The Botanical Heights Neighborhood

Botanical Heights, formerly named McRee Town, is located south of Chouteau Avenue, north of I-44, west of 39th street and east of Vandeventer:

This neighborhood was familiar to me from driving by on I-44 for years as a kid. It was my definition of "the slums". It looked like a place where no one had any pride or hope. However, the old homes drew my attention and maybe sparked a curiosity in the formative years that helped eventually draw me to St. Louis. Since I've lived here and started paying attention to city issues, I recall that the Missouri Botanical Gardens was pivotal in erasing much of the original housing stock and history in this part of the city (McRee Town), renaming it and developing it with suburban styled new homes. Here's a great piece from local writers Michael Allen and Claire Nowak-Boyd on this recent history. The old bulldozer theory.

Here's a little background info from the Botanical Heights website:

"Botanical Heights is the area bounded on the west by the East side of Vandeventer curving around to the eastern boundary of 39th Street, and south to Interstate 44 at Lafayette. Developed from 1880 to 1930 as a mixed use neighborhood, we continue to be home to large distributing and manufacturing businesses, along with small businesses. Since 2004 Botanical Heights has been populated with nearly 150 newly constructed single family homes and townhomes constructed by McBride and Sons Homes. Additionally, there are a number of historic home rehabilitation projects underway in the neighborhood as well. As residents we appreciate our multi-cultural community, and its close proximity to bus lines, Metrolink and Interstate 44. Missouri Botanical Garden, Tower Grove Park and Cardinal Glennon Hospital are all part of our community. Other amenities include quick and easy accessibility to Downtown St. Louis, St. Louis University and its hospital, and the cultural resources of Grand Center."

Now let's take a look at who lives here. From the 2000 census data:  the total population was 1818 people, that's a 31% decline from 1990. In 2000, 88% of the population was black, 6% white, 2% American Indian, 2% Hispanic/Latino, 1% Asian, 1% Pacific Islander.  Another massive decline was estimated in the 2010 census count.  781 people packed it up and left...43%.  It appears Botanical Heights has hit rock bottom.  It can only get better, right?

More from the 2000 Census date:  of the 539 households in Botanical Heights, 80% were 2 or more/household, 90% of those were family households. Of those 72% were unmarried, 85% of which were female with no male.

And the housing stock in 2000:  65% occupied, 35% unoccupied. Of the 65% occupied, 78% was rental property.

So there's some stats, history and background information on Botanical Heights, now let's take a look at what this part of the city looks like.

Starting at the SW corner near Vandeventer and Lafayette right by I-44. Some, if not the majority of the original housing stock is unoccupied as cited above in the 2000 census data. Here's an example on Blaine:

Yet, the housing that is occupied is as proud, charming and stylistically mixed as most other old St. Louis neighborhoods; although facelifts , TLC and of course rehab $'s are in order. Just down the street on Blaine:The intersection of Tower Grove and McRee Ave is seeing new life. 2 of the 4 corners are rehabbed or in the process of rehab. Note the ornate mortar and pestle on the orange building. Also note the nice color combinations on the facades.

What the stucco happened here? Check out the original glazed brick chimney protruding from this place. The place above is slated to be converted to a cafe per a large scale, exciting development plan including the relocation of the much respected City Garden Montessori Charter School.

Here's the before and after for the City Garden Montessori plans at the corner of McRee and Tower Grove Avenue:

before

after

Read the full story on Botanical Groves here.

In addition to the typical St. Louis housing stock, there is also the new McBride and Sons homes mentioned previously. Upon my visit, I found the actual houses to be quite attractive. There are alleys, and the streets are built on a relative grid. The homes appear to be almost completely occupied, and they are being cared for.
The houses are nicely arranged and varied in style. They are not your typical garage in front, big yard suburban lots. However, the whole area, which is a large part of the neighborhood, seems unfinished and deliberately disconnected from the other parts of the neighborhood.

There are cul de sacs that are gated off and there are general connection issues that block access to the awesome Shaw neighborhood to its south. Blocked access at Thurman and Blaine; and the blocked access to Shaw at Thurman and Lafayette:And then there are huge swaths of the area that are undeveloped grass fields. I assume there were supposed to be more homes built at some point.
So there's a look at the housing stock. Now the exploration took an amazing twist toward the north side of Botanical Heights. This was my favorite part of the neighborhood. It's home to some amazing in-use factories and warehousing. As can be seen in the map above, much of this area is industrial and home to the Frisco railways.
Check out this cool power station near Folsom and Thurman:

There are several large businesses occupying this industrial area. The warehouses and factories are works of art and the properties are extremely clean and manicured. I will definitely be back here to get more pictures and explore further.

