Renovating and Restoring East St. Louis, Illinois (Champaign, Urbana: work, houses)

[STLCardsBlues1989]

A lot of St. Louis is being reused and revitalized. Does anybody know of projects currently going on in East St. Louis? If you could change something about East St. Louis, what would you change?

Here's some of what could be changed, although this site mostly chronicles the bad, not the good.
Built St. Louis: East St. Louis

[jojojohnson76]

Check out the Emerson Park Development Corporation - Home

It is sitting right off of 64 about 5 minutes to St. Louis. It is a ton of duplexes that are very nice. Hopefully they will continue doing things in ESL.

[illini84]

When I was in college at the University of Illinois, we had a partnership with East St. Louis called "ESLARP" (East St. Louis Action Research Project) where the University took undergrad and graduate-level Architects, Urban Planners, Landscape Architects, etc. to East St. Louis to work on semester-long community projects. Students worked in groups to design and implement much-needed projects in the community (under Professor instruction, of course). ESLARP accomplishes quite a bit and it worked out well on both ends--the students get tons of "real life" experience and East St. Louis benefits from the projects implemented in their community. Check out some of the current and completed projects at East St. Louis Action Research Project - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (click on the "ESLARP in the Community" link on the left hand side of the screen).

[CellarBelle]

The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod is in the process of growing, building and expanding Unity Lutheran Christian Elementary School. This is a great project with very committed volunteers. Here is a link: Unity Lutheran Christian Elementary School.

[MrsTregs]

The last time I was in East St. Louis was in 1965 and it was NOT the town I remembered from living there with my grandparents in the 1950's. My grandparents and great-grandparents lived in shotgun houses (two doors apart) on Forest Blvd. I remember that there was a firehouse just down the block, and the firefighters use to let us rollerskate on their driveway, as all the sidewalks were made of bricks and not good skating material. There was also a little German bakery across the street from our house, and the lady who owned it was named Ann. Back then, most of the neighborhood was inhabited by folks of German desent. We use to go to Washington Park and watched baseball games. It was a safe place back then...I wish it still were.

[jojojohnson76]

ESL is not going any where. Period.

If anyone thinks any different, don't just drive by on the interstate...take an exit ramp and drive around. Burned up lots with weeds growing 5-6 feet high, burned out buildings that ESL can't afford to condemn, etc. It is an absolute war zone.