How different is the urban layout and infrastructure now compared to the 50s?

[Dawn10am]

Wow, what great memories of St. Louis! I wish I could have been around to see it in its heyday. The city made some really terrible decisions back in the 60s-70s that we're still recovering from today. Even though it's not the city it used to be, there's still a lot of life and progress here. There are many areas that are completely revitalized and growing, and many more that are definitely on an upswing due to a revived interest in city living. There's even several new buildings rising on Delmar as we speak! It's true that the North Side continues to slip, but the other parts of the city are either stable or improving. I think it's fun to watch neighborhoods that obviously used to be rough places come back to life. So it isn't all bad. It's just different--which is inevitable!

You're correct about urban denizens though. I can spot country people pretty easily, but I don't yell at them

[jepen]

We think the photo captures the scene following a ballgame, people leaving Sportsman's Park after a big--possibly World Series--game. Sportsmen's Park was across from the Northside YMCA, seen in the background. jpx2

[chicagobear]

Originally Posted by Dawn10am

Mill Creek Valley was actually a traditional neighborhood that they completely bulldozed in the 50s to build I-64. It was located where the eastern half of SLU is today and all the way east to the Wells Fargo campus I believe. It was a working class, predominantly black neighborhood and a lot of the housing stock lacked indoor plumbing. A lot of the displaced residents ended up living in Pruitt-Igoe. I guess it was easier to level it than to retrofit it, but where today we have the huge void of I-64/Forest Park Ave we could've had a functioning urban neighborhood. It's really quite sad.



No. Many neighborhoods on the North Side are largely abandoned, but every neighborhood in the Central Corridor gained population from 2000-2010 and many South Side neighborhoods are gaining as well. Downtown itself even had a 300% increase. There is still population trickling out of the City, but to call the entire central core of the metro area "largely abandoned" is an overstatement.

My father, who was born in St. Louis in 1924 and grew up in south St. Louis said that the tearing down of Mill Creek Valley was when the city changed as blacks moved to north St. Louis and the whites then moved to the suburbs.

[MUTGR]

Originally Posted by silibran

I don't know why St. Louis went downhill, but at least part of it is due to poor civic leadership, IMO. Many jobs went out of the area, or at least into the Co. We lost major National Headquarters. There was major white flight, which continues to this day into St. Charles Co.

It's not that complicated - white flight began in earnest in the 50's and has continued although the pace has slowed -perhaps even stopped. You actually have some movement into certain city neighborhoods. Now you have black flight from the north side to north county and white flight from north county to St. Charles.

We actually remained a fairly significant corporate headquarters city into the 1990's. That is a more recent issue. Losing TWA was a double blow - lost a corporate headquarters and was no longer a hub city.

Hopefully the city's population is close to stabilizing and perhaps even see some moderate growth in the future - we shall see.

[jcbinder]

The picture of crowds boarding streetcars is outside Sportsman's Park in the '40s, home to the Cardinals and Browns. You are looking NNE on Grand Avenue with fans leaving the ballpark. In the background is the northside YMCA at Grand and Sullivan. I attended games there in the '50s and '60's. The park was demolished in May, 1966.

[bigjoeyc]

the photo everyone is referring to is the grand ave street car line where the old sportsman park use to be .in 1944 st. louis had the first and i think only street car world series. the old st. louis browns and the st. louis cardinals played and the cards won it in 6 i think....or 5. i gather it was taken on one of the day games no night baseball then for the world series.

[BerkeleyKid]

Show some more old pictures of StL so we can hash them out. I love seeing the old city and hearing the memories.