Goodbye St. Louis

My request for a transfer back to Syracuse, NY came through in record time. I successfully negotiated with the largest bureaucracy on earth to be allowed to move at a time that better suited my family. My boss threw me a great farewell party and said nice things about me. So why am I blue?

During the 16 months we have lived in St. Louis I have grown quite fond of the city. On balance it is a lively place with many unique features. The city has fabulous public spaces, chief among which is the Gateway Arch. Unique in the world, this monumental building so dominates downtown as to disappear from consciousness. At unexpected times it suddenly appears as a shimmering reflection in windows of an office tower, or a partial view of the north leg from the windows of the office, or in the distance when driving toward downtown. The Arch reminds me I could be in no other place in the world.

We have spent many reflective and renewing hours in the world class parks here. The parks define the boundaries of my St. Louis experience. The two neighborhood parks, Lafayette and Benton, are good ways to come to know your neighbors, their kids and dogs, at least by sight. A bit further afield is the arboretum called Tower Grove, where our kite got stuck in a tree one breezy Sunday, also home to the farmer's market we frequented. Further, but still within an easy drive is magnificent Forest Park, home to the art museum, the history museum, the Zoo, the MUNY and miles of dog walking trails. Downtown, only a few blocks from my office, is the brilliant new Citygarden, a sculpture park unlike any other. Merry has beautifully documented all these municipal gems on her photoblog at http://meredithleonard.blogspot.com/

The queen of all the city parks is the Missouri Botanical Garden. I was completely unaware of this amazing garden before we moved here. Founded in 1859 by Henry Shaw, who made a fortune peddling housewares to passing pioneers, this garden has a look and feel of earthly perfection. We have visited botanical gardens everywhere we have traveled, but only two (Kew in England and Longwood in PA) rival Shaw's Garden. It has historic structures, wonderful sculpture, a 1960s geodesic dome jungle, a kids' garden, a spectacular Japanese garden and an astounding collection of plants from all sorts of habitats. When we visit St. Louis in the future, we will always spend at least part of a day in this garden.

We have spent considerable time searching out the great restaurants of the city. We favor ethnic food, so we didn't eat at many of the well known high end places but we did come to love Vin de Set with its rooftop view of downtown and Chez Leon, traditional French cuisine and a player grand piano to boot. Many weekend mornings we would head for the Mississippi Mudhouse, a funky coffee shop in the Cherokee antique district, for fresh roasted coffee, spicy hot chocolate and breakfast. We tried several Italian places on “the Hill” but generally did not take to toasted ravioli, provel or the heavy pasta here. The single exception is Stelina Pasta Cafe where all the pasta is made fresh daily on the premises. When hungry for reliably wonderful food, we would head for the Tower Grove/South Grand neighborhood and eat at Basil Spice (Thai), Cafe Natasha (Persian) or The Shaved Duck (Barbeque). These are unpretentious spots where the owners treat you like family and the servers remember what you like. We especially love Thai food and the friendly Thai people. The owners of Basil Spice always greeted us warmly, often made us special desserts and even gave us a sweet going away present. I'll miss them.

Of course, a great part of my life here was spent inside 200 N. Broadway where Social Security holds hearings. Before coming to St. Louis I had generally escaped working within any large bureaucratic organization. I was worried that working for Social Security would be soul numbing. In fact, it is psychologically very hard, but the staff who do the work in St. Louis do it with grace. This is certainly due in large part to the efforts of the chief judge, W. Gary Jewell, and the hearing office director, Karen Kumpe. Karen knows everything, can find anything, fix anything, and understands how it all works because she has done every job in the office over the years. Judge Jewell, a true son of Alabama, “Roll Tide,” learned how to motivate people during his military career in the JAG corps. He knows people want to do well but can be lax if you let them. He devises little motivators, walks around the office causing cheerful disturbances and lets people know he cares that they do their work well. He will always step up to help, often taking the extra work on himself. His staff want to get the job done for him. He changed the name of the three staff work groups from A, B, C to Aardvarks, Cobras and Bobcats. I'll forever hear him call out “Goodnight, Bobcats” in my mind at the end of a work day.

