I Feared For My Life In North City The Other Day

On Sunday, November 17 I had two hours to myself...nothing responsible to do.  The weather was unseasonably warm, so I decided to do one of my favorite things, fire up the Yamaha 125 and head out on a city ride with camera in tow.

I decided I hadn't been to St. Louis Place in awhile, so decided to visit one of my top 5 favorite places on the North Side.

1. St. Louis Place
2. Hyde Park
3. Academy
4. North Pointe
5. West End

Anyhow, I had the camera and was visiting several parks for future blog posts, which is really just a ploy to get me off my butt to explore/photograph the various states of decay and soul north of Downtown.

Adventures seem to be around every corner in North City, a part of St. Louis I've never lived so is still new to me.  Seems like every time I go, I get into interesting conversations or experience great history lessons, etc from residents.  Today, I got into a conversation with some random people who thought I was a property speculator looking for homes to buy.  After trying to sell me their house, the conversation evolved into talk about crime misperceptions in St. Louis Place and my fascination with North City, the older, most built-to-be-urban part of the city. We talked about the city wearing its problems on the sleeve and the inner suburbs of St. Louis having the same problems, but flying under the radar, letting us take the bullets in the public consciousness.

I later got into a conversation with a guy who was directing traffic in and out of a church parking lot that was PACKED on this Sunday.  We talked scooters and the crumbling buildings in the area.  As the conversation ended he warned me to be careful "it's gettin' ugly up in here".  I thought he meant the element of crime not the ominous skies to the west.

It seems like only a mere handful of minutes went by when the sky went black, rain mixed with haril was coming at me sideways.  The force of the wind nearly took me sliding into an empty lot.  I had to slow it down to ~10 mph...I was soaked, couldn't see and wind was swirling all around me.  Tree limbs were falling from high sycamores, the street was blocked, I had to jump the curb to get out of here.  There was nowhere to go and bricks were flying off the crumbling, abandoned buildings onto the street.

I had to duck and cover...pulled my scooter up into the front yard of an abandoned building that looked like it had the best chance of not falling over on it/me.  I went into the doorway of one of these homes hoping I didn't scare the shit out of squatters.  I looked inside and there were leaves and debris swirling inside the home.  I crouched down and waited it out...soaked and heart pounding.  I was sure I was going to get injured by flying debris.

I will never forget looking across the street and seeing a young guy in his 20's who was walking and got caught in the storm just like me.  He too was taking cover between two buildings.  I looked at him, but could barely make him out...we made eye contact and he gave me the peace sign (two fingers in the "V" shape).  I felt like I had someone to help me if the scooter wouldn't start back up.

The storm passed as quickly as it hit.  I went over to the Yamaha and it started right up but was running rough (rain in the exhaust pipe).  The guy walked over and asked if I was alright, I said yeah, you?  We was too and said that was some crazy shit.  I agreed and rode home through the streets littered with debris.  Trees and bricks and glass everywhere.

Finally got to Jefferson where trees were blocking the road, cypress leaves were piled up like berms near Wells Fargo, bus shelters were in the street just south of Chouteau.  It was scary.  I feared for my life for awhile there.

You may choose to call me a dumb ass for riding a scooter in the rain...and it's my own fault for getting caught.  Whatever, it was an experience I'll never forget and if I waited for perfect conditions, I'd miss a lot.

People always ask me if I've run into trouble running around taking pictures and checking out the off the beaten path places in St. Louis.  I have had some crazy things happen to me, but this one takes the cake.

Be careful and keep exploring this historic city...you gotta see it while it attempts to hold off the elements of nature and forces of man:  neglect, abuse and carelessness.  Both are chipping away at our historic buildings and oldest parts of the city.

Murphy Park

Murphy Park is 1 of 108 St. Louis parks making up 10.1 acres of the total 2,956 acres of parkland in the city.  It was placed into ordinance in 1962 and is in the Carr Square Neighborhood just north of Downtown.  The park is bordered by Hogan Street to the east, Murphy Park Drive to the north, Phipps Street to the west and the Jefferson Elementary School to the south.

There's something I really like about these mid-century parks.  They are heavy on the concrete and feel very urban.  Makes me want to break out the Vision Gator and skate like its 1979.  The 1960's parks don't as much seek to provide a green space, natural getaway as much as they intend to be a city park, a complement to their surroundings.  Heck, even the horseshoe pits are surrounded by concrete.

