Yellow Journalism

At 3411 California, the Hat Mart, a millenary shop established in 1915, is still in business. Its bay windows jutting out into the sidewalk, displaying red satins and veils, the likes of which could have been worn before the War to End All Wars. While around the corner on Cherokee, a shuttered storefront window is covered with newspapers that bare the headlines of the carnage in Iraq. Already the newsprint is turning yellow.

Cherokee Blues/Cinderella Morning

Down on Cherokee, the black whore knocks on the door of the crack house, rousing the pusher who sticks his head out the second-story window for a moment and then disappears, leaving her standing alone in the doorway, her head jagging to an unknown beat. As she walks away, a gray, mottled cat follows her keeping close the storefront walls.

Flight

above the empty beer bottles and cigarette butts
and disposable lighters and shattered crack pipes
and countless lost gloves of winter,
pigeons soar in the weak light of morning,
winged shadows flying as one.

German Spoken Here

Don't be fooled by the name. Pepino's on 14th Street may very well be St. Louis' only German pizza joint. Judging by the women behind the counter, it's a three-generational operation. Orders are often relayed back to the kitchen in German. Another unique aspect of the restaurant are the prices. For $4.50 you can get two slices of sausage or pepperoni pizza and a small soda. For diners who choose to eat at the restaurant the the square slices are served on paper plates. Orders to go are wrapped in aluminum foil. Apparently, Pepino's doesn't believe in over-packaging its food.

A Familar Tune on a Foreign Street

Walking along the Dam on cold April night last year, I heard a flutist playing a familiar melody. The Dam is one of Amsterdam's main boulevards. Centuries old, it harkens back to the halcyon days when the Dutch ruled the world of commerce. On this particular night, the chill winds had chased the tourist indoors and the street was nearly deserted by early evening. I found myself alone in a foreign city, listening to this street musician's song as it echoed off the walls of the commercial district. The musician occupied the alcove of a shuttered department store entrance. The instrument he played wasn't a modern flute with valves and levers, but a wooden one of some ancient design. His improvised version of the Star Spangled Banner lacked the bravado and jingoism that I've come to associate with the American national anthem. Instead, this version of the song sounded mournful and filled with lament.

Workingman's Bible

The proper way of carrying a newspaper is to fold it in thirds and stuff it in your back pocket. In St. Louis, Tuesdays are the best day for the workingman to carry a newspaper because the paper is devoid of supplements and most other advertising. Before email and computer games, newspapers provided the workingman with a diversion from the tedium of the day. For employers, however, papers are the enemy of productivity, and they would just as soon have their employees be illiterate.

Ice Power

Over the year, the rain water gravitates slowly down through the crevices in the parking meter post. Without a drain hole, the posts eventually fill up and, when the water turns to ice, it expands further, eventually popping the 40-pound meter head off its concrete base like a champagne cork.

Found

This week's curbside discoveries:

* A silver ring, possibly a cheap wedding band, next to shattered tinted glass near South Grand.

* A ball point pen advertising the the Catholic Knights of America's local chapter on Hampton Avenue. The pen bears a 2001 date and depicts the image of the space shuttle. Also found at the above location.

* A kid's marble on Gravois near Bevo Mill.

Outside the Missouri Bar and Grill

Outside the Missouri Bar and Grill last night on Tucker Boulevard, an angular street person, who carried his bedroll under his arm, stopped for a moment to ask a stranger a question: "Are you an outdoorsmen?" he asked. After the stranger replied "no," the homeless man walked down a darkened alley and disappeared into the night. A Cadillac SUV pulled up soon thereafter, double parking, as its passenger ran into the Chinese carry-out joint next to the bar.

The Scrubby Bosnians

The woman in the long print skirt furiously swept the sidewalk on Gravois just north of Bevo Mill. Up and down this boulevard the Bosnian presence in St. Louis can be seen every day. Although it is still called Dutchtown for the German immigrants who moved here early in the last century, it is now dominated by immigrants from the Balkans. Bakeries, grocery stores, bars, restaurants are signs of the renewed life that the Bosnians have brought to the neighborhood. And, yes, there's also an Internet cafe, where for a buck fifty, an aging German American can sip espresso and blog for free. Is this a great country or what?

