Memorial Drive / Michigan Avenue

City to River has issued a call to action.   City to River wants us citizens to contact the mayor and our aldermen.  Tell your friends and family.  A bold new vision for St. Louis is in the air.  Take a good look at that map above and imagine a new boulevard going through downtown St. Louis. 

For comparison, to give us a sense of what a 50,000+ car-per-day boulevard would look like, City to River posted a list of boulevards on their blog.  They suggest that the New Memorial Drive would look a lot like Michigan Avenue in Chicago.

Michigan Avenue runs between Grant Park and Chicago's CBD just as City to River's New Memorial Drive would run between the Arch Grounds and St. Louis' CBD.

Remember the last time you crossed Michigan Avenue in Chicago into Grant Park,

It didn't matter where you crossed the street.  The buildings and park were beautiful.  The street was active, and you felt drawn to both sides.  The fabric of Chicago's downtown is held together by this simple boulevard.  It's a clean stitch.  It cannot be compared to what currently exists in St. Louis,

The boulevard City to River proposes is 20 blocks long, a clean stitch.  The expensive lid option put forth previously by the Danforth Foundation and perhaps favored by some of the design teams working on the arch competition would be a mere 3 blocks--a safety pin holding together two pieces of cloth.  As such a tunnel would require constant upkeep, we should keep in mind that safety pins sometimes rip out, just as the current overpasses over I-70 appear to be doing.

In Chicago the park and city are one fabric.  The lid would be a waste of money and potential.  City to River's vision for downtown St. Louis is, to quote the Urbanophile, 'a no-brainer. Just do it.'

Look again at the City to River map above and note the new parcels of land that will be opened up for development.  City to River's rendering of what a new streetscape might look like is transformative.

Do you see what I see?  It's a brand new city, a new face to the world.  Any new arch-front properties constructed above two or three floors will be visible from East St. Louis.  I imagine simple 5-storey buildings, but anything is possible.

Those shoddy gray blocks I made with MS paint are a little misleading, because City to River's plan is twice as bold.  The boulevard isn't just by the park.  It goes north into what will be the Bottle District, Lumiere II, and McKee's NorthSide job center.

North of Grant Park in Chicago, Michigan Avenue crosses Wacker Dr. and the Chicago River to become the Magnificent Mile, some of the highest property values in the United States of America.  So too might the New Memorial Drive leading from downtown right into McKee's $1.65B NorthSide job center be outrageously high in development and property value if the city plays its cards right.

Converting I-70 into an at-grad boulevard is easy.  It is the cheaper and more effective than any other proposal that has been put forward up this point.  It can be done.  We pulled down the skybride, and we can pull down I-70.

------ quoted from City to River's blog ------

What YOU Can Do:

- Contact Mayor Francis Slay, Jefferson National Expansion Memorial Superintendent Tom Bradley, and our downtown Aldermen to express your support for the removal of I-70 (contact info below).

- Spread the word to family, friends, colleagues. Ask them to follow @CitytoRiver on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CityToRiver. Send an e-mail to your contact list with a link to www.citytoriver.org, ask them to send the link to others.

- If you have contact with downtown developers, businesses, or property owners, tell them about City to River and the boulevard idea. If they would like to learn more, connect us with them and we will provide them with information about the effort and how they can help.

Mayor Francis Slay

Phone: (314) 622-3201

Email: mayorslay@mayorslay.com

Twitter: @mayorslay

Address: Mayor’s Office

City Hall, Room 200

1200 Market Street

St. Louis, MO 63103

Superintendent Tom Bradley

Phone: (314) 655-1600

Email: Tom_Bradley@nps.gov

Address: Jefferson National Expansion Memorial

11 N. 4th Street

St. Louis, MO 63102

Alderman Phyllis Young

Phone: (314) 622-3287

Email: youngp@stlouiscity.com

Address: City Hall, Room 230

1200 Market Street

St. Louis, MO 63103

Alderman April Ford-Griffin

Phone: (314) 622-3287

Email: griffina@stlouiscity.com

Address: City Hall, Room 230

1200 Market Street

St. Louis, MO 63103

Alderman Kacie Starr Tripplet

Phone: (314) 622-3287

Email: TriplettK@stlouiscity.com

Twitter: @KacieStarr

Address: City Hall, Room 230

1200 Market Street

St. Louis, MO 63103

Fair Saint Louis / South by Southwest

This is a follow-up to a previous post about ArtPrize in Grand Rapids and the importance of big events leaving some kind of legacy beyond collected sales tax revenue.

Big events also need to be collaborative.  Austin, Texas has an extremely popular event called South by Southwest that incorporates three different events into one. 

There's a music and media conference that has about 2000 performers at almost 100 stages around downtown Austin.  This means there is certainly music you will like if you look hard enough.  You'll have to explore every block every hour though.  There is also a giant music industry conference with trade shows, promotions, handshakes, contracts, and all sorts of networking.  It all blends together.

