Urban Road Kill

Farewell, Louie, Louie

2006-01-12T07:44:00.000-08:00

I pick up my last check from the city today. Next week I go into Irish exile. If you're curious about my travels check out my new blog -- Slouching Towards Bantry.

Union-Made Ashes

2005-12-18T17:58:00.000-08:00

If you take the time to talk to the caretaker of the old Missouri Crematory and Columbarium at 3411 Sublette Ave., he will give you a tour. It's not often that the living seek his company and he welcomes the opportunity to converse with someone other than himself. But he is quick to add that he likes the solitude. The dead, he says, can't cause you any harm.

The crematory, which opened in 1887, shut down a few years ago, but the columbarium still has some space available, if you're interested. Those who have chosen to be cremated over the years came from all walks of life. For example, in the basement of the columbarium, an imposing crypt-like edifice, there is a bronze plaque on the wall that honors members of Brewers Local 6, many of whose ashes are interred here.

Since 1875

2005-12-18T17:37:00.000-08:00

The city is layered in time, with decades overlapping themselves, defying the concept of linear reality. Passing by on the Interstates, commuters rarely glimpse the urban history that surrounds them, the places that have somehow managed to endure against the odds, including some establishments founded in the 19th Century that remain open today. Two of these venerable businesses, located on opposite ends of the city, first opened their doors in 1875. At 2501 N. 14th Street, on the near Northside, Marx Hardware still sells nuts and bolts as it did during President Ulysses S. Grant's administration. Likewise, Carondelet Bakery, at 7726 Virginia, in deep South St. Louis, has been serving fresh pastries and cakes at the same location for 130 years.

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

2005-12-18T17:21:00.000-08:00

Outside the van, on Lindell Avenue, the young woman pleaded with my partner not to boot her late-model Toyota Scion. The Saint Louis University student, had just completed her last final of the semester. That temporary relief had suddenly been replaced with the anxiety that her car might soon be towed away for non-payment of parking tickets. She wore a small gold ring in her nose and her skin was the color of coffee with extra cream. The knit cap, pulled low on her brow, bore pins that espoused her social awareness. I watched from inside the van, listening to a Christmas carol on the radio. After we drove away from the scene, I felt vaguely depressed until I switched stations and happened to hear the Bottle Rockets singing $1,000 Car, a humorous lament on the poor man's transportation plight. The student could afford to pay her fine.

Tension on South Compton

2005-11-19T07:19:00.000-08:00

The tow truck driver called for a "badge," a police officer in the parlance of automobile impoundment. He was parked on South Compton in front of a GMC Jimmy. Across the street, a chorus of gangbangers taunted him with threats and. racial slurs, while the owners of the vehicle loitered next to the vehicle. Their car, which would soon be towed, was locked and they needed to get their children's clothes out of the backseat. So a friend of the family took a big chunk of concrete and, on the second try, managed to smash out the back window.

Beatle Bob Saunters by an Old Haunt

2005-11-19T07:03:00.000-08:00

It was a rare daylight sighting of Beatle Bob, St. Louis' famous nightclub dance phenom. He crossed the intersection with one arm extended, his index finger pointing upward, lecturing himself, his mop-top hair-do perfectly in place. Bob then stopped momentarily in front of the Hi-Pointe bar to scrutinize the fliers taped to the window before disappearing down Oakland alley behind the Cheshire Inn, past the dumpsters.

A Theological Question

2005-11-19T06:58:00.000-08:00

An old black woman, wearing wrap around sunglasses, sat at the table of the White Castle on Natural Bridge Boulevard in North St. Louis. Oblivious to the banter of her fellow customers, she was absorbed in her reading amid the smell of fried onions. On the table, she displayed a sign which asked: "Is the devil real?"

We Have All Been Here Before

2005-10-28T18:51:00.000-07:00

In the day-to-day hustle and bustle of our working lives, our sense of deja vu can easily be overlooked. This sense may be reawakened at any moment, of course, but often those of us with lesser psychic powers must rely on a foreign setting to achieve such insight.

On the St. Charles Street streetcar in New Orleans in the 1980s, for example, I once stared at the pattern of a woman's print dress and felt instantly transported back to the 1940s, when Tennessee Williams resided there.

Or walking the streets of Baltimore in the early 1970s, I remember seeing old rag men hunched over their reins, as swaybacked nags, festooned with a colorful, feathered headdresses, clopped down narrow streets lined with rowhouses, the sound of wagon wheels conjuring up Edgar Allen Poe's world.

Time is a blur waiting to be captured.

Second Spring

2005-10-28T18:34:00.000-07:00

Before this week's cold snap, I noticed that dandelions had begun to bloom, again.

Signs of the Times

2005-10-28T18:23:00.000-07:00

We will know that the war in Iraq will soon be over and all of our troops safe, when those stupid yellow-magnets finally disappear from people's automobiles.

Port of St. Louis

2005-10-28T18:08:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago, the Mississippi Queen, one of the only stern-wheel steamboats to still ply the river, anchored on the St. Louis levee to board passengers for a fall junket. Unlike this week's hoopla over the 40th Anniversary of the Gateway Arch, the tall vessel came and went with little fanfare. But for those who happened to see the sight, it conjured up a timeless vision of this city's marriage to the great brown god. There was an era when such an embarkation was common place, a daily event. Now such rare sightings are almost dream like. Just below the Eads Bridge, the roustabouts once again took on supplies for the journey, as passengers arrived, their luggage heaped on the cobblestones.

Life on the Mississippi goes on.