Here's the handsome Decorative Trade Finishers building on Folsom:And part of the huge Willert Home Products facility, also on Folsom:

Check out the cool old smoke stacks, formerly the Star Tobacco Company, one of the largest tobacco brands in the 19th century, run by Liggett and Meyers Tobacco Company:There are some other curious buildings in the neighborhood, Wolfgangs @ 1449 39th Street certainly fits the bill. It's a costume and accessories business in this funky building and property:


What a great discovery in the industrial areas! Hidden gems, indeed. I had a blast and will be back with the good camera to make a proper photo album of this thriving area that seems stuck in a time when St. Louis and America was a very different, industrial place..

***July, 2011 additions to original post***

Botanical Heights continues to see signs of a re-birth.  I recently got a tour of several South City community gardens, and Botanical Heights has a really great set up at the corner of Folsom and Thurman.  The newly installed garden has a native prairie planting:

Several raised beds for fruits and vegetables:

There is ALSO a fruit tree orchard on the eastern edge of the garden:

 The gardeners who set this up had assistance and support from Gateway Greening.  The garden appears here to stay as there is a permanent water source on the property.

 As this garden matures it will provide a very beautiful and eye catching place of positivity.

And if you are standing in front of the garden and you peer to the south west you will see something equally as eye-catching on a formerly fallow plot of land at the corner of Blaine and Thurman:

This project is billed as Plastic(k) Pavilion:

The design of the Plastic(k) Pavilion was developed by a Washington University graduate architecture class led by Professor Ken Tracey along with community input, addressing safety concerns and preferences on appearance. Students are constructing the structure as well and should be complete in the next few weeks. Residents are currently organizing to find funding and designers for the playground that will be constructed adjacent to the Plastic(k) Pavilion.

 Read the full story here.

This kind of public sculpture is fascinating to me, and is EXACTLY the kind of projects we need in all neighborhoods that have vacant land.  Congrats to Botanical Heights for the amazing strides.  I see very good things to come in this part of town.

79 Neighborhoods of St. Louis

Many refer to St. Louis as a city of neighborhoods. According to this source, there are 79 distinct neighborhoods in St. Louis. I recognize most of these neighborhoods by name only. Sadly, I could only accurately describe how to get to 32 of them. That means I could not reliably tell you how to get to 60% of my own city. Pretty lame, eh?

Furthermore, I was surprised not to see Dogtown and Kingshighway Hills on this list. I thought these were official neighborhoods. Guess not. Turns out what I've always considered as Dogtown is actually the Clayton/Tamm neighborhood and Kingshighway Hills is officially North Hampton.

I've lived in St. Louis for 15 years. I lived in Belleville, Illinois for 19 years. In order for me to honestly call myself a St. Louisian, I figure I should have spent the majority of my life there. I still feel STL is new to me in many ways and Belleville is my true "hometown". However in 5 years, I will statistically have spent the majority of my years in STL. Therefore, by my own personal standards, I'm on the verge of becoming a true St. Louisian. The timing seems right that I should visit and document my findings/observations from each and every neighborhood. So in an effort to satisfy my curiosity, I plan to spend a day in each of the 79 neighborhoods taking photos and notes as I go. I will make a separate post on each neighborhood.


I think I'll start with "heights" neighborhoods. There are 7 of them:

Botanical Heights
Boulevard Heights
Clifton Heights
Compton Heights
Hamilton Heights
McKinley Heights
Princeton Heights


Stay tuned.

Why did/would you leave the city?

If you were once a resident of St. Louis, but have since left, I want to hear from you. Why did you leave? What were the variables that played into your decision? Was it a final straw scenario, an "I've had it" moment? Or, was it a series of events that led you to leave? Was it a change of life situation, where you didn't want to leave but your job, family, etc made it impossible to stay?

And then for you city dwellers, what would make you leave?

I will warn you, I'm a homer. I stick up for STL almost to a fault. I have a theory that the main reasons people abandon the city can be whittled down to issues of race and class. I'm not trying to bait people, but rather understand the true core of the reasons for leaving the city.

I am especially interested in the lure of St. Louis County. So if you feel obliged, please tell your story.

Carondelet Park Rec Plex Update

Here's some great info from "Doug" a commenter on my previous post re: Carondelet Rec Plex:

"I attended the 5:30pm Loyal Member Meeting with my Mom who, courtesy of her kind insurance company, is a member of the Carondelet YMCA. I have been a member in the past, but ended my membership due to the high cost. A total of 16 people attended. I want to first thank the representatives of the "Y" who were all very nice and did what they could to provide answers to all of the questions they were asked. We even received a nice travel mug at the conclusion. Now for some of the answers.......They believe it will open in the middle of November.

Will there be yearly rates? Yes and no. Along the same guidelines as the YMCA, monthly payments are the only option.

One day pool passes or one day facility passes? No not at this time. They encourage memberships so you can receive the full YMCA experience.

Status of the North Side Rec Plex? It will be built in O'Fallon Park. This is near West Florissant and Highway 70. No word on whom will operate this complex.

The lower field will be used for soccer, baseball etc..just like it had been.

We were told the City of STL looked at several different options for assistance with operating this facility. The YMCA was chosen because of their experience and the quality of service they have provided to the community.

They will be open 363 days a year. They will be closed on Easter and Christmas.