There's a film festival coupled with a conference where you can explore every theater in town and see as many films as you can, and attend lectures and talks about the film industry. 

There's an 'interactive festival' with knowledge workers of all sorts gathered in all sorts of innovative ways to talke about new emerging technologies. 

The event has gotten bigger every year and swells Austin every spring with talented young people excited about the city and the things happening there.  There was a $110 million dollar impact to the local economy from the 2008 event.  The last two years have been even bigger.  National media figures were pulled in for exclusive coverage.  NPR's "All Songs Considered" did an indepth series of podcasts on it in 2010.

The key thing to consider about South by Southwest is that while the three big events are independently organized each benefits from the others and none are drowned out.  Each pulls people in for different reasons, but the overlapping synergy from the other two events increases the attraction.

St. Louis has the potential for something big if it can pool its event planning a little smarter.  There are events all year from different organizations.  July has two major events from Celebrate St. Louis.  There's the annual Fair St. Louis which takes place over Independence Day weekend and the Live on the Levee concert series that spans the whole month.  Generally the Live on the Levee bands are big name out of towners playing on the Arch grounds, but there's no reason why it couldn't be more of a local music festival.  Adding variety to the music offering would attract more people.  The event could promote local talent and be less like a super-bowl half-time show.  The Arch grounds are big enough for multiple stages.

Cinema St. Louis runs their St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase at the same time.  Maybe it could be bigger than just one theater.  Maybe every theater in town could run one or two older St. Louis films. 

Offer a film map of the city showing people how to get to famous sites.  Placemake scenes in St. Louis as famous as the 40 Stairs in Busan or the Art Museum in Philly where Rocky raised his arms,

 What if all of July was made "Celebrate St. Louis Month?"  Get everybody into it.  Trivia nights at local bars can focus on local history.  The History Museum could hire some local actors to reenact historic events where they originally happened.  You could get a list of where each event will be taking place and when and try to see them all, maybe stick around for the follow-up lecture by a local historian.

Taste of St. Louis is foremost a celebration of local food.  It's one of those events that could take place any time of year.  Why does it have to be in October?  It if was moved to July, it could set up shop on the mall and tie into Fair St. Louis and Live on the Levee.  Celebrate local music.  Celebrate local food.   Celebrate the benefits of two big budgets sharing expenses.  Taste of St. Louis is a great event, but also tries to be a wine and blues festival.  St. Louis has a Wine Festival and a Big Muddy Blues Festival.  These three events could be at the same time. 

With local music on the landing and the arch ground, local food on the mall, and local film and history throughout the region, people would feel encouraged to explore.  A full month of activity downtown would bring people in from the suburbs and from out of town.  Louisville has been offering reunion parties in other cities for their diaspora.  A Celebrate St. Louis Month could be an at-home reunion party for the St. Louis diaspora.   It may not trigger boomerang migration, but it would keep the connections alive.

St. Louis HSR / Chicago HSR

The high speed rail plan being pursued by the Midwest High Speed Rail Association is a good one for Chicago, for America, and for St. Louis.

 Visions for larger expansions of the program vary dramatically based on which organizations do the figuring.

I'm biased against America 2050 because they overreach a bit to put St. Louis in the Great Lakes Megaregion and classify it in the 1-3 million group which makes it look equal to Memphis, Nashville, and Louisville despite being two to three times bigger.  Not a big deal, but hovering at 2.8 or so, we could almost have an Atlanta/Toronto/Boston sized circle, which would change the map.

The fact is that St. Louis doesn't fit well into any particular megaregion.  It has a strong connection with Chicago, but it isn't as close as Indianapolis or Milwaukee.  There's a vast zone of ruralness around St. Louis.  It's isolated.

That giant yellow blob on the map above represents corn and soy bean fields, the stl zone of influence, and Cardinal Nation.  St. Louis and Kansas City are sort of out by themselves.  Stl-Style did a blog post on the St. Louis identity and concluded that it is neither northern or southern.  That's ok though.  The Stl - KC - Denver section of I-70 is the spine of the US.  It doesn't need to be either.  It doesn't have to be part of the Great Lakes.  It can be the GLUE that connects different megaregions. 

Check out this map from the US High Speed Rail Association

Note the arc of cities from Chicago to Indianapolis, to Louisville, to Nashville, to Memphis.  They make up part of the St. Louis Wheel--that ring of cities all about the same distance from St. Louis.  Not to be confused with the Chicago Wheel which was retired and destroyed in St. Louis

Those are major cities.  If HSR was built along that arc, and regular or high speed rail was built from each of those cities to St. Louis, then St. Louis really would be The Gateway to the West.  The East connects to those cities which connect to St. Louis and the head west in a straight shot to Denver and Salt Lake which branches off to LA/San Diego, the Bay Area, and Portland/Seattle

St. Louis and Chicago had a big struggle in history for control of the middle of the country.  Chicago clearly won.  That was largely a battle for rail alignments.  In this new era of passenger rail, things ought to be played out smarter on both sides.  There's no reason to fight.  We can meet objectives for both sides. 