Here Lies Eliza Poole

2005-10-28T09:10:00.000-07:00

After a long hiatus, I've returned to occasionally jog in Tower Grove Park, a Victorian-style walking park laid out in the 19th Century on the original estate of Henry Shaw, who also donated the land for the nearby Missouri Botanical Garden, commonly referred to by St. Louisans as Shaw's Garden.

In his will, Shaw, an early mercantile mogul, specified that "colored" people, who were then still slaves, be prohibited from using the park. That part of his last wishes is obviously no longer honored, but the quasi-public park is still governored by an independent board of governors who oversee park policies and maintenance of the land.

The narrow parcel between Magnolia and Arsenal runs for a mile and a half, from Kingshighway on the west to Grand Avenue on the East. Its rolling landscape was long ago planted with a wide range of trees, including Ginkos, Osage Orange and Sweet Gum, to name a few.

Among the mysteries harbored in the park is the tombstone of Eliza Poole, which can be found in the southwest sector in a grove of trees that allows dappled sunlight to filter through in autumn. According to the carved stone, Eliza died in the 1870s, if memory serves me right. Instead of "rest in peace" or some other typical inscription the word "oak" was chiseled above her name. Perhaps it's not a grave marker at all, but a monument to a tree named in Eliza's honor. But nowadays there is no oak tree by the stone.

Canada Squirrels

2005-10-28T09:03:00.000-07:00

Squirrels not geese. They're black in Canada at least in southern Ontario. Maybe further north near the North Pole there are white, polar squirrels.

The enigma surrounding the ebony-furred critters is akin to the mystery of black helicopters. Here's one theory.

Meditating on the River

2005-10-27T17:31:00.000-07:00

During his lunch break, the young worker had somehow perched himself on the park bench at Bellrieve Park in a full lotus position. He sat motionless, staring at the Mississippi River.

Judging by the trucks parked nearby, he either worked for the Missouri Department of Transportation or a portable tiolet company.

Near Miss by Ambulance Chasers

2005-10-27T17:22:00.000-07:00

Waiting for a red light at 14th and Market, we signaled to the emergency medical technician who pulled up next to us that there was something wrong with his vehicle. A steam-like vapor was rising from one of the ambulance's rear wheels. Apparently the brake line had broken and brake fluid was leaking on to the exhaust. As he jumped out of the vehicle to check it out, a SUV filled with suits flew by, barely missing him.

"Just my luck to be hit by a truck full of lawyers," he said.

Strutting at Straub's

2005-10-27T17:18:00.000-07:00

He wore a beret, a turtleneck and jeans. But the two characteristics that stood out about the old man, who walked into Straub's supermarket on Kingshighway in front of me, were his stature and gait.

Then I looked at this shoes.

He was wearing three-inch stiletto heels.

Just Say Amen

2005-10-15T10:37:00.000-07:00

The group congregated in a vacant lot at Euclid and Natural Bridge one day this week, which wouldn't have been that unusual in North St. Louis except for the presence of gasoline driven electrical generators and sound equipment. Once it was all set up, a young man took a microphone and began preaching against the evils of marijuana and succumbing to peer pressure. The location doesn't get too much foot traffic and the anti-drug crew had set up the loud speakers some distance from the street, so I'm not sure how many people heard the anti-drug crusader's testimony. But I think the point was more to just express their convictions out loud.

They're-A-Goin'-Fishin'

2005-10-15T10:35:00.000-07:00

The two men, one white and one black, walked down Natural Bridge with their fishing poles and tackle in the direction of Fairgrounds Park. Both Fairgrounds and nearby O'Fallon Park have fishing holes stocked by the Missouri Department of Conservation.

Wake Up and Smell the Coffee

2005-10-15T10:32:00.000-07:00

If you ride down Clayton or Duncan Avenues in the morning, you can smell the coffee beans roasting at Ronnoco and Thomas Coffee Companies.

Shelter

2005-10-15T10:19:00.000-07:00

With the coming of cool fall nights, the homeless are staking out their spots around town that provide a modicum of warmth. One favorite location is the rear of Barnes Hospital on Euclid across from the Metro stop. This week, I counted three indigents curled up on the sidewalks next to ventilation shafts.

On the same subject, I heard a possible urban myth this week that involved a young woman who camped out for tickets to the Nine Inch Nails concert only to be told the next morning by a security guard that she was sleeping with bums.

Autumn Colors

2005-10-15T10:13:00.000-07:00

The woman exiting her car on Marconi Avenue had hair that matched the hue of the scarlet Maple growing next to the curb.

Urban Ag

2005-10-15T10:07:00.000-07:00

Urban agriculture may sound like a contradiction, but each day a legion of city tractors are dispatched to North St. Louis to mow thousands of acres of vacant lots. In some blocks, there may be only one or two occupied residences standing. In others, none at all. Vast stretches of the city are now open ground. Perhaps St. Louis officials should find a way to bale all that hay and sell it to livestock owners in rural Missouri.

Thunder Cats and Ol' Boys

2005-10-15T10:04:00.000-07:00

In the hood, an ol' boy is anyone who has survived to age 40 and mellowed along the way, whereas, a thunder cat is a troublesome youth prone to violence.

Slo-Mo Gathering at the Bandstand

2005-10-15T10:01:00.000-07:00

The tai-chi practitioners stood silently in a circle next to the Tower Grove Park bandstand, holding their hands aloft as if to capture the rays of the morning sun.

Bladder Lock Down in the Hood

2005-10-15T09:58:00.000-07:00

One of the differences between Fairgrounds Park in North St. Louis and Tower Grove Park in South St. Louis has to do with the "accomdations," or lack thereof. In Tower Grove, the Johnny-on-the-Spots are open for business. In Fairgrounds, the single portable toilet is padlocked, which begs the question:

Are those who regulate such pressing matters concerned that the predominantly poor, African-Americans who frequent Fairgrounds Park will use the pisser for its intended purpose or do they worry that someone will steal the urine?