Of Santa and Che on South Broadway

The kid on South Broadway passed by the city crew emptying parking meters off of South Broadway, walking like he had stepped out onto the main street of Dodge City, ready for a shoot out at high noon. He wore a red T-shirt with the image of Che Guevera emblazoned on it. "I see taxation," he said to the workers. "But I don't see representation." Pleased with himself, he repeated himself, grinned and strode down the street, his misfitted trousers displaying a pair of sagging white socks.

Minutes earlier and a few blocks south, a man in camo-hunting outfit with American and Confederate flag sown on his back stuck a quarter into a meter and marched into the St. Louis Carnival Supply store, which had Santa costumes on display in the front window.

Time on Vista Avenue

The sundial on Vista Avenue can be easily overlooked. The time piece, whis is attached to the side of the Saint Louis University Hospital, is part of an angelic gargoyle above the side entrance. My knowledge of Latin is minimal, but the inscription appears to relate to the sanctity and glory of the land. Originally, the hospital bore the name of Desloge, an old St. Louis family whose fortune came from mining lead in Southeast Missouri. The waste from those mining operations, which ended decades ago, can still be seen in and around the town of the same name. Lead contamination of the nearby Big River has forced the Missouri Department of Natural Resources to place a ban on fishing in the stream. Children in the area show signs of leading poisoning. So much for the sanctity of the land. In any event, when the sun shines the sundial cradled in the arms of the stone angel keeps good time. When I passed under her it was 9:45 a.m.

Black Hole on Chestnut

The Sci-Fi Channel is shooting a cable movie in St. Louis. Earlier the Post-Dispatch reported that the film crew had shot scenes underground at the Metropolitan Sewer District's 19th-Century Bissell Point sewage treatment facility. This week the film crew used the Soldiers Memorial in downtown as a backdrop. Yesterday, mock military troops and ambulances were clustered in front of the memorial. The name of the film is Black Hole, according to one of the grips I encountered on the street. The plot involves a black hole that threatens to envelope the earth.

Carl's Two Cent's Worth

Carl's Two Cents Plain, on Locust Street, bills itself as St. Louis' only authentic New York-style deli. The establishment dates back to the golden days of Gaslight Square, when Jack Karl and his partner opened the place. An old news clip, framed and hanging on one of the place's cluttered walls shows Carl hoisting a beer at the Gaslight location in the early 1960s. I recall an old column by retired Post-Dispatch reporter Joe Pollack that waxed nostalic on the deli and the reporter's mutual recollection of Jack Ruby's Carousel Club in Dallas, pre 1963. Carl still works behind the counter and offers free advice with the pastrami sandwiches. On the day I visted recently, the first words I overheard him say concerned his opinion on the urban renewal going on around him. Carl's position: "Fuck downtown."

Labyrinth of Meditation

In the front of the Centenary Methodist Church between Olive and Pine Streets in downtown St. Louis, there is a labyrinth. But don't be too concerned about getting lost. It was painted on the plaza outside the entrance sometime back by the church to remind the faithful of life's eternal puzzle. Unlike a maze, as the Centenary elders have pointed out, a labyrinth allows for only one way in and the one way out. The entrance and the exit or the same. The beginning is the end. Alpha and omega. Passersby are urged walk through the labyrinth and meditate on the fact life's twists and turns ultimately lead back to where one started his or her journey.

Nostalgic Echoes in the Grand Hall

The Grand Hall in the St. Louis Public Library on Olive Street downtown is an impressive room by any standard. Footsteps on the marble floors echo against the ornately-designed, ceiling. Natural light is provided by a bank of arched windows on each side of the room. But there's one thing missing that used to fill this space -- the library's card catalouge. The wooden filing cabinets filled with dogearred reference cards have been gone for years now, replaced by a computerized system. The convenience and speed of the new system doesn't, however, make up for theloss of the card catalouge. The Grand Hall is like an unfurnished room without it.