And so I leave with a sense of regret for leaving my temporarily adopted city. I'll miss the friendly people and my daily dose of real life as I ride the bus. I'll miss the smell of hops from Budweiser when the wind is from the south. I'll miss my wonderful massage therapist, Cathi, from Indigo, who nursed my sore muscles back from stress and fatigue. I'll miss all of this, but I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to live at the gateway to the west. Farewell.

Bevo

When you come to visit us in St. Louis you will probably ask us to take you on a tour of the Anheuser-Busch brewery, home of the “King of Beers,” Budweiser. So as not to be caught unprepared we toured the place ourselves last Sunday. To my mind there are three things that make the A-B tour stand head and shoulders above all other brewery tours: (1) the eye-popping historic buildings, three of which are national historic landmarks, (2) the Clydesdales in residence, and (3) the mystery of Bevo.

The tour begins with the Clydesdales stables and wanders downhill through the massive factory complex to conclude at the Bevo Bottling Works where the A-B products made in St. Louis are packaged. As you approach this six story brick factory building that fills a city block the most remarkable thing you see is a large gargoyle perched midway up each corner. I initially thought it was a rat dressed in coat and boots playing a flute. Closer inspection revealed “Bevo, the Fox.” The lobby of the building is also beautifully decorated with handmade tiles featuring the same crafty fox.

We were told that the bottling works was built during Prohibition and named for the A-B's then new non-alcoholic “cereal beverage.” Anheuser-Busch started brewing Bevo in 1916 when the US armed forces prohibited use of all alcoholic beverages. That crafty fox Augustus Busch, Sr. knew the tide was running against him and that it would only get worse in the near future. He had backed anti-prohibition candidate Taft in the 1914 election but lost. Then the US went to war with his fatherland, and robber barons like him with close German ties were highly suspect. He worked tirelessly to try to prevent the coming of Prohibition even closing down scores of highly profitable but disreputable A-B owned saloons across the country. By 1916 he must have known his efforts were failing.

He decided to diversify. Not only did A-B start to brew Bevo well before national Prohibition took effect, he also developed a number of products for home brewers like brewers' yeast and malt syrup. He appears to have known Prohibition would not last forever, but he was determined to make the best of it. Production of Bevo rose greatly when Prohibition finally took effect in 1919, and Bevo was by far the most popular of the many "near beers" of the time. At the peak of its popularity in the early 1920s, more than five million cases of Bevo were sold annually. However by the late 1920s bootleg beer and liquor as well as home brew had cut Bevo's market share. With sales flattening to 100,000 cases by 1929, Anheuser-Busch stopped production.

But why did they call it “Bevo?” The only explanation I can find is that the name "Bevo" was coined from the English word "beverage" and the Slavic or Czech word for beer "pivo.” It would seem Busch wanted the name to subliminally suggest that beer was not long gone. The use of the Renard the Fox character to symbolize Bevo also suggest A-B is winking an eye at Prohibition saying, “Here, drink this. I promise that real beer will be back before too long.”

But there are more curious twists. Augustus did not like living at the family mansion on the brewery grounds so he moved out to the suburbs. In 1913 he purchased “Grant's Farm” from the heirs of the former President and civil war general and built a new home, “Baurenhof,” there on the banks of Gravois Creek. It was, however, a long trip home from the brewery. To break up the journey Augustus built himself a private dining room along the Gravois road exactly halfway home. For some reason he commanded that this building be an authentic replica of a Flemish windmill. Of course, he called the place the “Bevo Mill.”

In 1917 the Bevo Mill started serving meals to the general public. It still does. The neighborhood that grew up around the Mill came to be called “Bevo” and still is.