Both the Indoor and Outdoor pool (diving board) will have 3 Lap Lanes, 25 meters in length. As a comparison, the pool at the South City YMCA has 5 Lap Lanes, 25 meters in length. So yes, the new Rec Plex Lap Lane area will be smaller. However, the recreation area i.e. lazy river, Vortex and slide will be larger the South City YMCA.

Current members at the South City YMCA? 3000
Current members at the Carondelet YMCA? 850
Projected membership at the Carondelet Rec Plex? 2400

I hope this helps anyone who is thinking of joining. I think the YMCA does a wonderful job and they do great things for the community.I guess we can soon decide if the cost is worth the "Y Experience".
September 1, 2009 9:49 PM"

Doug, thanks for the info. The prices are steep, no doubt. However, I have complained for years that the city never had a pool. Now we do, and a darn nice one. I can't complain. I will pay the price for the convenience and location. The bright side of the disallowance of day passes is that it won't be as crowded.

Mick Jagger on the suburban tittle tattle lifestyle

I am a huge Rolling Stones fan. They're quite possibly my favorite rock band of all time (remember the Beatles rarely toured and cannot be measured or compared as a live act in their heyday). The Stones earliest goal was to turn the white kids and masses on to American blues music. They advanced the careers and legacies of nearly every American bluesmen that they touted and trumpeted and aped. They met their mentors and heroes along the way and ended up befriending many of them, not simply borrowing from them. They were respectful of America's impact on music in the 1960's. However, these guys were radical too. They incited riots almost everywhere they played, from London to Scotland to U.S. to Paris to Australia. Venues were completely sacked. Due to insane crowd fervor, shows were cancelled minutes after the curtain rose and the opening riff was banged out by Keith Richards. Violent pandemonium. Kids went nuts, lost their minds.

I am once again reading Old Gods Almost Dead by Stephen Davis (thanks to my man G. Brown for the 1st edition printing of this book). I'm on my 3rd reading. This book quotes writer Tom Wolfe who sums up the relationship between the Beatles and Stones: "the Beatles want to hold your hand, but the Stones want to burn your town." It was true. The Beatles were pretty boys that you wanted to take home to meet Mom. They made girls squeal and moan and yell. The Stones were Neanderthals that incited women to violence and primal screams. The Stones got arrested, harassed, hung out & felt most comfortable in So. Chicago upon their first visit to America and general had a f-you modus operandi.

I want to live long enough to see a rock band come along that is sexy, bad ass and original enough to incite riots. Nirvana changed the way the record industry worked, and they helped change the image of American popular music and fashion, and they opened doors for MANY of their peers and other great acts of the time. But, never did they incite riots and violence everywhere they played. Was "slam dancing", later "crowd surfing", later "moshing" considered riotous? Not in my book. Not even close. That upheaval was a largely male-only endeavor, and toward the end of the 90s it evolved away from a music related passion toward a meat headed frat boy excuse to be an asshole in public (see Limp Bizkit).

Anyway, the Rolling Stones were rebels. They rebelled against their past and the status quo of the early 1960s in Europe. Yet, the Stones largely came from the suburbs in England. However, part of their appeal to me was their rebellion against suburban values and tenets. Growing up in Belleville, I had a penchant to rebel against the boring and racist and mundane values of the 1980's suburbs later in my high school/college days. I'm still doing it today in the 12th ward.

From the book:


Stephen Davis: "The Stones, if they were really rebelling against anything, were protesting suburban values and outmoded bourgeois social rituals....Mick (Jagger) would soon begin attacking the underbelly of suburbia's hypocrisy in his songs."

Mick Jagger: "My great thing against suburban life was that is was, first of all petty," he later told an interviewer, "and secondly, boring, based on consumer values, at best unambitious, and full of tittle-tattle and jealousies and things like that. I was trying to look for a music that wasn't a reflection of that society."

Damn, that's pretty harsh. But I like it. Having grown up in a small town, and having no one close to me that grew up in an urban setting, I have no point of reference to gauge whether an urban experience is indeed such a stark contrast to the suburban lifestyle that Jagger references. Is an urban existance somehow socially better than a suburban one? I kind of think so. The chances of me meeting someone I will get along with politically, musically, socially, etc. is probably higher in St. Louis than it would be in Ellisville or Valley Park or Arnold or St. Charles. Will my kids grow up and think city life sucks and want to run for the country/burbs? Is it cyclical rebellion against your parents and their choices? Or, will they strive for an even more vibrant, accepting, diverse, progressive city? Can't wait to see how it pans out.

By my definition of "cool" the Stones were cool. Cities are cool. Mountains are cool. Deep woods are cool. Rivers are cool. Nature is cool. Small towns are cool. Yet, most of St. Louis' suburbs are decidedly uncool, lacking any kind of identity. I'll take a big dense city, or a big dense stand of trees vs. a sprawling, benign, placeless, generic American suburb.


I agree with Mick, it's good to rebel against the burbs.