The City as a Museum

They come by the busload from the hinterlands, Bethalto and Hazelwood, Breeze and Eureka, to tour the City Museum, which is housed in the old International Shoe warehouse at Delmar and 17th Street. The museum, the mad vision of St. Louis artist Bob Cassilly, is of Rube Goldberg design, all shoots and ladders and tunnels inside and out, with a firetruck and airplane fuselages strewn about the premises, and an old log cabin in the parking lot, and the latest addition, a giant preying mantis sculpture rising from the roof. It's the stuff of kids' dreams come to life and their parents', too, of course. Passing by each week, I hear the squeals of glee and watch the youthful scampering. But even from a detached distance something about the scene makes me uneasy, as if as a city worker, I am also part of the backdrop for the museum, an anachronistic prop, a historical extra, briefly playing a bit part in the 21st Century. This is the city, kids, where people once lived and worked and played. Remember it and hold it dear.

Dog's Island

The long-haired pooch lay not quite cowering in the long, cool grass of an island on North Kingshighway Boulevard. Stranded in a sea of rush hour traffic, he waited to be rescued, panting softly, bright eyes shining in the morning sun. Soon his patience would be rewarded by the attention of concerned passersby. How transient this cannine predicament to human despair of everyday life on the street.

I-Deaf Morning

I said good morning to the young woman, but my greeting went unaknowledged as she continued walking west on Forest Park Boulevard with white wires dangling from her ears.

Coop Du Jour

The bum sleeps wrapped in carpet remnants in the doorway of the loading dock at the rear of the Plaza Square Building at 17th and Olive. Another day, another bit of squalor.

Free Advice from a Dead Millionaire

Andrew Carnegie, the 19th-Century robber baron, generously endowed the St. Louis Public Library, and for his philanthropy the library graced the back entrance with his words. Nobody goes in this door anymore, if they ever did, so few people ever stop to read what he had to say concerning his bibliomanic fervor. For what it's worth, here are Carnegie's overlooked words, which adhere to the same social Darwinism by which he rationalized his greed:

"I chose free libraries as the best agencies for improving the masses of the people because they only help those who help themselves, they never pauperize. A taste for reading draws out lower tastes."

Across the street from Carnegie's words, on the sidewalk adjacent to Lucas Park, the homeless queue up, as they do every noontime, to help themselves to a taste of free gruel doled out from the back of a pickup truck.

Climatic Divide

The sunny side of Washington Avenue this afternoon had already slipped into a torpor of summer heat, while the shady side of the street played with spring.

High-Rise Pit Stop: Charging Up at the Y

An energy-efficient vehicle was parked on the side of the downtown YMCA yesterday. A small electric motor had been added to the low-slung, three-wheel bicycle. The odd-looking contraption wasn't the only thing worth gawking over. Whoever owned the machine had decided to recharge its batteries by running an extension chord up to a 10th floor window.

Confirmation

I got the news of the selection of a new pope not from the Internet or TV, but the bells of St. John's Catholic Church on Pine Street. The bells resounded off the Plaza Square apartments as I walked down Olive on my way to lunch.

Place Is More Than a Name

I've noticed a tendency among St. Louis cub reporters to bestow identities to certain districts or neighborhoods that were previously undefined. My neighborhood, Dogtown, for example, was recently reported to extend as far west as Blendon Avenue near the city limits. More disconcerting was its designation as an "increasingly hip place to live" by yet another reporter. Even more inventive was a reference to an area of downtown that includes the Federal Reserve Bank, which was described as being the "central financial district."

Multiple Jarods

The svelte gent leaving the Subway sandwich shop on Euclid Avenue in the Central West End yesterday slid behind the wheel of a car with Illinois vanity plates "Jarod 5."

Hardshell Illuminati

The ornate lampposts outside the central branch of the St. Louis Public Library on Olive Street are secured to a base that's slow but sure. Each light has a pedestal consisting of four brass turtles bravely extending their necks heavenward.

Peaceful Revisionism

The peace sign, back by popular demand. Those hipsters who flash it nowadays employ a new twist, however. The index and middle fingers are still extended, but instead of the traditional "palms-up" peace sign, the revised version exhibits the back of the hand, and is displayed in a casual manner to express the total coolness of the peace signee.