I'd Rather Be in Philly

2005-10-15T09:54:00.000-07:00

Short of traveling to the City of Brotherly Love, the best cheese steak sandwich west of the Mississippi is to be had at Mammer Jammer on Natural Bridge east of Union.

The Best French Bread in Town

2005-10-15T09:46:00.000-07:00

Long before nuevo bakeries peddling fancy "baguettes" at inflated prices arrived on the scene, Amighetti's across from St. Ambrose Church on the Hill, in St. Louis' Italian neighborhood, baked the best French bread in town. The bakery, which gained a reputation for its poor boy sandwiches, still sells bread out of the original storefront on Wilson, which has a separate door from the more popular restaurant entrance on Marconi. For $1.99, a customer can walk away with a fresh, three-foot long loaf still warm from the oven sometimes.

Golf Carts and Law Enforcement

2005-10-12T18:49:00.000-07:00

The flatbed trucks lumbered down Olive Street on their way to Busch Stadium this afternoon, carrying a load of police golf carts, which I assume will be used by the cops to patrol the area during tonight's playoff game against the Astros.

Northside Eateries, The Price Is Right

2005-10-12T18:39:00.000-07:00

*The Country Girl Pie House at Union and Ashland serves fresh-baked pies and burgers, too. On the wall of the carry-out establishment is a shrine to a recently departed loved one who worked there.

*Billie Burkes place is on Billups Avenue south of Sumner High School a few blocks. It has about four seats at the counter, and just enough room on the other side for the cooks to grill the burgers, which are, of course, delicious. And if you come just before noon, you can watch the ghost-like television image of octogenarian game show host Bob Barker as he sells the American Dream on the The Price Is Right.

Which Way To Downtown?

2005-10-12T18:28:00.000-07:00

The young man stopped in the parking lot of the Straub's supermarket on North Kingshighway to ask a fellow cyclist how to get downtown. He had an foreign accent, so I asked him where he was from. He said New York. When I pressed for more details, he said he had lived in New York for 12 years, but was originally from Israel. I pointed in the direction of the next stop light, which was the intersection of Lindell, and told him to hang a left. I had first advised him to take the sidewalk because of the heavy traffic, and then recanted. He was, after all, from New York. On parting, he advised me to ride safely, and then was off, his curly locks blowing in the breeze without a helmet.

Shattering Eviction

2005-10-12T18:19:00.000-07:00

The man said that he lived in the old GMC utility vehicle that was parked across the street from junk yard on Martin Luther King Drive where crack dealers conduct business. After his pleas failed and the city workers booted the wheel of his mobile residence for non-payment of parking tickets, he took desperate action. Knowing he would not be able to pay his fines and that the tow truck was on its way, he began smashing the windows with an iron pipe.

Spamified

2005-10-12T18:18:00.000-07:00

I've had to eliminate the comments on this blog because of spam from folks trying to sell dog coats and other crap.

Boom, Boom, Boom, Gonna Shoot You Right Down

2005-10-08T12:06:00.000-07:00

Stopping for lunch at Penrose Park one day this week, I noticed five, spent .38-caliber cartridges in the gutter.

Bookmobile

2005-10-08T12:03:00.000-07:00

I noticed the trend earlier this fall, when I spotted a youngster early one morning pulling one of those suitcases on wheels favored by air travelers. Now I'm seeing students of all ages using the same devices to carry their books. Farewell to the hunchbacks and their backpacks.

Putting Around Town

2005-10-08T11:58:00.000-07:00

The gangstas around Fairgrounds Park have forsaken their Escalades and taken to driving golf carts to conserve fuel. The same vehicles have been spotted in Dogtown, but driven by white yuppies.

Definition of Country

2005-09-07T16:41:00.000-07:00

In black dialect, the word "country," when it is used as a synonym for rural, is a pejorative, as in "get your country ass on up outta here."

Economic Indicator

2005-09-07T16:36:00.000-07:00

You know the local economy has tanked when the local dollar store closes its doors.

Code Orange

2005-09-07T16:35:00.000-07:00

You know it's too hot inside your second-floor, Dogtown digs when your tropical fish start to die.

Flying My Kite

2005-09-04T16:45:00.000-07:00

I'm sailing down the Forest Park bike path that parallels Highway 40 on my 10-speed, a French baguette sticking out of my knapsack, smiling. On the adjacent highway, the traffic is bumper-to-bumper, Democrats and Republicans, Bush bashers and Bush backers, all sitting still in their SUVs, heading nowhere at $3.00-plus per gallon. The bag holding my bread is flapping in the wind like a kite.

Ain't Going to Study That No More

2005-08-30T05:01:00.000-07:00

In black dialect, the word "study" has a negative denotation, referring to an object or issue that should not be pondered. Perhaps the most popular use of this definition of the word is found in the old spiritual, "Ain't Going to Study War No More. But far from being an antiquated useage, "not studying" is commonly used in everyday language by many African-Americans in St. Louis. When people use the term, they are saying they refuse to be bothered by some annoying trait exhibited by others. The people who are most prone to "not study" the bad behavior of others usually have migrated from the South, specifically Mississippi or Arkansas.

Where Are All the Flowers From?

2005-08-30T04:56:00.000-07:00

St. Louis' wholesale flower market is located on bustling LaSalle Street, one block south of Chouteau near the intersection of Jefferson. Here, in the early morning, drivers who work for florists retrieve orders that are transported throughout the area, to funerals and weddings and lovers.

