urbanSTL

sc4mayor wrote: ↑

Mar 29, 2022

Yes, the Taylor’s are responsible for the Mill Creek Valley clearance because of “elites” or whatever haha.  This website can be exhausting with the idiocy sometimes.

In reality, Enterprise was formed in 1957 (several years after the federal urban renewal law passed.  Interestingly enough Raymond Tucker signed the Mill Creek clearance law on August 7th, 1954), but yes…the WWII veteran that named his company after the aircraft carrier he served on is somehow responsible for what City politicians carried out with heaps federal money before he even founded that company.  God forbid they do what literally no one else in St. Louis did and actually mention it…

Those goddamned Taylors!

No of course the Taylors are not personally responsible for the clearance of Mill Creek Valley, but Andy Taylor literally sat on the board of Civic Progress, Kelly Taylor was a Queen of Love and Beauty, and Jack Taylor was of course CEO of one of the largest companies in St. Louis. He went to Olin Business school so I am guessing he didn't exactly come from the working classes. If the Taylors aren't part of the elite that has always called the shots in St. Louis, I really don't know who qualifies. So I apologize if I am not blown away that they included a little memorial to a neighborhood they would never have stepped foot in as part of their real estate development.

sc4mayor wrote: ↑

Mar 29, 2022

Yes, the Taylor’s are responsible for the Mill Creek Valley clearance because of “elites” or whatever haha.  This website can be exhausting with the idiocy sometimes.

In reality, Enterprise was formed in 1957 (several years after the federal urban renewal law passed.  Interestingly enough Raymond Tucker signed the Mill Creek clearance law on August 7th, 1954), but yes…the WWII veteran that named his company after the aircraft carrier he served on is somehow responsible for what City politicians carried out with heaps federal money before he even founded that company.  God forbid they do what literally no one else in St. Louis did and actually mention it…

Those goddamned Taylors!

Enterprise is a great company. Jack Taylor was a great man. The Taylors are a great family. City SC demolishing historic buildings adjacent to the demolished neighborhood that its heart now publicly bleeds for is disingenuous and embarrassing. City SC's garage will be a blight. This was a missed opportunity to learn from the mistakes of the past. The very mistakes now being memorialized.

The Brickline Greenway + memorial and Centene Stadium were planned simultaneously.

This was more a honorable merging of two different efforts and less an effort CITY sought out.

One thing I'm particularly curious to see the impact on is Union Statiom. You have the Blues and Enterprise on the southeast corner throughout the winter months, you're now going to have MLS on the northwest corner throughout the summer. I'm eager to see how this helps with the year round health and vibrancy of US. I hope and think that it should.

Union Stations only plans for the lot to the west behind Maggie O's in the next 5 years is repave it before the MLS season starts next year 

Acknowledging there was a neighborhood there is the first step to making it feel like a neighborhood again. Personally I think between the stadium, Butler Bros conversion, and Midtown momentum Downtown West is in a good position for growth. 

Yeah the demolition of a strip of usable human scale buildings for parking sucks but the demolition of such a massive neighborhood just seems morally wrong and, as we see now, extremely short sighted.

$5M building permit issued for phase 2 of the HQ offices at 326 S 21St St.

dweebe wrote: ↑

Apr 20, 2022

pattimagee wrote: ↑

Apr 20, 2022

I'm seeing irrigation ditches being laid on the practice fields... with spring here and summer coming, I'd wager we'll get sod laid fairly soon. 

Funny. Earlier today two big trucks from some nursery/turf company made me miss the green light at Jefferson and Olive.

Good guess about putting down turf and having a full growing season instead of waiting until summer or fall and not having deeper roots.

Seems about the right time - I wonder if we get a USMNT game pre-World Cup tune up this summer as a test run for the stadium 
 

dweebe wrote:

pattimagee wrote: ↑

Apr 20, 2022

I'm seeing irrigation ditches being laid on the practice fields... with spring here and summer coming, I'd wager we'll get sod laid fairly soon. 