Oswald's Weapon of Choice

A Mannlicher-Carcano rifle similar to Lee Harvey Oswald's weapon is on display at the Soldiers Memorial in downtown St. Louis

The Soldiers Memorial in downtown St. Louis, which was dedicated in 1938 to the "war to end all wars," houses a permanent exhibit of various firearms, including an Italian-made 1938 Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, a weapon similar to the one Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly used to assassinate President John F. Kennedy in 1963. The background information on the displayed rifle, however, doesn't mention this fact. Instead, the information explains that the bore of the rifle was enlarged more than once to increase its lethal capacity, the last alteration being done by the Germans towards the end of World War II. Mannlicher-Carcanos became rare by the 1950s, but were used in conflicts in the Mideast, including Syria and Israel, according to the display.

Perhaps the rifle has been sitting in the same display case so long that it predates the Kennedy assassination.

Robbing the Cradle: Baby Jesus, MIA

All points bulletin: Someone has purloined baby Jesus from the creche at the corner of Lindell and Grand across from St. Xavier Church.

You Need a Pig to Know Which Way the Wind Blows

The 19th Century, two-story brick house near the corner of West Pine and Vandeventer, on the edge of the Saint Louis University campus, has a weathervane on the roof. It would be somewhat unusual if it was your run-of-the-mill weathervane, featuring a rooster, but this one is ornamented with the image of a pig.

The New Olive Hotel

The New Olive Hotel at 219 19th Street, may be the last remaining flophouse in downtown. While warehouses are being converted into residential luxury loft apartments, the the New Olive is a vestige of the past. The windows of the furished rooms are covered with tattered curtains and, on the outside window sill on the third floor, someone has left a plastic soft drink bottle and a grocery bag on the ledge. In one of the rear windows, a ragged American flag is draped.

Howl

I met the trombonist yesterday. He was howling at a couple of dogs whose owner -- a young downtown loft dweller -- was allowing to defecate on the front lawn of the downtown library on Olive Street. He wore a Vietnam vet's baseball cap and had a silver Christmas bow taped to his back along with a long string of baubles. The trombonist inquired whether one of my fellow workers had reported to work. When I told him he hadn't, he replied, `Good, Now we can get drunk together.'

Ain't No Sunshine on Locust Street

On Locust Street one fair November day, an old trombonist squats on the curb playing a familar melody. The popular song, Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone by Bill Withers, harkens back to the 1970s before disco tolled the death knell for soul. Across the street, other indigents cluster on the steps of the New Life Evangelistic Center, a homeless shelter operated by the Rev. Larry Rice, St. Louis' most prominent advocate for the poor. As they wait for their noonday meal, the solo can be heard for blocks, echoing off the buildings on the western edge of downtown, the trombone mimicking the voice in the chorus: " ... ain't no sunshine when she's gone, only darkness everyday, ... and I know, I know, I know...." As the chorus stretches on, a hunched pedestrian's gait quickens, shoulders straightening as he steps to the beat of the music, the late autumn sun glinting off the windows of nearby office towers. The saddest of songs bringing smiles to passersby.

Sans-Coulottes at 13th and Olive

Somebody disposed of their blue jeans at 13th and Olive one day last week for unknown reasons. They were draped over a park bench on the corner. Later in the day, I saw a pair of Jordache designer jeans on a brick wall across from the city traffic court. Nearby, an old man was urinating on a small sapling near the curb as a relative watched. Behind me a man was shouting to himself in between humming the theme to the Flintstones. A few days later, on the cusp of a winter's first cold snap, I saw more abandoned clothing on the window sill of Christ Church Cathedral. Those who have next to nothing were apparently ridding themselves of the clothes on their backs, or, at least, lightening up their bindles as they trudged by invisible to nearly everyone they passed.

A View from Street Level

St. Louis isn't New York City, obviously. You won't be knocked off the sidewalk if you stop and survey the streetscape. On the contrary, the urban terrain here in this Midwestern city is comprised of broad boulevards with little pedestrian traffic. There is enough space here to provide a perspective of the urban environment from a distance and time to view it in detail from close up.

Those driving by in their SUVs are isolated from the space they are passing through, traveling at speeds that deny them a view of the city. This, of course, limits not only their worldview, but their basic comprehension of where they live and who they are.

Urban Road Kill will strive to combat this ignorance by reporting on everyday discoveries found on the streets of the city that sleeps next to the great brown god.