easily identifiable that can be expanded on.



As innov8ion pointed out, in the core of downtown, development is spreading all over. And west of Tucker, we are starting to see new development spread beyond linear Washington Ave. With Blue, Park Pacific, the new Ford, and other developments on Locust, we will eventually see things fill in between Washington and Union Station creating a fuller neigbhorhood. It is easy to imagine a fully developed neighborhood west of Tucker between Washington Ave & Market Street and eventually joing Midtown.



I find the townhouses around St. Joseph Shrine to be very attractive. I would love to see development expand north to meet that area. I would like to hear ideas on expanding on the parking lots north of Wash Ave and beyond. How can we bring St. Joseph Shrine into the attractive, walkable realm of downtown. Imagine walking from downtown to St. Joseph on leafy streets, past handsome townhouses & neighborhood retail, etc. Can it be done?

^Great vision! I agree, I think those parking lots north of Washington Avenue are ripe for rowhouse/mid-rise development with streetfront retail. I envision a vibrant Lucas Avenue alley street, with European-style density and little markets and shops. Maybe one day!

There are a couple of ways that I think Wash Ave. will become more "urban" in the coming decades. Over time, some of the recently rehabbed buildings will be kept up better than others, and some of the units within these buildings will be kept up better than others, leading to a greater variety in price points and thus in residential population. Also, there will come a time when Washington Ave. is no longer the "trendy" place to be. When that happens, some of the retailers will undoubtedly decide to move on. The ones that remain will become the local fixtures that are part of the fabric of any urban place. Both of these things only come with time and are the reason the street seems awkward to some people right now.



There are a couple of other ways it can become more urban, but these lay outside the control of the neighborhood itself. One, if the city provided better schools and recreational facilities, it would help more families make the decision to move into the neighborhood. Second, if the city provided better transportation options (downtown circulator, streetcars, expanded Metrolink or BRT, flexcars etc.), more people could think about living on Wash Ave. without a car.



So it will undoubtedly become more "urban" over the coming decades. If the conditions in the second paragraph (schools, transport) are also met, then yes, I think it could evolve into the very definition of an urban neighborhood.

I will say that I prefer the area around the OPO to Wash Ave because of the outlying density. You can walk for blocks and the surface lots are few and far between there. In the Wash Ave area, the street itself is greatly intact with few lots, but one block away they multiply like crazy.



The development along Locust is very important for the progress of Wash Ave. Everybody keeps saying we're not there yet, and that's true, but development along these areas are what's needed to help downtown become a very livable area. Places like Simply Fondue are the first to really step out and attack the Locust area, that already has some great character with the Schlafly and Pepper/Nectar Lounges to the West. The buildings in between need work.



I'd also like to see the city entice more residents by bettering the transit in the immediate downtown area. We need modern streetcars taking people around. As of now, it's still walkable to go from Wash Ave to the Ballpark, but I just don't think the majority of people feel that way.

Trent, I got on the street car on Lindell in front of the history museum the other day and it never moved. It just sat there. I guess the driver had gone into the museum to take a leak or something (which was good because I didn't have to pay the fare) and the other passengers were just a couple of kids who didn't seem to have anywhere to go. In general, I was very frustrated by the experience. I waited for 15 minutes before saying the hell with it, the kids bailed out after only about 5 minutes. I don't understand why you and everyone else on this site thinks that streetcars are good for St. Louis, or would work downtown. If the one in front of the museum is any indication, I think they would cause horrible traffic problems and not really serve to transport anyone anywhere.