Public Art and No Bicycles on the SLU Campus

When I ride my bike to work, I cut through the Saint Louis University campus. Early in the morning there are few people wandering around there, which gives me time to gaze at all the bad public art. There are all those terrible bronze statues, including the Billiken, some odd, Norse god, a sort of kewpie doll and the mascot of the school's athletic teams. Then there's the statue of the Native American bowing to Bishop Dubourg and the statue of Pope Pius, the Fascist Holy See, giving the peace sign. But the really scary statues are the ones of students sitting frozen on benches, and, of course, the laughing concrete dolphins squirting water out of their mouthes.

The obvious collegiate icons missing on the SLU campus are bicycles. There are very, very few, which I find weird.

Our Flag Is Bigger Than Your Flag

I am humbled that someone who lives in a downtown loft actually reads this blog, and pleasantly surprised that anybody does. And for those who have taken the time to respond to my street-level observations, thank you for your interest.

I hope I haven't disappointed any readers by my dearth of entries lately. I've been busy ranting on my resurrected political blog, Media Mayhem.

One thing I noticed this week while walking down Market Street is that the Metropolitan Sewer District's American flag is three-times bigger than the nearby FBI field office's American flag, which proves that the sewer guys are three times more patriotic.

By the way, standing in front of Milles Fountain, across from Union Station, you can see six flags furling along Market. I remember when I worked at Anheuser-Busch, there were nine flags between the parking lot and the entrance to the Bevo plant.


That's one of the many things I liked about Quebec. Fewer flags. Most of them in front of post offices where they belong.

Hold the Mustard, Jack

Jack Carl, the proprietor of downtown St. Louis' only authentic deli, doesn't mince words. When a suited customer asked him whether business had picked up with the influx of new "loft dwellers" in the neighborhood, he said: "It's all bullshit." The longtime downtown business owner was referring to the hype surrounding the rebirth of downtown, which is pegged to rehabbed residential developments in old warehouses along Washington and Locust Avenues among other places.

One reason that Carl may not have seen an increase in business is because the people moving into these pricey digs don't really inhabit the place where they live. Instead, they treat their new urban homes and neighborhood the same way they would if they lived in a West County burb. When they come home from work, they shut the door and turn on cable.

Happy Mother's Day

The car rolled down the apartment complex driveway off Laclede Station Road in reverse -- with a man clawing his way up the hood like a shreiking, rabid animal. As the car hit the street, he shoved his arm through the jagged hole in the windshield trying to retrieve the keys. Finally, acceding to his demands, the overweight woman, with a drink in her hand, stopped and exited the car. It was Mother's Day in Maplewood and the natives were restless.

Grocery Cart Woman

The woman stood with her head bowed at the rear of the Argyle parking garage at Euclid and Lindell next to the tony Chase Apartments. Beside her she had a grocery cart filled with all of his worldly possessions. Later, I saw her cart parked in front of the nearby public library.

Viaduct Dwellers

The men live under the highway viaducts along the exits of Highway 40 on the western edges of downtown St. Louis, where thousands of cars pass by their bundles of belongings each day.

To Have and Have Not

The platinum blonde in the stiletto heels strutted across the street from her loft apartment and opened the locked gate to her parking lot. Moments later, her sporty red sedan scooted out onto Locust Street, after another electric gate opened. A block away a homeless man sat on the curb in front of the New Life Evagelistic Center, music pulsing from his boom box. Unlike St. Louis County, where the wealthy have gone to great lengths to insulate themselves from the poor, city dwellers of all social classes co-exist in a separate but unequal environment every day. I don't know which is worse.

FAQs

The most frequently asked question that is asked of a parking meter collector is "do you have change for a dollar." The second most frequently asked question is "where is the Social Security office."

Sign of the Times

The graffiti had been painted over the wall of Gold's Gym on Washington, but the message was still discernible:

B
FUCK
S
H

Manhole Talk

It wasn't the kind of conversation you would expect two electric company employees to be having. They weren't talking about last night's baseball game or shop talk. Instead, the guy somewhere beneath the street's surface was discussing a pending move by someone in his family. The disembodied voice was telling the guy squatting over the manhole that "she" had always wanted to live in Korea. He hoped that the career move worked out for her.

Encounter with the Wisecracking Senator

His shoulders were perhaps a bit more stooped than the last time I saw him, but there was no mistaking his touseled mane of silver hair. Dressed in a rumpled sports coat and open-collared shirt, former U.S. Sen. Thomas Eagleton stood next to the open door of his Toyota on Washington Avenue last Tuesday, waiting for workers from a nearby frame shop to carry out his purchases. When I introduced myself, he apologized for his hearing loss and leaned a bit closer to hear me above the din of traffic noise. Eagleton, a three-term senator from Missouri and briefly the Democratic vice-presidential candidate in 1972, didn't recall our prior meeting a few years ago, when I interviewed him as a reporter for a local alternative weekly newspaper. But he was, nonetheless, amused by my new incarnation. Gazing at the city identification card that hung around my neck, the senator quipped: "What's that for, in case you get lost?"

Sidewalk Squatter, 13th and Gay Streets

On a chilly morning last week, an old woman lay on the sidewalk warming herself next to a manhole cover spouting steam surrounded by parking lots. A little after 8 a.m. she gathered up her belongings and hobbled to the nearby St. Patrick's shelter, leaving a paperback edition of the King James Bible behind.

Blind Justice on Market Street

The grounds of the St. Louis field office of the FBI, located on Market Street, is tended by Mexican migrant workers, most likely illegal aliens, an indication of the Bush administration's lax enforcement of immigration laws. Whereas, across the street at the Jefferson Bank and Trust Co., the scene of civil rights demonstrations in the 1960s, the lawn is cared for by African-Americans.

Daily Planet Defunct

Man nor woman does not live by bread alone, especially that sub species of homo sapiens addicted to news. A city is not a city, let alone a civilization, without a newsstand. Sadly, St. Louis city lost its only purveyor of newsprint and slick magazines recently with the passing of the Daily Planet on Euclid. The Daily Planet, which was located next to the Coffee Cartel at the corner of Maryland Plaza, offered a necessary fix for urban news junkies. Blame it on the Internet or Borders, the results are the same. The demise leaves the St. Louis area with only one remaining newsstand, the Clayton-based Central News.

St. Louis' Cheapest Cup of Joe

I accidently discovered St. Louis' cheapest cup of coffee in the most unlikely place -- Straub's -- the upscale grocery chain. Tucked in the corner of the recently added deli in the back of the store is a coffee stand, where a small cup of Joe goes for 50 cents, much less than White Castle, QuikTrip or the ubiquitious, high-priced Starbuck's.