Joseph Leisure Park

Joseph Leisure Park is 1 of 108 St. Louis parks, located near the intersection of Holly Hills and Christy Boulevard on the border between the Bouleard Heights and Bevo Mill neighborhoods.

Per the city website, the 16.1 acre park was placed into ordinance in 2000; but that seems odd, as this land has been as-is for many more years than that.  It was probably Christy Park until this stretch was renamed as Joseph Leisure Park.  Yahoo maps recognizes the park as the small strip of land bordered by Christy, Rosa and Gravois, but that is too small to meet the 16.1 acre size on the city website.

I believe the park is actually an extension of greenspace connecting Christy Park with the River Des Peres Park.  This is corroborated by the Joe Leisure park signs located at Christy and Gravois and Christy and Holly Hills:

The strip of land is bordered by Gravois, Holly Hills, Rosa and Carlsbad Avenues:

There is nothing on the city website commemorating this Lebanese/Sicilian family nor Joseph Leisure himself.  This is probably due to the fact that his family was one associated with violence, labor union thuggery and murders/car bombings.

To read more about the Leisure's click here.

Christy Avenue bisects the park and has a bike lane on each side of the winding street.

The northeastern side of the park is largely open space with several nice, mature shade and willow trees.

The southwestern side has a bathroom and utility building, playground, soccer and ball field.

Many new trees were planted along Christy as part of the Great Rivers Greenway construction several years ago.  The bike lane connects you to the River Des Peres Greenway or the beautiful Carondelet Park, just east on Holly Hills.

St. Marcus Commemorative Park

St. Marcus Commemorative Park is 1 of 108 St. Louis parks.  This 25.5 acre plot of land is located off of Gravois, just north of the Cecil Place and just east of the Gravois/Kingshighway intersection in the Boulevard Heights neighborhood.

I used to live near here for years, so this review will have some personal perspective.  For instance, there are red tailed hawks and fox that hunt in this area.  I cannot seem to find the proof, but I am convinced this part of the city was either a former landfill or common dumping grounds; or maybe when the cemetery was abandoned, it was filled and graded with crude fill dirt.  Why?  When my kids were little they would take a spoon or a shovel and dig in the park and bring all their finding home; I did a post about it back in March, 2010.

Furthermore, we lived here before, during and after the installation of the Great Rivers Greenway bike/pedestrian trail that goes from Holly Hills Boulevard near Christy Avenue all the way to the River Des Peres and beyond.  This park was a dead space before the trail.  The trail brought in hundreds of new trees, a nice wide trail, signage and grand entry ways...and of couse cyclists, dog walkers, strollers and people.  If you build it they will come...the park was activated and now an positive, vibrant space vs. a dead space.  To say the least, this is the greatest thing that has happened to St. Marcus Commemorative Park and the surrounding area including the series of parks that make this greenway:including Christy, Joseph Leisure, River Des Peres Greenway and the River Des Peres Extension parks.

Per the Webster University Library page and Ancestry.com:

St. Marcus Commemorative Park started as a German Evangelical cemetery established in 1856 and was closed in 1960.  Old St. Marcus was dedicated on March 29, 1856 in the presence of Pastor G. W. Walls of St. Marcus Parish and Pastor L. Nollau of St. John Parish. The cemetery was divided into an area for family plots and an area for single graves ("commons").  Only a fraction of the cemetery's graves (2,290 of about 19,5000 total) were maintained through perpetual care, leading to neglect and dereliction. Burials were prohibited by the city after 1960. It was sold to the city in 1977 and afterwards turned into a walking park. Although many of the original grave markers remain, most have been destroyed through vandalism or have been moved. Money from the cemetery's sale was used to move graves under perpetual care to New St. Marcus Cemetery.

The new St. Marcus Cemetery is in the unincorporated area of St. Louis County called Affton, MO on the border of St. Louis near Gravois and River Des Peres Boulevard.

The park is a really a sloping piece of land at his highest point near Gravois and going down toward Ruth Drive to the east.  The bike path that goes through here is winding with a tree lined border.

The park was rededicated to U.S. Veterans whose head stones were made into a walls and frame a small seating area.

 3 shade trees would go a long way toward shading this peaceful spot

The pool in the background is the Concordia Turners, a membership-only pool and recreation facility.

The graves are kind of sad as the city park's dept doesn't fix them or anything.  They don't move them, they just weedwack and mow around them as they've become vandalized over the years.

The park still has the remnants of a concrete and metal fence along Gravois.

It's great to see St. Marcus Commemorative Park now clearly connected to the massive trail system on the southside.