urbanSTL

I could see some small things lingering in popularity in 30 years, like Silver Dollar City and lake vacations at Table Rock Lake, but I can't see the honky tonk banjo shows and Elvis impersonation shows lasting.

Hilton has been running these for a few weeks and by the looks of comments the Ad is targeting audiences in a lot of other Midwestern cities

Ah, yes, (expensive) museums and culture can only be found in Chicago, and homeruns can only be found in StL (a notoriously bad hitters park). 

In all seriousness, outside of Washington D.C., how many cities can claim the amount of free or cheap family-friendly attractions that St. Louis can? 

Families can come here and visit the St. Louis Zoo, Saint Louis Science Center, Saint Louis Art Museum, Anheuser-Busch brewery, Gateway Arch Museum, Grant's Farm, and several other University museums, for free. Forest Park also has free playgrounds like Turtle Park and the new nature playscape that cost nothing. 

City Museum, MoBot, Magic House, a trip to the top of the Arch, and a professional sports game are the only things that really cost much in this town, in terms of attractions. 

^And its not as if MoBot, City Museum or Magic House are that expensive, relatively speaking. 

A family of four that decides to go to City Museum and get rooftop access will be looking at a bill of $104.00 + tax. 

Obviously, that's not awful, but it may be enough to push some families toward the Forest Park attractions or the museum under the Arch.

^Sure but that same trip to the Field Museum or Art Institute would put that family of four back at least $250.

And yes, I'm aware that there are "free days" like once a month at those museum and that those days are less than ideal experiences

KansasCitian wrote: ↑

Jul 14, 2021

A family of four that decides to go to City Museum and get rooftop access will be looking at a bill of $104.00 + tax. 

Obviously, that's not awful, but it may be enough to push some families toward the Forest Park attractions or the museum under the Arch.

CM started family memberships that are like $100 a year for unlimited access, you’d be surprised how many families 200-350 miles away signed up.

KansasCitian wrote: ↑

Jul 14, 2021

In all seriousness, outside of Washington D.C., how many cities can claim the amount of free or cheap family-friendly attractions that St. Louis can? 

Families can come here and visit the St. Louis Zoo, Saint Louis Science Center, Saint Louis Art Museum, Anheuser-Busch brewery, Gateway Arch Museum, Grant's Farm, and several other University museums, for free. Forest Park also has free playgrounds like Turtle Park and the new nature playscape that cost nothing. 

City Museum, MoBot, Magic House, a trip to the top of the Arch, and a professional sports game are the only things that really cost much in this town, in terms of attractions. 

In all seriousness none. And in some ways I think we can give DC at least a decent run for the money. Generally a cheaper place to stay and plenty to do. They beat us on the fancy government stuff, aviation, and art, but we beat them on plants, trains, and aminals. Probably on parks too. And in many ways on genuine history and architecture. DC always feels more than a tad artificial. (And surprisingly young.) I'd give us an edge in music and theatre. They probably get a slight edge in bric-a-brac and oddball mathoms. They probably win overall, but we're at least in the running even with them. And we don't have the politics so that's a W for the STL in my book.

^ If St. Louis invested in upgrading it's infrastructure and really developing Downtown and the core neighborhoods it would be way more of a tourist destination. Not riding the momentum of early Metrolink success and expanding the system to the North and South neighborhoods was also another major mistake. St. Louis has a lot of great attractions and really is a beautiful and unique city, but most of the main attractions are separated by highways and blighted zones. 

I'm a fan of good development everywhere, but every dollar of development money downtown goes far further for STL than anywhere else. It's wonderful to see our neighborhoods strengthen and become awesome vital places. People who take the time to visit the neighborhoods fall in love with the city, but that just isn't most people. 

Most people who visit our city stay somewhere downtown or at least in the central corridor, they stay for a few days at the most, and they always go downtown. Downtown is the face of the city (and region) whether we like it or not, and it's not a great face right now. The majority of the smaller abandoned buildings have been taken care of but we still have the hulking RX, Millennium Hotel, and Jefferson Arms sitting there in highly visible locations. We have have terrible parking garages everywhere, a couple of which are abandoned and look even worse. Retail vacancy continues to be a huge issue. Cruising and lawlessness is endemic. I could go on.

Every outsider that visits us sees this, and that becomes their opinion of us.

If downtown and the immediate surrounding neighborhoods get back on track there is nothing holding us back from becoming a destination city for tourists, jobs, and new residents.   

Time considers St. Louis  one of the  " World's 100 Greatest Places of 2021":  https://time.com/collection/worlds-greatest-places-2021/

I'll take press like this, from a publication like this, every single time -- no matter how contrived or silly it may be.  

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/07/23/style/telfar-liberia-olympic-team.html

Glowing piece about the Mayor.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-f ... ar-AAMKmaB

I found this interesting…..

Best shopping Centers in STL

https://kevsbest.com/shopping-centre-in ... is-mo/amp/

"Grand Slam Market Place – is knowingly placed in the North County section"

spot-on assessment.

^^Well, that was good for a lark. I confess, I did actually look up Grand Slam and browsed Big Top Flea Market. I did some work up in Castle Point years ago, so the area is not wholly unknown to me, but I never really did any shopping there other than maybe grabbing a bite at a filling station or something. (Probably wasn't there then anyway.)

urban_dilettante wrote: ↑

Jul 30, 2021

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/07/23/style/telfar-liberia-olympic-team.html

Um. wt.

Well, someone there from the city exposed everyone to Covid. Just to emphasize a point.

arch city wrote: ↑

Aug 03, 2021

sc4mayor wrote: ↑

Jul 30, 2021

I was wondering how long it would take for this to go National:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2 ... ist-slurs/

Edit: Last thing I would have expected to learn from this is that Rita Days is a piece of human garbage.  Guess I’m not really surprised considering this region’s local elected officials…

The rubes on the St. Louis County Council would rather play politics than save lives

Heard was a poor moderator, but many of those in the audience were "garbage" trash talker. That was awful how they treated Khan with racist epithets. Not a good look for St. Louis. With that said, I suspect many of those  people were from outlying counties. Just terrible.

Except that there is no evidence that any of this happened. No video of an assault or battery. No audio of racial slurs or attacks. Some idiots on Twitter tried to pass off audio of someone saying "F*cking Sam Page" as "F*cking sand ni****"