Augustus also loved parades. During the 1920s he started the tradition of putting A-B promotional vehicles into parades all over the country by designing and building “Bevo Boats.” Apparently he build as many as eight of these extravagant precursors to the Clydesdales and Rose Parade floats. The one surviving example of a Bevo Boat was built in 1930 after Bevo had ceased production, and thus was probably called a Budweiser Boat. Mounted on a 1930 Cadillac frame with a boat body finished in red with white stripes, it has a red leather interior. Some of its most unusual features include two large chrome anchors mounted to the bow, a propeller on the transom, Wig-Wag taillights with lanterns that swing from their mount, an Anheuser Busch eagle mounted on the front deck as well as two functional Winchester Arms 10 gauge cannons mounted on the rear fenders.

Augustus Busch did everything he could to assure the word Bevo became part of the popular culture of the time. His efforts paid off in ways he could not control. Irving Berlin included a song "You Can't Stay Up on Bevo", in his 1917 army revue, Yip Yip Yaphank. The popular references were not very complementary. The suggestion is that Bevo is not the real thing. Here's how Irving Berlin put it: “I used to own a vicious looking dog who wouldn't bite, I used to know a dangerous looking man who couldn't fight, My brother trained wild animals but they were really tame, And now I've tasted of a drink that strikes me just the same – [Refrain:] Bevo, oh, oh, oh, Bevo, You're the grandest imitation that we know, You're the only drink that a soldier can pick, You taste like lager but you haven't got the kick, oh!” Thereafter at least for a time “Bevo” became army slang for a young and inexperienced officer.

Decades later, Bevo is mentioned in a list of popular culture items that can corrupt children's morals in the song "Trouble" in The Music Man.

During the same time span the University of Texas football team acquired its mascot, a long-horn steer named “Bevo.” According to the official web site of UT Football, its mascot Is not named for the A-B near beer.

All of this is my way of explaining the thoughts running through my mind as I stared up at Bevo the Fox last Sunday. How does a made up name for a product that no longer exists and almost nobody remembers come to designate a large industrial building and a St. Louis neighborhood?

Gus' Pretzels

It's started to get cold here at last after a long fall. We had our first day where the temperature did not break freezing on Friday. Yesterday we paid a visit to the Soulard Market for the first time. Soulard is an older neighborhood between McKinnley Heights where we live and the Mississippi River. The river bank there is covered by the giant Anheuser Busch brewery. The market is in a large old brick building shaped like the letter “H” with the ends being long open sheds and the smaller center enclosed (and heated). The most of the vendors have permanent locations with signs and tables. Some have elaborate small stores that appear to have been there a very long time. A butcher shop, a pastry shop and, surprisingly, a pet store all appeared to be permanent. At this time of year fresh local produce was scarce – we did see one organic farmer with some nice root vegetables and a wild mushroom vendor with an amazing array of oyster mushrooms and chantrelles. There were several poultry vendors doing a brisk business, even live geese were on offer. We shared a warm flaky croissant and moved on.

St. Louis is rich in coffee shops, many of which roast their own beans. We had tried two nearby, Park Avenue Coffee and Mississippi Mud, the latter our favorite. Yesterday we tried the Benton Park Cafe for breakfast. It's a bit more polished and therefore a bit more sterile, but the coffee and food are very good. Where we sat looking out on Lemp Street, we had a good view of Gus' Pretzels directly opposite.

Now, I personally never have been a big fan of soft pretzels. I worked for two days in a pretzel factory in my home town back in the early 70s and have had an aversion to twisted dough ever since. As we watched, car after car pulled up to Gus'. A steady stream of customers emerged with small brown bags and sometimes a soda. Remember, this is 9:30 on a Saturday morning. Who were these pretzel fanatics? What is it about Gus'?

We had to find out. We finished breakfast and crossed the street.