I've read several things about the Stl - Chi alignment so it isn't clear if it is going through Champaign-Urbana or not.  The map above shows both.  It also indicates a St. Louis-Memphis line and the Chi - Memphis arc of cities from that should be in Chicago's rail future. The lines that benefit both St. Louis and Chicago are highlighted.

The Carbondale Mistake
The white line above is Chicago's brilliant idea for a college express line between Chicago and Memphis.  It is an existing Amtrak corridor, but it isn't one that should be designated for high speed rail.  To quote the Urbanophile,  "Parochial interests of little real significance – such as a high speed rail line from Chicago to the small southern Illinois city of Carbondale – are included [in the Chicago Hub plans] as part of a throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks strategy."

This is pork spending for the state of Illinois and little more.  Carbondale often pulls in Illinois money that ought to be spent in the Metro-East.  In this case though, it is upstaging all of St. Louis.  Why build a train line across an entire state for one college town?  Build a St. Louis to Memphis train and put Carbondale on that route.  As the St. Louis - Chicago route will be one of the fastest in the country, students at the University of Southern Illinois will still be able to get to Chicago easily.

Chicago should be able to connect to Memphis through St. Louis or through the arc shown above.  Both routes would be good for Chicago.  It's absurd to build a straight line when there are few people between. 

There's an existing Amtrak route between St. Louis and Little Rock, but should it be upgraded to a high speed corridor?  No, that would be St. Louis upstaging Memphis for the benefit of a few rural towns.

A HSR corridor should connect Chicago to New Orleans through St. Louis.  That's a reasonable long range goal for the country.

The Spokes of the St. Louis Wheel
The three green lines on the map above between St. Louis and Nashville, Louisville, and Indianapolis would all be great, but they wouldn't matter much for Chicago. A line between Carbondale and Nashville would make Illinois and Missouri both happy (6 happy US senators). A line from St. Louis to Evansville, IN to Louisville would need to go through Illinois too. It'd be a short distance but connect four states (8 happy US senators). The line to Inianapolis would be justifiable, but might also be a slight challenge to the authority of Chicago as king of the midwest.  It would be great to have these, but the arc from Chicago is more important.

Rail of the Saints
Chicago's route to Omaha is much more logical.  Des Moines and the Quad Cities are much bigger than Champaign-Urbana and Carbondale.  Both are also part of the St. Louis Wheel mentioned above.  Would Missouri be justified trying to connect St. Louis to the Quad Cities or to perhaps trying something similar to the Avenue of the Saints?  It would be in the interest of St. Louis, but not Chicago.  If there was a route from St. Louis to the Twin Cities, it would be like the reverse of the Carbondale folly.  There's no need for St. Louis and Chicago to upstage each other. 

If we look back at the Midwest High Speed Rail Association's map, we see a Chicago to Kansas City connection, bypassing St. Louis again.  In this case as well, it is smarter to let the connection be Chi-Stl-KC and Chi-Omaha-KC.  These are existing Amtrak routes and in this case a lame attempt by the state of Missouri to connect a college town in the wilderness, Kirksville (Truman State), to a major city despite the vast distance involved.  Kirksville should just have a bus station.  HSR between Galesburg and Quincy?  Why is that good investment?  Maybe St. Louis connects to Hannibal and Quincy and establishes a second route to Chicago...  Is that going to be a priority for the federal government?  Seriously, this can be done with buses.

Missouri HSR Policy
The St. Louis to Kansas City corridor is the most important investment Missouri can make, obviously.

The Kansas City to Kirksville Connection is an unreasonable investment.  Kirksville should have buses to Quincy/Hannibal and to Columbia, and be happy with the Amtrak they have in La Plata.  The state government should not be putting that much effort into it.

Likewise the connection between St. Louis and Poplar Bluff should not be a high priority.  Connecting St. Louis to Memphis through Cape Girardeau would be much more valuable.  Encouraging the movement of people between Carbondale and Cape would be helpful to both.

If Oklahoma could justify it, St. Louis could certainly use a connection to Rolla - Springfield - Joplin - Tulsa - OK City - Texas Triangle.  Most likely Tulsa would connect to Kansas City though, which is fine. 

St. Louis is the western most eastern city.  Kansas City is the eastern most western city.  Missouri's strategy is simple.  Let St. Louis handle the East.  Let Kansas City handle the West.  Let the corridor between be the spine of America.