Anyhow, the things you'll see here are a stone and concrete stage, a playground, tennis, basketball and as mentioned above horseshoes.

 bigger kid playground

See the round planters in the above photo?  Those need red maples planted in them.

metal slides are a thing of the past, this is the coolest one I've seen so far

 'stone stage'

little one's playground

There is also a really nice baseball field built in 2007 by Cardinals Care, dedicated to Lou Brock, one of the most beloved Cardinals of all time.

 infield just needs a little Roundup and dragging

I love the setting of this park.  While many of the surrounding homes are contemporary and not something that will ever be considered landmarks or historic in years to come, they have people living in them and that is good.

The park sits in the shadow of the beautiful St. Stanislaus Kostka church, mid-century Jefferson School and the smokestack of the former Falstaff plant (now apartments).

Falstaff smokestack in the distance

Murphy Park needs to be loved by it's neighborhood.  The park looks used, but also abused.  It needs some TLC and sweat equity.  The city doesn't just do this stuff, it is up to the constituency to push for upgrades like slide repairs, new trees, horseshoe posts, basketball rims, etc.  

 the locals haven't bothered to work with the park's dept for rims

 broken slides

another trashed slide, city put up fence to keep people off, neighbors tore it up

And of course, people need to help pick up trash.  

kid's spaces and Mad Dog, a scary combination

I'd love to see the residents of Carr Square work toward making this park the place it was designed to be.

St. Louis Place Park

St. Louis Place Park is 1 of 108 St. Louis parks making up 14.13 acres of the total 2,956 acres of park land in the city.  Per the city website claims that St. Louis Place Park is one of two parks serving the St. Louis Place Neighborhood, along with Murphy Park.  That is not accurate per my understanding as Cass Avenue is the southern boundary between St. Louis Place and Carr Square.  Murphy Park is south of Cass.  But make no mistake, this park is the gem intended to compliment the area and has been here since 1850.

The long, slender park is located between Raushenbach Avenue to the west, N. 21st Street to the east, Mainden Lane to the south and Hebert Street to the north.

Per the city website, the park is on the site of an old reservoir and was donated to the City by Governor John Miller, John O'Fallon, Louis LaBeaume and others.

The park has walking paths throughout the park, a basketball court in the round, a mid-century service building, a beautiful spray pool, and a playground.  

 check out the concrete benches/seats

 spray pool

basketball in the round

Two things I'd like to see are the stumps ground out of the beautiful stone retaining walls and plant new oaks or hickories.

And, there was once a statue that his since been lost and tagged by the West Side gang.  I can't find out what used to be here, please contact me via email or comment on this blog if you know, I'd like to add that to this blog.

Edited June 1st, 2014:  As I was researching Memorial Plaza in the Downtown West neighborhood, I learned that a statue of German poet Friedrich Schiller was originally in St. Louis Place Park.  My guess is that it was located here.

The statue is an exact reproduction of the statue in Marback, Germany; Schiller's birthplace. Schiller was a noted German poet. The statue was donated by Col. Charles G. Stifel. It was originally installed in November of 1898 at St. Louis Place Park. It was moved to its current location in the 1970's. (source)

There should be something here commemorating the long history of this park and area of St. Louis.  Maybe the Kirchner Brothers would be a good call as they designed the beautiful Blair School overlooking the park which McCormack Baron Salazar renovated into apartments.

Designed by School Board Architects H. William Kirchner and August Kirchner, Blair School typifies the 1880 architectural solution for the safe expansion of school buildings to accommodate the ever-growing student enrollment of that period. The school originally consisted of a three-story square structure with four-story twin towers and provided twelve classrooms. The second stage added two-story wings on the north and south ends of the building increasing the number of classrooms to twenty. The third story additions to the wings were built in 1894 bringing the total number of rooms to twenty-four.Almost 100 years later the St. Louis Board of Education closed the school due to a lack of student enrollment. (source)

There is an area to the south by 21st and Market where the locals have set up chairs and picnic tables around a bonfire area.  And in Google street view, you can see these folks have set up a pool on the park property.  This is kind of odd that the park's department allows bonfires in a city park, especially with a fire house across the street.  But in many parts of St. Louis, I don't think the parks departments put any effort into maintaining or visiting the parks except to mow and empty trash cans.  Think of the potential liability this neglect could cause the city if someone got hurt.

image from google street view

bonfire remnants on park property

The buildings that line the park vary from excellently maintained to falling down.  There are several new homes constructed from various decades, churches, a school, a former school converted to apartments, and as I mentioned before the art deco Firehouse #5.

 Zion Lutheran School House

 Lutheran Church

Sonntag's Schule

 Blair School Apartments read all about the history HERE

 Fire Station #5

Examples of newer homes:

Old classics in various states of repair or neglect:

This is a neighborhood of St. Louis that I love.  It must have been amazing in its heyday.  It still is.  Get your photos now, it is disappearing fast.