Movie Marketing in the Ghetto

2005-08-30T04:51:00.000-07:00

Abandoned buildings at intersections throughout North St. Louis have been plastered with movie posters for the current low-brow comedy "40 Year Old Virgin." The star of the feature film, Steve Cassel, is featured on the poster, smiling like a caucasian idiot savant.

Maffitt Mayhem

2005-08-23T15:27:00.000-07:00

An after-school fracas broke out in the middle of Maffitt Avenue this afternoon near the corner of Sarah. From a distance, I could see a cluster of kids watching two others sparring. By the time we drew nearer, pandemonium had taken over. Kids were shouting, and laughing, and blocking traffic, while one frenetic youngster did a series of forward rolls across the asphalt.

For the Birds

2005-08-23T15:23:00.000-07:00

The over-sized prefabricated out building, which has the shape of an old-fashioned barn roof, is overpopulated with winged residents. The pigeons that flock here can be seen from the Vandeventer overpass on Highway 40 (Interstate 64). The reason for congregating at this location is also visible. In the background are a series of towering grain elevators. Birds of a feather flock where there's food.

The End of Summer

2005-08-21T08:42:00.000-07:00

Between successive heat waves, the respites of August arrive, harbingers of autumn. With the shortening of each day, the evenings cool down and there is both relief and longing for days gone by. The sycamore leaves are falling, falling.

Tribute to a Fallen Worker

2005-08-21T08:34:00.000-07:00

A tiny white cross painted on the back of the parking meter marks the spot where he fell. Having worked the better for of his life, he died on the street doing his job. The spot where he had his heart attack on Spring Avenue near Forest Park Boulevard can be easily passed by without notice just as his passing was overlooked by the larger world. As Labor Day approaches, it is worth noting that every day countless anonymous workers sacrifice their lives while doing their job, their daily tasks never acknowledged as anything heroic.

For Goodness Sake

2005-08-21T08:24:00.000-07:00

Black slang has a way of expressing the peculiar slant of people who live in the ghetto. One term that is popular now is "it's all good," a catch-all phrase that is used when events are anything but all good. "It's all good," for instance, might be trotted out when the landlord is clamoring for the rent or your paycheck is short a day or you just lost your last dollar on a lottery scratch off.

"It's all good."

Beauty for Sale

2005-08-21T07:08:00.000-07:00

They are ubiquitous on the Northside, taking the place of old-time variety stores or five and dimes. In this case, however, they advertise themselves as the purveyors of beauty. Beauty supply stores, as they are called, hawk cosmetics, of course, but also carry a wide line of sundry merchandise, everything from pirated DVDs to identification holders.

Changing Cityscape

2005-08-21T06:11:00.000-07:00

Slowly the city changes before our eyes. Houses topple, bridges fall, the old ways disappear, as if they never were.

In Rome, a modern subway stops across the street from the Colleisum, a tribute to the city's ancient past. But here fewer and fewer architecural reminders survive "economic redevelopment" and the urban planners' bulldozer mentality.

As people flee the core of the city for the outer suburbs, they have left their fading memories, too, of the forgotten places they once knew.

More often than not these changes limit rather than expand our world view, constricting our movements by implicitly proscribing old routes, pushing people into an ever-tightening grid.

For the cabbies, and the coppers and the nighthawks and all those who hold to the alternate ways in the city, these changes are sad passings.

A little-known road still snakes through the railyards east of Vandeventer and Tower Grove on the near Southside. It passes warehouses and factories, some shuttered. With the moon shining down on the silvery rails on a warm August night, the meandering path transports its solitary travelers through the industrial underbelly of the city. The route used to lead up to the intersection of Spring and Chouteau, but it is now a dead end due to the razing of the century-old Chouteau Avenue viaduct.

At the terminus of this new cul de sac, sit idle cranes and tractors amid the concrete ruins. When the new bridge is completed in a few years, I have no doubt that public access to the old way will be cut off.

The Place Where Giant Puppets Sleep

2005-08-05T18:25:00.000-07:00

One block south of Forest Park Boulevard, near the corner of Spring and Clark, there is a non-descript warehouse that harbors the Fair St. Louis floats of the annual parade formerly associated with the secret Veiled Prophet organization. The Veiled Prophet has its orgins in the post-Civil War era, when two Southern businessmen who had moved to St. Louis, decided to create a celebration akin to the New Orleans Mardi Gras. Over the course of the next century, the pageant grew into a huge civic event that was marred by the exclusive nature of the organization, an organization dominated by wealthy, white males. Each year, the Veiled Prophet, whose legend revolves around an historic Middle Eastern potentate, is selected from among his elite peers who control power in St. Louis. The masked man then briefly oversees his mythic kingdom and a selection of a queen, a debutante who hails from the same social class. The ball that honors her is a private affair that created controversy during decades past. But the parade was always a suitable diversion for the masses, having been first staged in the wake of a general strike by immigrant workers in the 1870s.

Today, the giant puppets that festoon the annual parade floats sit comatose, with glazed eyes, in there little-known-about hideaway, waiting patiently to prance through the streets once again.

Arkansas Traveler Asks for Directions

2005-08-05T18:11:00.000-07:00

The driver of the pickup truck, which bore Arkansas plates, ran his fingers through the hair on this chinny-chin-chin, pondering with awe the Gateway Arch in the distance while stopped in rush-hour traffic on Market Street downtown. Turning to an adjacent motorist, he asked which leg of the souring monument was accessible for he an his traveling companion to ascend.

Either one was the reply.

Of Teddy Bears and Death

2005-07-31T08:15:00.000-07:00

Throughout the Northside, random lamp posts and street signs are festooned with stuffed animals. The macabre monuments pay tribute to children who have died violently in drive-by shootings.