Fair Saint Louis / ArtPrize

Remember the 1904 Olympics?  Remember the 1904 World's Fair?  I don't.  I wasn't there.  I have been here though,

The fair made Forest Park.  It also left behind a zoo,

a university admin building,

and an art museum,

Look at those fountains and their clean water.  Prior to 1904, St. Louis had brown water.  The fair made us upgrade our water treatment systems.  The fair gave us clean water.  It left a legacy. 

Will we ever have another World's Fair or World's Expo?  The Olympics leaves stadiums, but also subway lines.  What events give us infrastructure?

Some events don't leave much of an impact.  Remember the VP Fair?

We had it every year.  Now we call it Fair Saint Louis,

It seems like the Fair has gotten kind of smaller over time in my imagination.  It was huge when I was a kid.  Now it seems like a small crowd gathered around for concerts, an air show, fireworks, and maybe a parade.  There's some carnival sort of stuff, but nothing as exotic as it felt in my childhood.  There ought to be more to it than just another Beach Boys concert.  There ought to be something more substantial to it.  Why not leave something material behind every year?  Combine it with a few other events and make it dynamic with something for everybody.

Did you catch the buzz about ArtPrize?  Grand Rapids, the home of Amway, launched onto the national stage with their public festival.  By all accounts, it was a crazy thing.  It was just an art contest.  The winners got money. 

Artists. Find a host for your art.  Get people to see it and vote for it.  Go all over town trying to convince people to go to the place where your art is shown.

Venues.  Get approached by an artist, offer space, and watch that artist work hard at bringing people into your business.

Citizens.  Take the week off and try to see all the art.  If there's buzz about a particular piece, try to track down the obscure coffee shop or space that's hosting it.  See the art, talk to the artist, patronize the business.  Debate your friends about how to vote. 

City.  Get national attention.  Keep a legacy of public art that's too big to move after the contest.

For less than half a million dollars, Grand Rapids put itself on the national stage and made itself shine.  People came from around the world to see the spectacle of it and got sucked into the art scavenger hunt.  If it happens every year, then those legacies will accumlate.

Fair St. Louis could be expanded.  As the World's Fair included the Olympics, so too can Fair St. Louis include conventions, competitons, circuses (no animals), and more. 

Fair St. Louis could introduce competitions.  More than one.  City neighborhoods could compete with each other for grants.  High Schools could compete for scholarships.  The RFT could put it's best of list into the mix.  Make it one big 'get to know your city' festival with everyone voting on everything. 

St. Louis Earth Day has become a year-long organization, maybe they could hand out awards for people meeting the goals of some contest held between Earth Day and July 4th. 

Taking an idea from City Sound Tracks, we could spread Fair St. Louis to every metrolink station.  Figure out a fair way to make stations compete for public love.  Station upgrades would just be incorporateed into the Fair St. Louis budget as we make it into a collaborative, regional effort. 

Remember our flood wall graffiti competitions?

That could be part of Fair St. Louis too.  Sanction it and let people at the arch grounds walk down and cast votes during the Fair.  Incorporate the floodwall to the north.  Add a dozen other locations around the region.  Most people don't like graffiti, so the prize money would surely go to more tasteful murals.  Maybe we can slowly build up something like Philly has:  murals and mosaics everywhere you look.

Fair Saint Louis should leave an annual legacy.  It doesn't have to be art.  It could be infrastructure.  It could be grant money.  It should be something with mass appeal though.  If it left a year-long visible impact on the city, people would support it.  People would plan their summers around it.

Hampton Concourse / Seoul's Olympic Road

The National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington DC has decided to expand outside their walls.   The New York Avenue Sculpture Project is an attempt by the museum to annex the median of the boulevard that passes in front of them.

This lends a strong degree of placeness to the street.  You know exactly where you are when you drive by.  You're next to the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Similarly, there is a road in Seoul with artwork in the median.  There's one sculpture for every olympic sport, so it is impossible to not know where you are.  If you follow these,

you will reach the gate at Olympic Park, where the games were held in 1988.

This is a really great road because you not only know exactly where you are when you look out the window of your bus, but you're excited to be there.  Me, I always hope to see the Judo sculpture.

The approaches to Forest Park in St. Louis should be similarly annexed.  The History Museum should take over Lindell.  The Art Museum should take over all of Fine Arts Drive and Lagoon as far as Skinker.  The Zoo should annex the entire Hampton Concourse for giant animal art. 

We should cover every approach with giant animals.  We have a local artist that specializes in giant concrete animals afterall.

Bob Cassilly of City Museum fame had put animals all over the region at this point.  Like the Mysterious Monarch at the Butterfly House,

There isn't much median on the concourse, but there's certainly enough space if we want it.  There is a median closer into the park.

Just past that there's a small circle with a very expensive sculpture.

Those rusted animals came from pretty far away.