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  #1  
Old Posted Oct 30, 2015, 3:24 PM
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The Gateway Arch Turns 50

St. Louis City residents along with local, federal, state officials and The National Park Service celebrated the 50th Anniversary/birthday this week.

Meanwhile, renovation and enhancement work continues on The Gateway Arch, the Arch grounds, highway park lid (Luther Ely Smith Park), museum and riverfront.

All work on the $400-million project is due to be completed in 2017.

Work on the highway park lid (Luther Ely Smith Park) is nearing completion (see photos below).

CBS Video: The Gateway Arch turns 50
NBC Video: Natalie Morales pops out the top of the Gateway Arch
Fox2News Video: Astronaut wishes the Gateway Arch a happy 50th birthday from space


IMG_3415 by CityArchRiver 2015, on Flickr


_MG_3551 by CityArchRiver 2015, on Flickr


_MG_3596 by CityArchRiver 2015, on Flickr


_MG_3557 by CityArchRiver 2015, on Flickr


_MG_3523 by CityArchRiver 2015, on Flickr


IMG_3453 by CityArchRiver 2015, on Flickr


IMG_3457 by CityArchRiver 2015, on Flickr


IMG_3458 by CityArchRiver 2015, on Flickr
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  #2  
Old Posted Oct 30, 2015, 11:47 PM
untitledreality untitledreality is offline
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Just as a reminder...

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Originally Posted by Centropolis View Post
the pre-civil war era st. louis riverfront was cleared for the arch, of course. hotels where lincoln slept in the 1840s and possibly where charles dickens laid his head. early 19th century fur trader warehouses and watering holes. poof.


circa 1818. the mansard was of course added much later...


umsl.edu




shorpy.com






https://stltourguide.files.wordpress.com


st. louis post dispatch


www.cnu.org


yale university press



shorpy



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  #3  
Old Posted Oct 31, 2015, 8:25 PM
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This was the day after the anniversary. I was with the family at a Bonfire in Milstadt Illinois, and sure enough, you could see the skyline. and the beautiful arch, perfectly.

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Old Posted Nov 2, 2015, 4:30 PM
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Hey Xing, can you fix your picture link? I would like to see the shot! I'm sure it's a good one.

untitledrealty, a lot of the cleared buildings were cleared due to decay as well as the forthcoming interstate system. As people continued to move to the western fringes of St. Louis - a lot - not all - of the buildings were left empty and decaying.

Anyway, many of them had been slave auction houses. Glad to see them go.

Yes, the riverfront lost a some good ones in the process. But the city also built a massive flood wall along the riverfront after the clearance. And many of the buildings would have been under water if they had been around during The Great Flood of 1993.

Quote:
"Over 1,000 flood warnings and statements, five times the normal, were issued to notify the public and need-to-know officials of river levels. In such places as St. Louis, river levels were nearly 20 feet (6 m) above flood stage, the highest ever recorded there in 228 years.[4] The 52-foot (16 m)-high St. Louis Floodwall, built to handle the volume of the 1844 flood, was able to keep the 1993 flood out with just over two feet (0.6 m) to spare.[citation needed] This floodwall was built in the 1960s, to great controversy, out of interlocking prefabricated concrete blocks. Had it been breached, the whole of downtown St. Louis would have been submerged."
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Old Posted Nov 3, 2015, 5:34 AM
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well, look at the alternate proposals for the riverfront. you'll maybe feel a little better about what was built...it was clearly the best, most ambitious proposal with maybe the exception of the strange skyscraper-bridge which was a machine-era wet dream that would have aged poorly.

the highway infrastructure and the way the city was mangled at the interaction with the arch grounds is another matter.
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Old Posted Nov 3, 2015, 3:05 PM
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it was clearly the best, most ambitious proposal with maybe the exception of the strange skyscraper-bridge which was a machine-era wet dream that would have aged poorly.
do you have any more info on that skyscraper-bridge dealie?
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Old Posted Nov 3, 2015, 3:14 PM
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My partner and I were there the last weekend the museum under the arch was open. It was an okay trip, although it was winter, so quite cold (but we're from Chicago, so it wasn't a trip killer for us). I think I'd overestimated Saint Louis - I've been there a number of times because one of my college roommates was from the St. Louis area and I visited him fairly often in college, plus my brother went to college about an hour away from Saint Louis and lived there after school for a few months so I've been there with him a couple times. But all those visits were mostly about visiting family or friends and not really the city itself. This year's trip was just about Saint Louis itself.

The downtown area is pretty much a ghost town on weekends, and even the other areas weren't really that exciting. A few spots, but barely enough to make a weekend trip out of. The weekend we were there was their Mardi Gras, too, (apparently Saint Louis' Mardi Gras is second only to New Orleans in the U.S.) so there were more people around than usual. Since neither my former roommate nor my brother live there anymore, I don't think I have any reason to go back to Saint Louis, to be honest unless I want to get away from big cities and return to a car-centric culture. I really want to be big on Saint Louis, because it has interesting history and I like the idea of Saint Louis, but it's just so sleepy compared to Chicago.

But the Arch, the Arch is and always will be cool.
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Old Posted Nov 3, 2015, 7:47 PM
Emprise du Lion Emprise du Lion is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by emathias View Post
My partner and I were there the last weekend the museum under the arch was open. It was an okay trip, although it was winter, so quite cold (but we're from Chicago, so it wasn't a trip killer for us). I think I'd overestimated Saint Louis - I've been there a number of times because one of my college roommates was from the St. Louis area and I visited him fairly often in college, plus my brother went to college about an hour away from Saint Louis and lived there after school for a few months so I've been there with him a couple times. But all those visits were mostly about visiting family or friends and not really the city itself. This year's trip was just about Saint Louis itself.