Cooling It at Blair and Newhouse

2005-07-31T08:01:00.000-07:00

In the summer months, the city sets up sprinklers for inner-city kids in schoolyards, connecting the apparatus to nearby fire plugs with fire hoses. But these heat relievers are often left unused in favor of more creative designs. At the corner of Blair and Newhouse, for instance, during last week's 100-plus degree heat wave, a creative young urban planner built a giant fountain by encircling a fire hydrant with two old car tires and then wedging a board inside of them. A few well-placed turns of a monkey wrench opened the valve releasing a torrent, which hit the board, spraying water 15 to 20 feet in the air.

Good Morning Star Shine, the Earth Says Hello

2005-07-31T07:58:00.000-07:00

The woman curled in the arm chair at the Dogtown coffeehouse, sat wiggling her toes, absorbed in reading Astral Travel for Beginners.

The Price of Doing Business

2005-07-21T19:07:00.000-07:00

Crown Candy Kitchen, St. Louis' oldest and only old-fashioned ice cream parlor has been located on St. Louis Avenue since 1913, when a Greek immigrant opened the business. His grandsons maintain the establishment, catering to people who visit from throughout the area, including the affluent suburbs. But Crown is located in one of the poorest urban neighborhoods in the city.

Yesterday, an indigent woman entered the shop and begged one of the owners for bus fare. Opening the cash register, he gave her the money saying, "Here's a buck twenty-five, you'll have to get the return fare from somebody on the other end."

Water Theme Park: 19th and Penrose

2005-07-21T19:03:00.000-07:00

The kids opened the fire hydrant on the corner yesterday and took turns jumping into the roaring torrent, which pushed them across the asphalt as they laughed, the welcomed waters providing a temporary respite to the heat.

A Hurricane Visits the Midwest

2005-07-13T04:28:00.000-07:00

The spent force of Hurricane David crept up the Mississippi Valley, enveloping the city in fog and mist, a respite from the summer sun. Under these humid conditions, St. Louis' geographic coordinates seems to move south, transforming it into a lush locale. The blooming mimosas and lady cigar trees (catalpas) furthering this illusion. And in the alleys, Chinese transplants, the ubibiquitous Trees of Heaven, turn an urban landscape into a jungle.

See that His Grave Is Kept Clean

2005-07-09T08:17:00.000-07:00

The black dude working the counter at the lottery-liquor store in Sauget drew us a map, a zig-zagging, curvacious series of lines on a piece of blue scrap paper. Following the cryptic directions, we meandered by the old chemical plants, past the new industrial park into the Illinois farm fields, where the bush league baseball park was located. After Willie Nelson performed as the sun set, Bob Dylan took command of the stage, singing songs from his forty-plus year career to a crowd of young and old. With darkness falling and marijuana smoke wafting through the air, Dylan, on keyboards and harmonica, and his back up band cast a spell on the crowd, the pounding beat moving seamlessly from one American musical genre to another, Dylan's gravel voice spitting out stacatto lines of lyrics. Dylan captured the audience early in the performance with a trance-inducing rendition of Highway 61. By the middle of the set, fully grooved, sweat dripped from his hawk nose. Mr. Zimmerman didn't bother to wipe it off.

The 5th of July

2005-07-06T14:18:00.000-07:00

The young man sat curled in front of the shuttered Traveler's Aid Society office at 702 N. Tucker Blvd. early Monday morning, lecturing his reflection in the storefront's window, while a couple blocks south police stood and stared at the body of a black woman lying at the corner of Locust.

Hell and Brimstone on North Grand

2005-07-02T05:24:00.000-07:00

The street preacher stood in the searing heat on the corner of Kossuth and North Grand with a bullhorn in his hand, a big man in a gray polyester sweatsuit with a message of salvation to impart to the world. These are the end days, he screamed, his voice crackling through the battery-powered megaphone. Accept Jesus or face certain damnation. Get right with God -- now! Some among his captive congregation prayed only for the light to turn green. It seemed like an eternity.

The Right Shovel

2005-06-25T07:00:00.000-07:00

The old man likes to talk about fishing. And when he does not talking about fishing, he talks about work. As a union laborer, he worked high and low, from girders spanning the Missouri River to the sewers running into the Mississippi. He will tell you about them all, puffing a cigarette, coughing, and then laughing, again, at his own stories; stories he has told so long that they are part of him, stories that meander like the rivers' memory from place to place, changing like shifting currents over time.

One story he recounts is of a summer spent shoveling cement on a road gang widening Highway 141 in West St. Louis County. He reveals that one of the secrets to survival under these extreme working conditions is to wear a hooded sweatshirt packed with ice behind your neck and in your sleeves.

The other survival tip for summer road work is choosing the right size shovel, he says. He recalls how a young buck showed up at work one morning -- his first day on the job. The strapping youngster, wanting to impress his bosses, took the largest shovel available and began heaving cement at breakneck speed. The old man says he tried to warn the younger man not to use that particular shovel. There was a reason why the shovel chosen by the new-hire had never been used, why it still had the wrapping paper around its broad blade.

It was too big.

Cement is very heavy and to move it manually it needs to be hefted in small increments. That's why the veteran laborers would shorten their shovel blades with a grinding wheel. The old man tried to explain this to the younger man, but he wouldn't listen.

By mid morning, the new-hire was lying unconscious by the side of the road. He didn't show up for work the next day.