Yeatman Park

Yeatman Square Park is 1 of 108 St. Louis parks.  It makes up 3.46 acres of the total 2,956 acres of St. Louis park land.  Yeatman Square Park was placed into ordinance in 1906 and is located in a rather an industrial/residential mixed area in the JeffVanderLou Neighborhood of St. Louis.

The park is bordered by Market to the north, Leffingwell to the east, Magazine to the south and Glasgow to the west.

The park takes its name from James E. Yeatman (1818-1902):

Yeatman, who arrived in St. Louis from Tennessee in 1842, established a local branch of the Nashville Iron House. In 1846 he was among the founders of the Mercantile Library Association and in 1850 he entered the commission business. Ten years later, Yeatman became president of the Merchants Bank and during the Civil War he headed the Western Sanitary Commission, an agency set up to care for wounded Union Army soldiers. After the war, he continued as head of the bank, which later became the Merchants-Laclede National Bank. Yeatman was well-known among St. Louisans as a philanthropist and civic leader. He resided on East Grand Avenue near Bellefontaine Road. 

An idea of the appearance of the Yeatman area in his day can be obtained from Compton and Dry's pictorial atlas of St. Louis, published in 1875. This work, by a series of birdseye views, shows this neighborhood to have been well built up in its eastern and southern sections with homes of the well to-do and upper middle class. A few mansions were interspersed among smaller detached single family dwellings in the area south of Easton Avenue. North of that, row houses became prevalent in a neighborhood that was about 75 percent built up.
North of Cass Avenue and west of Jefferson, as far north as North Market Street, were largely vacant areas with some industry evident. Beyond North Market Street to St. Louis Avenue and west toward Glasgow was a compact area of small detached dwellings in the Penrose Tract. On present day Madison Street, east of Glasgow Avenue, was the Penrose Public School, while north of Madison and west of Glasgow, as far as Garrison, was a large quarry. 

A horse car line ran out Cass Avenue with a branch running north on Glasgow and thence west on St. Louis Avenue. Fronting on Montgomery Street, east of Grand, was the large Mullanphy Hospital in a section of open land pocked with sink holes and relatively underdeveloped.
At this time, the land north of Morgan Street (now Delmar) and west of Compton was largely vacant up to Grand Avenue. Some large houses were located on the east side of Grand, as far north as Franklin Avenue, northward from there were open fields as far as St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, north of which was the John N. Booth estate at the southeast corner of Grand and Page. Beyond that were a few blocks of houses as far as the horticultural establishment of J. M. Jordan near North Market Street. 

A few prominent landmarks in the Yeatman area in 1875 were the Veranda Garden road house at the Easton-Franklin wedge; the large house of General William T. Sherman on Garrison north of Franklin Avenue; Divoll Public School on Dayton Street; the American Wine Company at Cass and Garrison and St. Mark's English Lutheran Church on Elliott Avenue at present day Cole Street.
Outstanding residences were the Glasgow Homestead at Garrison and Sheridan Avenues, the mansard style mansion of L. M. Rumsey at Beaumont and Morgan Streets and Governor B. Gratz Brown's house on Webster near Sheridan. 

The earliest public park was Gamble Park on Dayton and Gamble Streets, east of Garrison Avenue. This 1.15 acre open space was acquired from the City Water Department in 1874. Yeatman Square covering 3.46 acres on the block bounded by Glasgow, North Market, Magazine and Leffingwell, was purchased by the City in 1906 for $40,000. During the 1950's, Jordan W. Chambers Park at Compton, Franklin and School Street; and Garrison-Branter-Webster Park, bounded by streets of those names, were developed. (source)

Curiously enough, Garrison-Branter-Webster Park is not listed on the city website, although it certainly does exist.

The park has basketball courts and tennis courts.  The basketball courts are in playable condition although there are spray painted messages all over.  Some more perplexing than others.

"No Days Off"

The tennis courts are among the best I've seen in the entire city as far as condition of surface, nets and fencing.  You won't see close up photos, as the entry ways were locked.  This leads me to believe the courts are used by an organized group or school and they are seeking to protect the condition from the public.  A strange concept for a public park, but if you know JeffVanderLou, than you know there are not a lot of tennis matches on the schedules of the local residents.

Other than that, nothing much to see here folks.

The residential properties surrounding the park are in various states of neglect and disrepair.

There is a large warehouse to the north and several former factories/warehouses in the area as well.

The area, as seen in the bird's eye view image above has largely been decimated of its housing stock.