The downtown area is pretty much a ghost town on weekends, and even the other areas weren't really that exciting. A few spots, but barely enough to make a weekend trip out of. The weekend we were there was their Mardi Gras, too, (apparently Saint Louis' Mardi Gras is second only to New Orleans in the U.S.) so there were more people around than usual. Since neither my former roommate nor my brother live there anymore, I don't think I have any reason to go back to Saint Louis, to be honest unless I want to get away from big cities and return to a car-centric culture. I really want to be big on Saint Louis, because it has interesting history and I like the idea of Saint Louis, but it's just so sleepy compared to Chicago.

But the Arch, the Arch is and always will be cool.
There's frankly few attractions in downtown St. Louis. If you're not there for a sporting event, then there isn't much to hold your attention beyond the Arch, the Old Courthouse, and the City Museum. There are places to eat and drink, of course, but Washington Ave is just one part of downtown St. Louis, and any liveliness over at Ballpark Village is contained inside the building since it's essentially a mall of bars. The other big cultural attractions are primarily over in Forest Park.

If you wanted to see a crush of people, then you should have driven by the Soulard area since it was Mardi Gras. You wouldn't have been able to get up close due to the crowds and street closures, but it's a crush of people for sure. The neighborhood on its own is also a popular area in the city.

As for pedestrians in general, that's not something St. Louis really excels at. It's an extremely car centric city and metro, and there's definitely a perception that if you have to take public transit (especially a bus) that you're poor. Metro Link becomes "acceptable" for more people if it's so that you can avoid traffic for work in the morning, or traffic during a sporting event. St. Louis' system certainly isn't big enough to support a comfortable car free lifestyle.

That being said, there are parts of town where it's common to see a decent amount of people walking around. A good example of this is the Delmar Loop.

Where all did you go though? Because if you primarily just stayed in downtown, no wonder you're miserable. Many of St. Louis' businesses and attractions are all decentralized from its downtown.

PS: The Arch's museum was rather dull. Thank God they're redoing it.
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Old Posted Nov 3, 2015, 11:10 PM
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st. louis was a very spread out city by 1920, thanks to it having the most polluted air in the midwest (the delmar loop is seven miles from downtown, for instance). the pre-war destination districts are spread more widely than visitors would assume. you pretty much need a local or you'll miss quite a lot. hell, locals need locals and are constantly lost.
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Last edited by Centropolis; Nov 3, 2015 at 11:25 PM.
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Old Posted Nov 3, 2015, 11:17 PM
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do you have any more info on that skyscraper-bridge dealie?
i'll see if i can find it...on the road.
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Old Posted Nov 4, 2015, 2:15 AM
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here ya go steely. included some kind of subway and an airport, too. i feel like something like this would have aged terribly...and there was no need for a subway to east st. louis when the eads bridge has a rail deck (thats in use for the light rail, now).


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Old Posted Nov 4, 2015, 2:39 PM
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^ whoa, that would have been something alright. jesus.

but yeah, the arch is approximately 7.3 billion times more elegant.



it's also important to remember that it was not the arch by itself that destroyed all of that 19th century riverfront urban fabric in st. louis. while we all wish that neighborhood could have survived mostly intact into the present day, it's more than likely that much/most of it would have been ripped down anyway in the slum removal/urban renewal days of the post-war period whether or not there was ever any plan for the grand monument arch. that neighborhood was likely a goner one way or another, like so many other similar neighborhoods around the country.

sad, yes. but at least that magnificent arch exists.
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Old Posted Nov 5, 2015, 9:17 PM
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here was the second place entry:


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Old Posted Nov 21, 2015, 7:30 AM
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I love the pictures of it being built. Such a marvel of the time.
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Old Posted Nov 22, 2015, 4:01 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
^ whoa, that would have been something alright. jesus.

but yeah, the arch is approximately 7.3 billion times more elegant.



it's also important to remember that it was not the arch by itself that destroyed all of that 19th century riverfront urban fabric in st. louis. while we all wish that neighborhood could have survived mostly intact into the present day, it's more than likely that much/most of it would have been ripped down anyway in the slum removal/urban renewal days of the post-war period whether or not there was ever any plan for the grand monument arch. that neighborhood was likely a goner one way or another, like so many other similar neighborhoods around the country.

sad, yes. but at least that magnificent arch exists.
^ I agree, mid-century planners were bloodthirsty for "slum clearance" and anything 100 years old or older around 1950 was almost certainly a goner. It's a blessing we still have places like the French Quarter and that's partly why the French Quarter is so famous. New Orleans would be not the world renowned tourist destination it is today had that important historic district met the wrecking ball. In hindsight St. Louis is lucky to have a world famous monument, because the historic riverfront would have definitely met the wrecking ball for tacky mid-century architecture or parking lots. With that said, St. Louis had more than its fair share of demolition, but we still retain a crapload of great historic neighborhoods and feels ancient by American standards. The key now is sensible infill development that compliments the historic stock and that's beginning to happen in a real way now.
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Old Posted Nov 22, 2015, 7:44 PM
LouisVanDerWright LouisVanDerWright is offline
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Of all the things you could have clearcut a massive chunk of nice urban historical stock for, the arch is pretty high on the list of "positive results". Compare this to the Conagra massacre in Omaha and the point makes itself. The Arch is one of the finest structures of it's age and undoutably an asset to St. Louis regardless of what was lost.
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