Busted

2005-06-25T05:29:00.000-07:00

The three young black men sat on the curb amid the dried, crumbling bark near the trunk of a towering sycamore at 19th and Penrose, their hands cuffed behind their backs. Behind them in the deserted softball field, the scorched grass was dying blade by blade under the June sun. In the stillness of the afternoon heat, a crowd of neighbors watched from a distance, as the three white police officers, who were also young, moved methodically back and forth from their squad cars; the routine arrests unfolding as if in slow motion. Last week's breeze had disappeared, and throughout the Northside, vacant lots have begun to look more like parched savannahs, interrupted by diliapidated brick flats with tar roofs, their cockeyed windows flung open or shattered, exposing tattered curtains with nothing to hide, sagging walls dissolving, melting back into the earth.

An Old-Fashioned Corner Store

2005-06-24T10:14:00.000-07:00

Though the sign above the front door identifies the retail establishment at 20th and Newhouse in North St. Louis as a "Mini Mart," it's really an old-fashioned corner store, where a customer can still buy lunch meat, Wonder bread, soda, a quart of milk or, during this time of year, sparklers to celebrate Fourth of July. This curious anachronism in the world of 7-11s and Quik Trips has likely been preserved because the impoverished neighborhood in which it is located disqualifies it from consideration by the national chain outfits.

An Old Athlete Walks down Washington Avenue

2005-06-24T04:43:00.000-07:00

He played in the 1964 World Series against the Yankees, along with Bob Gibson and Kenny Boyer. But that was a long time ago. On this day, St. Louis Cardinal's baseball announcer Mike Shannon's nimble limbs are slowed by the grandchild holding his hand and the decades of summers past.

The Fat Lady Sings

2005-06-24T04:40:00.000-07:00

She sat at the busstop shelter across from the downtown library, singing in the summer morning, her airy voice countering the weight of her obese body.

The Price of a Soda Downtown

2005-06-13T18:33:00.000-07:00

How much you pay for a can of soda downtown depends on where you buy it.

*The trendy grocery store at 10th and Olive charges $1.19.
*7-11 at 17th and Pine charges .79 cents.
*The hot dog vender across the street from City Hall charges .75 cents.
*The soda machine inside the shoe store at 14th and Washington charges .55.

Hocked Wheels

2005-06-13T18:30:00.000-07:00

Sam Light's Pawn Shop at Jefferson and Olive usually has a rack of bicycles for sale out front. But last week, there was a more unusual two-wheeled vehicle on display: a motorized wheelchair.

Caribbean Connection

2005-06-10T18:17:00.000-07:00

The tiny coin glinted on the pavement. By its size, it appeared to be a dime, but this picaunyne wasn't round. Its octogonal shape was the first hint of foreign origin. Somehow a Jamaican dollar had crossed the Caribbean Sea and found its way to the sidewalk in downtown St. Louis.

June Tune: A Bluesman on Union Boulevard

2005-06-10T18:03:00.000-07:00

He sat on the sidewalk in a kitchen chair wearing a sombero, leaning against the sun-parched wall of Lou's barber shop, playing the Wind Cried Mary by Hendrix on a Telecaster knock-off, ascending chords rising above the din of traffic on a June afternoon.

Public Art and No Bicycles on the SLU Campus

2005-05-26T15:15:00.000-07:00

When I ride my bike to work, I cut through the Saint Louis University campus. Early in the morning there are few people wandering around there, which gives me time to gaze at all the bad public art. There are all those terrible bronze statues, including the Billiken, some odd, Norse god, a sort of kewpie doll and the mascot of the school's athletic teams. Then there's the statue of the Native American bowing to Bishop Dubourg and the statue of Pope Pius, the Fascist Holy See, giving the peace sign. But the really scary statues are the ones of students sitting frozen on benches, and, of course, the laughing concrete dolphins squirting water out of their mouthes.

The obvious collegiate icons missing on the SLU campus are bicycles. There are very, very few, which I find weird.

Our Flag Is Bigger Than Your Flag

2005-05-26T15:03:00.000-07:00

I am humbled that someone who lives in a downtown loft actually reads this blog, and pleasantly surprised that anybody does. And for those who have taken the time to respond to my street-level observations, thank you for your interest.

I hope I haven't disappointed any readers by my dearth of entries lately. I've been busy ranting on my resurrected political blog, Media Mayhem.

One thing I noticed this week while walking down Market Street is that the Metropolitan Sewer District's American flag is three-times bigger than the nearby FBI field office's American flag, which proves that the sewer guys are three times more patriotic.

By the way, standing in front of Milles Fountain, across from Union Station, you can see six flags furling along Market. I remember when I worked at Anheuser-Busch, there were nine flags between the parking lot and the entrance to the Bevo plant.

That's one of the many things I liked about Quebec. Fewer flags. Most of them in front of post offices where they belong.

Hold the Mustard, Jack

2005-05-13T10:20:00.000-07:00

Jack Carl, the proprietor of downtown St. Louis' only authentic deli, doesn't mince words. When a suited customer asked him whether business had picked up with the influx of new "loft dwellers" in the neighborhood, he said: "It's all bullshit." The longtime downtown business owner was referring to the hype surrounding the rebirth of downtown, which is pegged to rehabbed residential developments in old warehouses along Washington and Locust Avenues among other places.

One reason that Carl may not have seen an increase in business is because the people moving into these pricey digs don't really inhabit the place where they live. Instead, they treat their new urban homes and neighborhood the same way they would if they lived in a West County burb. When they come home from work, they shut the door and turn on cable.

Happy Mother's Day

2005-05-10T10:17:00.000-07:00

The car rolled down the apartment complex driveway off Laclede Station Road in reverse -- with a man clawing his way up the hood like a shreiking, rabid animal. As the car hit the street, he shoved his arm through the jagged hole in the windshield trying to retrieve the keys. Finally, acceding to his demands, the overweight woman, with a drink in her hand, stopped and exited the car. It was Mother's Day in Maplewood and the natives were restless.