Gus' is a plain brick rectangle on the corner of Lemp and Arsenal Streets with a black and white pretzel flag flying out front just below old glory. It's about 2 long blocks from the Budweiser plant. Inside there is a line at a counter with a menu board. $1.50 for three “twists or sticks.” Beside the line there are long windows into the pretzel making room. At one end a machine spits out little clumps of dough that are caught by rollers and emerge as raw pretzel sticks. A steaming water bath is bobbing with raw pretzels. There's a guy throwing salt onto trays of wet pretzels before they go into the oven. A giant mixer churns up a new batch of dough. About half a dozen workers tend this process. One guy is even hand rolling a really big speciality pretzel in the form of some letters. Another guy was making “pretzel sandwiches” which turns out to be a hot dog or bratwurst completely encased in pretzel dough.

There are old photographs, too. The original Gus holding a kid in front of the oven with a big pile of pretzels in the foreground is my favorite. Now, if you are a pretzel fan, or if you are of German heritage, do yourself a favor and check out Gus' website at www.guspretzels.com.

If, like me, you don't really like pretzels, just look at the pictures attached.

Wednesday we are heading back to CNY for Thanksgiving. We hope to see quite a few of our good friends then.

Lemp Junque

When we moved into 2115 Ann one of the things we noticed was the hole in the living room wall where a heat register was missing. A matching register adorns the dining room. It's of an unusual design. The heat duct is a hole about a foot square at the base of the wall. This hole requires a register with a frame shaped like a narrow right triangle that sits on the floor and holds a decorative grate that covers the vent. We did not notice the one missing in the living room during our inspections of the house probably because it was covered by furniture. Not a real big deal, but where would we find such an object? Our helpful real estate agent, Chuck, told us we might be able to get a suitable replacement on Cherokee Street.

We already knew that Cherokee St. is a near-by small shopping district consisting of several blocks of antique stores. Merry seemed to welcome the opportunity to seek this obscure object. Over the next few weeks she made several forays to Cherokee St., but no luck. She did get a tantalizing lead, however. She was told at the east end of Cherokee St. a guy operates a shop specializing in antique fixtures out of the abandoned Lemp Brewery. He has occasional hours. You can only tell he's there if a bicycle with a sign is chained out front. Merry drove by, but no bicycle, then found out he is only there on weekends.

Last Sunday we decided to try again. The brewery complex is huge, covering several city blocks. On one corner, next to the Interstate, chained to a light post was a beaten-up green antique bicycle with a small sign - “Junque.” All the windows in that area of the brewery are boarded up, the doors secured with rusty chains. There appears to be no way in. We walked along one side of the complex and looked down the next street. Part way down the block is another old bike chained to a post.

There is a gated truck entrance next to the second bike. The gate is ajar. Inside a passageway leads under interconnected brick archways to a freight dock and an open courtyard. Old machinery, giant gears, lumber and assorted tools are spread around this area. The disused freight dock is littered with an impressive assortment of wood working tools. As we wander through we can hear a small engine roaring. I spot a go-cart looping around the dirt courtyard between the boarded up buildings. Three men in work clothes are deep in conversation behind the dock. As we approach a tall thin man welcomes us to go inside and take a look around. We climb steps behind the dock and step inside.

We are in a cluttered warehouse space. We see more construction equipment and work benches, then dozens and dozens of bins, shelves, cupboards, drawers, salvage. Amazingly, it's all very well organized. A bin of broken black marble here, white marble there, terra cotta roof tiles in the corner – on and on. The proprietor finds us before we wander too far.

Merry describes our missing heat grate. He puzzles for a second walking deeper into the room. He mutters something about frames, grates and Chicago, I think. We come to a shelf covered by heat grates. He reaches into the heap and pulls out the exact thing we are looking for. He shows us the other grates in the stack. There is only one that looks like what we want. $25 is the price. We take it.

He leaves us to wander the room. There is an incredible assortment of building material everywhere. Mantle pieces, picture frames, mirrors, fire screens, hooks, pipes, wooden nickels, you name it. A small sign proclaims a 10% discount for materials to be used as public art. We explore for awhile.

