Vantage Points

In my exploration of St. Louis, I sometimes come across places which offer glimpses of other parts of the city.  Since most of St. Louis is relatively flat, these views are a real treat.  Those areas that are most likely to catch my eye are the more dense neighborhoods that include the Central West End, Midtown and Downtown.  This weekend, while exploring The Hill North of Interstate 44, I captured this view of the CWE:

CWE From the Hill

The fact that The Hill offers good views of other city neighborhoods seems obvious, but to me it’s a recent discovery.  Although this view is new, and the perspective is unique, my favorite views of the city are still those seen while driving down Highway 40.  Too bad it’s such a dangerous place to take photos.

Other Vantage Points:

Downtown from Dogtown

Above view is from Mitchell and Highland.

South St. Louis Riverfront

From Carondelet Coke’s Coal Loader.

Downtown from Cass Avenue Bridge Construction

And Finally a similar view to one that I used in my post on the Cass Avenue Bridge a week or so ago.

The Kingshighway Jog

Kingshighway is one of the city’s busiest streets, but up until less than 50 years ago, the road yielded to Forest Park instead of visa-versa.  Thanks to Gateway Streets‘ Sunday Links last week, I was able to track down the year that the motorist won out over the city itself by looking at MODOT’s historical highway maps.  I found that 1964 is the first year in which “the jog” does not appear on the state highway map.  One more decision accelerating decline.  Originally, Kingshighway took a 90 degree turn to the East at what is now Hospital Drive and then made another 90 degree turn to the South at Euclid (formerly Lake or Lay).  This was due to the shape of the park!

Map of Forest Park - 1914

This area now has so much traffic concentrated into BJC, Wash-U Med, etc., but these are basically one big campus cut off from the rest of the city.  I just wonder what the area felt like before.  It must have been very different.

Kingshighway Jog

Maybe one day Forest Park will be restored to its original boundaries and Kingshighway restored to it’s original, more pedestrian friendly route.  We need to work with what our city already has to offer, even the sharp edges, instead of destroying it to remove minor inconveniences incurred from one particular perspective.