Grocery Cart Woman

2005-05-06T17:47:00.000-07:00

The woman stood with her head bowed at the rear of the Argyle parking garage at Euclid and Lindell next to the tony Chase Apartments. Beside her she had a grocery cart filled with all of his worldly possessions. Later, I saw her cart parked in front of the nearby public library.

Viaduct Dwellers

2005-05-06T17:42:00.000-07:00

The men live under the highway viaducts along the exits of Highway 40 on the western edges of downtown St. Louis, where thousands of cars pass by their bundles of belongings each day.

To Have and Have Not

2005-05-06T17:33:00.000-07:00

The platinum blonde in the stiletto heels strutted across the street from her loft apartment and opened the locked gate to her parking lot. Moments later, her sporty red sedan scooted out onto Locust Street, after another electric gate opened. A block away a homeless man sat on the curb in front of the New Life Evagelistic Center, music pulsing from his boom box. Unlike St. Louis County, where the wealthy have gone to great lengths to insulate themselves from the poor, city dwellers of all social classes co-exist in a separate but unequal environment every day. I don't know which is worse.

FAQs

2005-05-06T17:30:00.000-07:00

The most frequently asked question that is asked of a parking meter collector is "do you have change for a dollar." The second most frequently asked question is "where is the Social Security office."

Sign of the Times

2005-05-05T20:34:00.000-07:00

The graffiti had been painted over the wall of Gold's Gym on Washington, but the message was still discernible:

B
FUCK
S
H

Manhole Talk

2005-05-05T20:25:00.000-07:00

It wasn't the kind of conversation you would expect two electric company employees to be having. They weren't talking about last night's baseball game or shop talk. Instead, the guy somewhere beneath the street's surface was discussing a pending move by someone in his family. The disembodied voice was telling the guy squatting over the manhole that "she" had always wanted to live in Korea. He hoped that the career move worked out for her.

Encounter with the Wisecracking Senator

2005-05-01T08:05:00.000-07:00

His shoulders were perhaps a bit more stooped than the last time I saw him, but there was no mistaking his touseled mane of silver hair. Dressed in a rumpled sports coat and open-collared shirt, former U.S. Sen. Thomas Eagleton stood next to the open door of his Toyota on Washington Avenue last Tuesday, waiting for workers from a nearby frame shop to carry out his purchases. When I introduced myself, he apologized for his hearing loss and leaned a bit closer to hear me above the din of traffic noise. Eagleton, a three-term senator from Missouri and briefly the Democratic vice-presidential candidate in 1972, didn't recall our prior meeting a few years ago, when I interviewed him as a reporter for a local alternative weekly newspaper. But he was, nonetheless, amused by my new incarnation. Gazing at the city identification card that hung around my neck, the senator quipped: "What's that for, in case you get lost?"

Sidewalk Squatter, 13th and Gay Streets

2005-05-01T07:58:00.000-07:00

On a chilly morning last week, an old woman lay on the sidewalk warming herself next to a manhole cover spouting steam surrounded by parking lots. A little after 8 a.m. she gathered up her belongings and hobbled to the nearby St. Patrick's shelter, leaving a paperback edition of the King James Bible behind.

Blind Justice on Market Street

2005-05-01T07:51:00.000-07:00

The grounds of the St. Louis field office of the FBI, located on Market Street, is tended by Mexican migrant workers, most likely illegal aliens, an indication of the Bush administration's lax enforcement of immigration laws. Whereas, across the street at the Jefferson Bank and Trust Co., the scene of civil rights demonstrations in the 1960s, the lawn is cared for by African-Americans.

Daily Planet Defunct

2005-05-01T07:42:00.000-07:00

Man nor woman does not live by bread alone, especially that sub species of homo sapiens addicted to news. A city is not a city, let alone a civilization, without a newsstand. Sadly, St. Louis city lost its only purveyor of newsprint and slick magazines recently with the passing of the Daily Planet on Euclid. The Daily Planet, which was located next to the Coffee Cartel at the corner of Maryland Plaza, offered a necessary fix for urban news junkies. Blame it on the Internet or Borders, the results are the same. The demise leaves the St. Louis area with only one remaining newsstand, the Clayton-based Central News.

St. Louis' Cheapest Cup of Joe

2005-05-01T07:30:00.000-07:00

I accidently discovered St. Louis' cheapest cup of coffee in the most unlikely place -- Straub's -- the upscale grocery chain. Tucked in the corner of the recently added deli in the back of the store is a coffee stand, where a small cup of Joe goes for 50 cents, much less than White Castle, QuikTrip or the ubiquitious, high-priced Starbuck's.

The City as a Museum

2005-04-23T08:24:00.000-07:00

They come by the busload from the hinterlands, Bethalto and Hazelwood, Breeze and Eureka, to tour the City Museum, which is housed in the old International Shoe warehouse at Delmar and 17th Street. The museum, the mad vision of St. Louis artist Bob Cassilly, is of Rube Goldberg design, all shoots and ladders and tunnels inside and out, with a firetruck and airplane fuselages strewn about the premises, and an old log cabin in the parking lot, and the latest addition, a giant preying mantis sculpture rising from the roof. It's the stuff of kids' dreams come to life and their parents', too, of course. Passing by each week, I hear the squeals of glee and watch the youthful scampering. But even from a detached distance something about the scene makes me uneasy, as if as a city worker, I am also part of the backdrop for the museum, an anachronistic prop, a historical extra, briefly playing a bit part in the 21st Century. This is the city, kids, where people once lived and worked and played. Remember it and hold it dear.

