urbanSTL

Spitballing here: what about doing something like this during the warmer months? Jet boat rides

Would obviously need to be careful doing this on a working river, but it should be doable, and jet boats have very shallow drafts that make them less likely to be affected by shallow water or debris in the water.

Main question in my mind would be whether they can make enough in warm weather to make it worth a private operator's while.

-RBB

I don't know; ocean-going ships just seem out of place moored on a river.

framer wrote: ↑

May 06, 2022

I don't know; ocean-going ships just seem out of place moored on a river.

An LCS is basically a brown water ship. Their basic purpose was to operate in shallow marginal (littoral) environments like tidal estuaries, bays, and rivers. The darn thing was literally built on a river a tiny fraction of the size of the Mississippi at St. Louis. The draft of the thing is all of twelve foot eight: the "mark twain" and change. You can take them on the ocean, but they're really just riverboats with a bit of extra freeboard. The new Viking Mississippi cruise boat will be nearly eighty feet longer. They're itty bitty little things. Here's my own photo of a pair of them on the Menominee at the builder's yard in Marinette Wisconsin:



The channel isn't even three hundred feet wide. (The whole blasted river narrows down to barely more than 290 feet just downstream of the shipyard.) I don't know the channel depth there, but we have more than enough water for those things. They're about the same length as the Admiral, though much finer. (More skinny. Which loses you endurance and efficiency, but buys you speed.)  I could honestly see turning them into river cruisers if the price is right. Alternately, they might be good candidates for conversion to interisland ferries in Hawaii. You've got your US built hulls so you can do an exclusively domestic itinerary. Just take off the military stuff, downgrade the engines, cut in some windows, and spruce them up.

I get your point, but somehow they still seem out of place on the Ole Mississippi. I felt the same about the minesweeper and the Santa Maria.

An ironclad would be awesome.

^^I could get behind that idea, but I still want more boats moored by the arch. Can we have both?

Trololzilla wrote: ↑

May 07, 2022

gone corporate wrote: ↑

May 06, 2022

Who wants to call Senator Blunt's office? Anyone got a good in? 

Wonder if Rep. Bush could help with a push, especially given that she's a local?

She's busy failing her international relations 101 course at STLCC.

shadrach wrote: ↑

May 06, 2022

Yeah! Jetboats up to Mosenthein island! 

Start small with a little outdoor venue, shack with a bar, shrimp on the baby, raised deck with view of downtown, go from there....
https://urbanstl.com/what-do-we-know-about-the-interior-of-mosenthein-i-t9515.html

Right!?! I'd do it.

A jet boat should even be able to traverse the chain of rocks - at least when the river isn't too low.  It's one of the only types of boats that could. Imagine powering up to the chain of rocks bridge, circling the water inlets, etc.

-RBB

shadrach wrote: ↑

May 06, 2022

The Santa Maria was odd.

Since we're on it—I'd like to see St. Louis  'Maritime Museum' or collection of floating oddballs: a reproduction Civil War gunboat and an LST (since they were made here), the Goldenrod showboat, the discussed USS St. Louis and early 1800s keelboat and flatboat all docked in an inner harbor scooped out in the empty lot by the Cottonbelt freight station north of TriGen.

That would be awesome! I think you could even do this as a marina.
Though I think you want your inlet to the south so that it would avoid collecting too much river flotsam.

My guess is that the St. Louis will go into the Navy mothball fleet, I don't think they would be wiling to part with a ship that new just yet. We could probably get an 70's era destroyer pretty cheap but getting it here and in shape to be a museum ship would probably be a small fortune. 

There is a museum ship in Gasconade MO of all places. It was the old Corp boat works and some guy bought the USS Aries and moved it there with a bunch of old military equipment and other hydrofoils, he runs it as a museum and will give you a pretty good tour. He hopes to one day rehab the entire site - I wish him nothing but the best 

https://www.ussaries.org/

Old Courthouse got $2.75 m from state towards it 20+ million renovation

Explore STL also got $1m for an outdoor event space

The Legislature has been quite generous this year with the big surplus.

dbInSouthCity wrote:Old Courthouse got $2.75 m from state towards it 20+ million renovation

Explore STL also got $1m for an outdoor event space

Is that outdoor space the convention center park?

Airfare is getting expensive, 2nd and 3rd tier destinations within driving distance like STL are directly benefiting. 

Over 2m visitors through Sept. that Beats 1.6m for all of 2022 and doubled what some moron projected in a biz journal earlier this year and he cited “crime” as a reason.

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Oct 07, 2023

Over 2m visitors through Sept.  that Beats 1.6m for all of 2022 and doubled what some moron projected in a biz journal earlier this year and he cited “crime” as a reason.

who is considered a visitor - someone who buys ticket to ride tram?

The way attendance is calculated is number of people that go through security at museum x a factor to catch people who visit the arch but don’t go through the museum

Trams annual capacity is around 710,000 I believe. They can only do 2,000 people a day for now because bi-state runs the tram and they’re having issues with either staffing or fixing broken cars. Not exactly sure what the issue is.