Mr. Dip's Universe

My fellow workers call him Mr. Dip, though the tall black man's name is Ronald. Mr. Dip, a regular cast member in the downtown street scene, is known for his distinctive walk, which is noteable because of the way he moves his left arm in a scooping manner with each step. He is also a fashion plate partial to leather and polyester. Yesterday, Mr. Dip, wearing a long black coat and lime sports shirt, walked up to us as we pondered a problematic parking meter. In a raspy bass he whispered: "Are you draining the energy out of that machine?"

Nickel and Dime Symbolism

The old Chipewa Trust Co., now Regions Bank, at Chipewa and Jefferson, has a facade that includes a series griffins carved across the top of the building. Griffins, of course, are the winged-lions of mythology. More striking, however, is the symbolism carved around the doorway. The entrance is flanked by Images of buffalo-head nickels and Mercury-head dimes a positioned above chalices. The Holy Grail be damned.

Thanks for the monetary tip from Mike H.

Ying Yang Symbol on Grand

The wrought iron rails on the front of St. Louis University Hospital on Grand are an art-deco masterpiece incorporating a design element that includes a stylized series of ancient Taoist ying-yang symbols. Strange for a Catholic Hospital.

Her Hair Lives

Off to See the Wizard
The only time I saw the proprietor of the Crystal Wizard she walked outside her curios shop on South Broadway wearing a smock, with a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth and a cup of coffee in her hand. With her hair moving in strange patterns towards the sky, she remains an enigma to be observed from afar, as does her business for it never seems to be open. When she's there, she's gone and when she's gone, she's really gone. Inside the locked mesh gates, the display windows offer dead houseplants for sale.

Hoosier French

The French founded St. Louis in the mid-18th Century as a fur-trading post, leaving behind a fading influence on the city that came to be. The traces of French influence can be found throughout the area, including street and place names, but they are pronounced in a distinctly unique St. Louis patois. Chouteau Avenue, for example, which is named after one of the co-founders of the city, is pronounced SHOW-tow. Moreover, the suburban municipality of Creve Couer is pronounced CREEF-core.

It's enough to break a Frenchman's heart.

Rural Road Kill

Just down the highway from Shu-Shu's Mongolian Barbeque restaurant on Illinois 158 is a memorial to an infant who must have died in a car crash. Next to a telephone pole on a desolate stretch of road there are reminders of Alexis' short life, including a a bottle of liquid bubbles.

The Sound of One Hand Dribbling

Or I should say thousands of hands. There were thousands of kids (and parents, too) downtown on Sunday afternoon, preceding the NCAA tournment. Most of them were bouncing basketballs.

I Beg Your Pardon, Sir, er, Madam

The person on Market Street wanted to know the location of the nearest pay phone, a rather pedestrian request. But the inquirer's appearance was unusual. She sported a mustache.

Paper Chase: Market and Chestnut, Monday, 12:45 p.m.

The bald lawyer and a couple of homeless folks who volunteered to help him ran around chasing after the legal papers that had blown out of his hand. I sense that his client will never know about the windy mishap.

Noontime in the Garden of Good and Evil

There it is standing in broad daylight in the 2700 block of Texas Avenue between Jefferson and Broadway. The plaque beside the front door of the two-story brick residence identifies it as the "compound," and in the nearby garden is a statue of a girl holding two bowls aloft in a manner resembling the image that appears on the front cover of the best-selling non-fiction book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

The Bald Barber

Call it counter-intuitive public relations, but the owner of the Top Flight barber shop on South Kingshighway is bald. Moreover, his shaved head is advertised on the front window on a hand-painted sign that shows him in all his hairless glory.

Warning: You Are Entering a Southside Time Warp

Sometime soon after John Lennon was assassinated and Ronald Reagan seized power, the crusaders of moral rectitude targeted local head shops by forcing the enactment of ordinances banning the sale of drug-related paraphenalia. And so the last vestiages of the 1960s counter culture faded into history or so it is said. But not so fast. On Gravois Avenue near the St. Louis city limits there are two businesses specializing in hippie wares: Eclipses and Area 51 -- both in the same block. Pipes of various sizes are displayed in the front window of the latter establishment, whereas, the former is festooned with dancing Teddy Bears, an icon of the Grateful Dead.

Diaspora: Cherokee and Oregon Streets, 8:30 a.m., March 31

A trio of young Budhist monks sweep spring blossoms from the sidewalk, where crack dealers will congregate later in the day. The wind is calm now.