3800 block of Blaine, St. Louis (St. Charles, Manchester: apartment, crime, neighborhoods)

[pianist1972]

I am looking at an apartment posting here, looks like the area has seen some newer construction nearby. I looked at the crime map from the police dept. and there are a few concerns. I know the general area, is it still sort of block by block?

[BoomBoxing]

The area is now called "Botanical Heights" but it traditionally was known as "McRee town." There's some newer construction over there but that's not really a good thing in a city full of great old architecture like St. Louis. There is definitely a criminal element in that neighborhood that persists more than neighboring areas. In fact, I would say that stretch of the city north of I-44, south of Manchester and between Lafayette Square and Forest Park Southeast (The Grove) is one of my least favorite areas in the whole city.My advice is to look to Shaw, Tower Grove South, Benton Park.

[aragx6]

The neighborhood you're looking at is technically called The Tiffany (though next to Botanical Heights as Boom said), which isn't one of the nieghborhoods that come up for discussion very often on this forum. Partly because it's a rather small neighborhood without a ton of neighborhood amenities, but more likely because most of it has been sucked up by SLU Hospital and Cardinal Glennon Children's hospital. What's left seem to be some beautiful older buildings, and I'd have to imagine many of them are occupied by folks associated in some way with the medical complex.

The area was most recently in the news because of the historic Pevely Dairy Complex SLU will be tearing down to make way for shiny new construction. Many St. Louisans were very unhappy about the decision to allow SLU to do that. Pevely Dairy complex awaits wrecking ball

From what I've seen there doesn't appear to be very much in the way of new residential building in that immediate area, but nearby in the Gate neighborhood there's significantly more -- little of it is in keeping with the architectural integrity of the neighborhood -- and Botanical Heights looks essentially like a sudivision in St. Charles county.

As far as safety. I hesitate to make any grand proclamation as I haven't spent a ton of time in the area, but my initial reaction is that you shouldn't have any major problems, it's just not an area that has the same neighborhood vibe and community feel of other south side neighborhoods.

Feel free to ask any other follow-up questions if you have them!

[pianist1972]

Thnaks so much...these responses echo the sense that I have about the area. Anyone else feel free to chime in.