Funny. Earlier today two big trucks from some nursery/turf company made me miss the green light at Jefferson and Olive.

Good guess about putting down turf and having a full growing season instead of waiting until summer or fall and not having deeper roots.

In the landscape industry fall is typically regarded as the best time to plant. Specifically early fall when it’s cool but not going to freeze. Spring would be the next best if done mid spring and hopefully after the final freeze.

Sorry I plant a lot and had to nerd out for a moment. Carry on with soccer now.

July 22nd is suppose to be the finish day but I’ve heard most like another 5-6 weeks after that

Ebsy wrote: ↑

Mar 29, 2022

He went to Olin Business school so I am guessing he didn't exactly come from the working classes.

Jack Taylor went to Olin in 1940, when I'm guessing tuition was probably about $200 a semester, and maybe even less than that. At the time, Washington University was far from being one of the most prestigious schools in the country, and the whole reason "in St. Louis" was later added in 1976 is because most people in the country had no idea where the school even was, with most just assuming it was either in DC or Seattle. Attending that school in 1940 didn't have nearly the same socioeconomic implications as attending it in the last 30-40 years has. Harvard has pretty much always been Harvard, but Wash. U. didn't really start to become the school we know today until late in the 20th Century, during William Danforth's tenure as Chancellor.

Anyway, he left Wash. U. before finishing his degree to go serve as a fighter pilot in the U.S. Navy during World War II. Not saying he grew up poor, but there's no real evidence to suggest he came from tremendous privilege, either.

^His dad owned a Cadillac dealership. He was not a member of the working class, or even really the middle class. And while Wash. U. wasn't perhaps the institution it is today it was still the elite school in the state at a time when that meant more. Tuition alone isn't necessarily the best indicator of much. The movers and shakers in St. Louis mostly came out of Wash. U. even then. Just having a college education at the time set you on a path to success. And an education from a locally elite private school? That's where Missouri senators and St. Louis CEOs studied. And while the place wasn't Harvard . . . it still isn't.

Further, the fighter pilot thing is itself a class indicator. USN fighter pilots were, by and in large, from the upper, or at least upwardly mobile class. Before the war most came out of Annapolis. Prewar I believe there was precisely one squadron of enlisted pilots out of several dozen squadrons. Once wartime expansion really kicked in you started to see more ROTC "90 day wonders" joining the ranks, but the naval aviators were an elite in more ways than one.

Anyway, none of this is a knock on Taylor. But he didn't come out of nowhere. He had some significant advantages. Much like nearly everyone in that economic class. The myth of the self-made man is just that: a myth.

dweebe wrote: ↑

Apr 25, 2022

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

Apr 25, 2022

^His dad owned a Cadillac dealership. He was not a member of the working class, or even really the middle class. And while Wash. U. wasn't perhaps the institution it is today it was still the elite school in the state at a time when that meant more. Tuition alone isn't necessarily the best indicator of much. The movers and shakers in St. Louis mostly came out of Wash. U. even then. Just having a college education at the time set you on a path to success. And an education from a locally elite private school? That's where Missouri senators and St. Louis CEOs studied. And while the place wasn't Harvard . . . it still isn't.

Further, the fighter pilot thing is itself a class indicator. USN fighter pilots were, by and in large, from the upper, or at least upwardly mobile class. Before the war most came out of Annapolis. Prewar I believe there was precisely one squadron of enlisted pilots out of several dozen squadrons. Once wartime expansion really kicked in you started to see more ROTC "90 day wonders" joining the ranks, but the naval aviators were an elite in more ways than one.

Anyway, none of this is a knock on Taylor. But he didn't come out of nowhere. He had some significant advantages. Much like nearly everyone in that economic class. The myth of the self-made man is just that: a myth.

So where does this land us on the question regarding
1) evilness of the Taylor family and their supposed hand in the destruction of Mill Valley?
2) do we boycott the St. Louis MLS team because Carolyn Kindle Betz is the beneficiary of multi-generational wealth?

Man, it sucks those are the only two options