I think many of us have fond memories of Christmas at Famous Barr downtown in the Railway Exchange Building, so there’s something deeply sad to see it clad in massive metal sheathing now, a necessary step the City of St. Louis has taken to secure the structure from further intrusions after a fire earlier this year.
As an indication of just how bad it had gotten, the City even removed the pedestrian bridge from the depressing parking garage to the south. That’s just how bad it really is! I walked south and noticed there’s another bridge to the parking garages another block to the south. Imagine the days when Famous Barr was so busy that people would need to park two parking garages away.
Now the businesses are closing in the base of those twin garages along Chestnut; I realized the seemingly always busy St. Louis Bread Co. was gone, probably a victim of the pandemic.
To be accurate, the St. Louis bread company( and many other small companies) were victims of goverment imposed restrictions due to the pandemic.Witness Sweden, the only country to my knowledge that did not impose draconian measures and kowtow to the hysteria generated by the WHO and media lackeys. Ironically Sweden had the lowest overall( all causes) death rate from. 2020-2023. Of course large corporations such as Amazon , large box stores thrived during this period. He who pays the piper calls the tune. …Dr. Steve
I apologize for my spelling and grammatical errors on last comment.
That credit belongs to the 2 back to back Bush administrations, where all the clothing industries (textiles), shoes(Cole Haan) and other top brands were contracted to China.. light bulbs(same brand names) but poor quality/ contracted to China. Every major city shopping areas are ghost towns.
I’m perplexed on how the Bush(s)adminisations were responsible for the unscientific shutdown of primarily small businesses by the CDC( even more draconian than the WHO) China interestingly while locking down their country, dud not lock down their outgoing flights to countries all over the world apparently purposely all over the world. The Bush administration’s were awful but for different reasons1) the needless war in Iraq and 2) awarding tax payer funded money for non-prifrofits and religious organizations to blow our( taxpayers moneys) on their pet charities instead of using their own or raising their own funds. The result we now have a huge homeless ineffective taxpayers funded industry. Does anybody ever inquire how much these no profits CEOs and staff make
I apologize for my spelling and grammatical errors on last comment.
Mr. Slattery
If there had not been restrictions during the pandemic, there would have been an even worse outcome. The Trump Administration completely bungled the response and gave conflicting and false information to the public. Governors in sympathy with Trump’s policies relaxed restrictions or didn’t impose them at all. The result was greater instances of death from Covid. The death rate in Florida, for instance, was many times that of California which had much stricter regulations in place. The contention that regulation by the CDC was not effective is false. The late implementation and terrible and confusing messaging coming from that lamentable administration made the situation much worse and resulted in over one million deaths.
It’s terribly sad that the corner of 7th and Locust used to be such a vibrant intersection.
As a youth I spent many a Saturday going to Famous Barr with a friend, having lunch at The Forum Cafeteria across the street, and catching a movie at one of the grand old movie palaces like the Ambassador, (directly across the street from Famous), or the Loew’s State on Washington Ave..
There are many reasons for downtown’s decline as the world has radically changed since the late 50’s and the 60’s. I can’t help but think there is a lack of vision by those in power in the region to reinvent the place and restore some of the vitality downtown used to have. Bringing more people in to live will be a help but the cost of housing can be prohibitive. One thing is for sure, turning downtown into a sports venue hasn’t worked out as well as was imagined. There is much documentation on how little professional sports adds to a cities prosperity.
The ill conceived “Mall” in the 1970s demolished many separated smaller buildings of interest – a busy square block of pedestrian commerce – and wiped it out for a garage and indoor mall of suburbanized concept . In turn, this encouraged street level commerce to empty out from the sidewalk access and the streets became far less interesting for shopping and just walking for businesss people . It may have killed the vitality of our Downtown . Thick fabric , mingling old with new was not a vision apparently and “Plazas” , with bland buildings set back from sidewalks was a trend after the Seagram was built in NYC – a genius structure but sadly copied too often .
I agree that the ‘mall’ was ultimately a bad idea. It was a capitulation to a suburban model that was the very antithesis of a healthy downtown streetscape. Shutting everything off from street level and creating dark corridors over previously vibrant open streets contributed a great deal to the slow death of downtown retail. It’s ironic that these same suburban enclosed malls that the city hoped to emulate are themselves now in trouble. The tend now has shifted to more open retail and so-called ‘mixed use’ developments. There are some retail malls in California that actually imitate a traditional downtown experience, although without the density. Such ventures seems ‘Disneyesque’ but maybe the model will transfer someday back to traditional downtowns in the beleaguered midwestern cities.
I think you both bring up excellent points–the damage from St. Louis Centre extended far beyond just the actual buildings in its complex. Multiple blocks around the Centre were converted into pedestrian and streetlife-hostile zones, and while the sky bridges have been torn down, the damage that has been wrought elsewhere in the immediate area elsewhere has not been fixed.