Dog's Island

2005-04-23T08:03:00.000-07:00

The long-haired pooch lay not quite cowering in the long, cool grass of an island on North Kingshighway Boulevard. Stranded in a sea of rush hour traffic, he waited to be rescued, panting softly, bright eyes shining in the morning sun. Soon his patience would be rewarded by the attention of concerned passersby. How transient this cannine predicament to human despair of everyday life on the street.

I-Deaf Morning

2005-04-23T07:57:00.000-07:00

I said good morning to the young woman, but my greeting went unaknowledged as she continued walking west on Forest Park Boulevard with white wires dangling from her ears.

Coop Du Jour

2005-04-23T07:52:00.000-07:00

The bum sleeps wrapped in carpet remnants in the doorway of the loading dock at the rear of the Plaza Square Building at 17th and Olive. Another day, another bit of squalor.

Free Advice from a Dead Millionaire

2005-04-19T14:46:00.000-07:00

Andrew Carnegie, the 19th-Century robber baron, generously endowed the St. Louis Public Library, and for his philanthropy the library graced the back entrance with his words. Nobody goes in this door anymore, if they ever did, so few people ever stop to read what he had to say concerning his bibliomanic fervor. For what it's worth, here are Carnegie's overlooked words, which adhere to the same social Darwinism by which he rationalized his greed:

"I chose free libraries as the best agencies for improving the masses of the people because they only help those who help themselves, they never pauperize. A taste for reading draws out lower tastes."

Across the street from Carnegie's words, on the sidewalk adjacent to Lucas Park, the homeless queue up, as they do every noontime, to help themselves to a taste of free gruel doled out from the back of a pickup truck.

Climatic Divide

2005-04-19T14:35:00.000-07:00

The sunny side of Washington Avenue this afternoon had already slipped into a torpor of summer heat, while the shady side of the street played with spring.

High-Rise Pit Stop: Charging Up at the Y

2005-04-19T14:28:00.000-07:00

An energy-efficient vehicle was parked on the side of the downtown YMCA yesterday. A small electric motor had been added to the low-slung, three-wheel bicycle. The odd-looking contraption wasn't the only thing worth gawking over. Whoever owned the machine had decided to recharge its batteries by running an extension chord up to a 10th floor window.

Confirmation

2005-04-19T09:52:00.000-07:00

I got the news of the selection of a new pope not from the Internet or TV, but the bells of St. John's Catholic Church on Pine Street. The bells resounded off the Plaza Square apartments as I walked down Olive on my way to lunch.

Place Is More Than a Name

2005-04-18T17:27:00.000-07:00

I've noticed a tendency among St. Louis cub reporters to bestow identities to certain districts or neighborhoods that were previously undefined. My neighborhood, Dogtown, for example, was recently reported to extend as far west as Blendon Avenue near the city limits. More disconcerting was its designation as an "increasingly hip place to live" by yet another reporter. Even more inventive was a reference to an area of downtown that includes the Federal Reserve Bank, which was described as being the "central financial district."

Multiple Jarods

2005-04-16T09:48:00.000-07:00

The svelte gent leaving the Subway sandwich shop on Euclid Avenue in the Central West End yesterday slid behind the wheel of a car with Illinois vanity plates "Jarod 5."

Hardshell Illuminati

2005-04-14T14:55:00.000-07:00

The ornate lampposts outside the central branch of the St. Louis Public Library on Olive Street are secured to a base that's slow but sure. Each light has a pedestal consisting of four brass turtles bravely extending their necks heavenward.

Peaceful Revisionism

2005-04-14T10:17:00.000-07:00

The peace sign, back by popular demand. Those hipsters who flash it nowadays employ a new twist, however. The index and middle fingers are still extended, but instead of the traditional "palms-up" peace sign, the revised version exhibits the back of the hand, and is displayed in a casual manner to express the total coolness of the peace signee.

Mr. Dip's Universe

2005-04-13T10:07:00.000-07:00

My fellow workers call him Mr. Dip, though the tall black man's name is Ronald. Mr. Dip, a regular cast member in the downtown street scene, is known for his distinctive walk, which is noteable because of the way he moves his left arm in a scooping manner with each step. He is also a fashion plate partial to leather and polyester. Yesterday, Mr. Dip, wearing a long black coat and lime sports shirt, walked up to us as we pondered a problematic parking meter. In a raspy bass he whispered: "Are you draining the energy out of that machine?"

Nickel and Dime Symbolism

2005-04-08T16:03:00.000-07:00

The old Chipewa Trust Co., now Regions Bank, at Chipewa and Jefferson, has a facade that includes a series griffins carved across the top of the building. Griffins, of course, are the winged-lions of mythology. More striking, however, is the symbolism carved around the doorway. The entrance is flanked by Images of buffalo-head nickels and Mercury-head dimes a positioned above chalices. The Holy Grail be damned.

Thanks for the monetary tip from Mike H.

Ying Yang Symbol on Grand

2005-04-06T19:18:00.000-07:00

The wrought iron rails on the front of St. Louis University Hospital on Grand are an art-deco masterpiece incorporating a design element that includes a stylized series of ancient Taoist ying-yang symbols. Strange for a Catholic Hospital.

Her Hair Lives

2005-04-06T19:06:00.000-07:00

Off to See the Wizard
The only time I saw the proprietor of the Crystal Wizard she walked outside her curios shop on South Broadway wearing a smock, with a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth and a cup of coffee in her hand. With her hair moving in strange patterns towards the sky, she remains an enigma to be observed from afar, as does her business for it never seems to be open. When she's there, she's gone and when she's gone, she's really gone. Inside the locked mesh gates, the display windows offer dead houseplants for sale.