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Originally Posted by emathias
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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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.