Pedestrian Walkways of Northampton

This past weekend, while enjoying the wonderful weather that St. Louis had been graced with, I stumbled upon a mid-block pedestrian pathway between Hereford and Lawn in the Northampton neighborhood (AKA North Hampton, AKA Northhampton).

Turning down the walkway and following it through the neighborhood is a delightful experience.  It provides a truly unique perspective on the area.  Each block has its own character and this cut through lets you see them back to back, witnessing the changes from single family to two-family to four-family to apartment block.

Marked crosswalks provide an added level of comfort to the already safe-feeling path.  The streets this walkway crosses through are narrow and calm for the most part.

Adding even more interest to this particular walkway is the curvature of the streets as they approach Kingshighway from the West.

The backside of a block can sometimes be even more interesting than the front.

Discovering this walkway and experiencing it on foot had me searching google for more information as soon as I got home.  That’s when I came across the St. Louis Urban Connections Project.  Take a look – this mapping project shows pedestrian walkways all over St. Louis.   In addition to the “Lawn Walk” (which is the one I’ve described and shown above), it highlights another in the Northampton Neighborhood, and a similar pair in Princeton Heights (all new to me).

I’ll follow this post up with another showing the pedestrian walkways of Princeton Heights.  If you’re in the area, seek out these interesting neighborhood tours.  Check my Northampton Flickr page for more scenes from this portion of the city.

Update 12/3/2017: After linking to this post on Twitter, the resulting conversation taught me a few new things about the Northampton neighborhood (or North Hampton, which is apparently the preferred name).  Within it are two strong neighborhood organizations, Kingshighway Hills and Tilles Park that essentially split the city-defined neighborhood along Macklind Avenue (although Tilles Park extends into the Lindenwood Park neighborhood up to Watson).