It's exciting. An organized resource of ancient treasure. I woman appears and enquires whether we need any help. It turns out she's a friend of the owner sent to make sure we were alright. She tells us about the restaurant she's just opened that crosses an ice cream parlor with a martini bar. We discuss where in upstate NY her daughter, who wants to be a writer, should go to college. A few more people wander in. It's a contractor leading his clients on an expedition. They live in our neighborhood and are rehabbing a house. We acquire the contractor's card. The owner returns and we pay.

Back on the street the place seems like a hallucination. At home, the grill is an exact match.

Old Post Office

I spent the first two nights of September at the Park Avenue Mansion, a bed & breakfast in St. Louis. It's located on Lafayette Park near our new home. We needed temporary quarters because we had not yet closed on the new house. Merry and Joli joined me for the second night after driving our VW to St. Louis from Syracuse.

The B&B is owned and operated by a man named Michael. On the second morning we were passing the time waiting for our real estate agent to arrive to drive us to the closing. Michael was regaling us with stories about the history of his house of which he had made a very close study. Having exhausted that source he moved on to discuss other highlights of St. Louis architecture. He insisted we visit the “Old Post Office” building downtown and claimed it was architecturally one of the most significant of all of St. Louis' buildings. To prove his point he told us the following unusual things about the building: (1) It has a two-story basement that once served as the US Treasury gold depository for the western US. He claimed that it featured its own underground railroad station so gold could safely be shipped in and out. (2) The windows can be completely covered with steel shutters that slide out from slots in the wall. He claimed the shutters were installed in the 1920's during a trial of organized crime figures as a defense against possible mob machine gun fire.

A few days later I was talking with a fellow judge at work, Tom Muldoon. Judge Muldoon informed me that the hearing offices for Social Security used to be located in the Old Post Office. He described the grandeur of his former office in the building and told me he had the good fortune to tour the building with an architectural historian following the building's renovations in the 1990s. He too told me of the steel shutters that pull out of the walls, but in his version they were original to the 1884 building and were intended to turn the building into a fortress against attack from forces hostile to the Union. He explained border conflicts occurred in Missouri for quite a time after the Civil War. He repeated the story about the underground train station and added that the open air space surrounding the two story basement was designed as a moat that could be flooded in an attack thus protecting the gold by covering it with two stories of water. Finally, he told me that to stabilize the massive building it was built on pilings that rest on giant cotton bales. He claimed the bales were inspected during the renovations and were still sound after more than 100 years in the ground.

The very same day after a hearing, Jane Lanser, my hearing reporter, told me she had a book on the Old Post Office she would bring in for me to look over, and by the way, had I heard the story about how the gold mysteriously disappeared from the vaults there. The vocational expert in the courtroom waiting for the next hearing added that during the 1904 World's Fair people wanted to see the basement of the Old Post Office because it was rumored to be the entrance to a tunnel to the center of the earth.

I had to go look. It is an amazing building and architecturally significant for a number of reasons [see attached photos]. The real eye opener, however, occurred this past week when Jane brought me the book she promised. It was published in 1979 by the Landmarks Association, a St. Louis civic group that was leading the efforts to save and renovate the building. This book includes the following (presumably reliable) information: (1) When excavation for the building was underway a large bed of quicksand was uncovered. Attempts to excavate the quicksand caused the surrounding streets and buildings to subside, so excavation was stopped until hundreds of yellow pine pilings were driven then capped with 4-6 feet of limestone slabs (not cotton bales) on which the building now sits. These pilings were inspected in the 1970s and found to be sound. (2) The building was furnished with its own underground railroad platform but it was never used because it was impracticable to stop a coal fired steam train for long underground. (3) The metal shutters were original and intended for fireproofing. (4) There is no moat, the space around the basement was designed to admit light to basement windows.

Great old buildings inspire the imagination and gather stories. There is no tunnel to the center of the earth where the missing gold can be discovered by the fortunate soul brave enough to open the right passageway – but there should be.

Forest Park

This is the first installment of my St. Louis blog. I send it to you for your amusement and as a way to keep in touch with valued friends. When I left Syracuse on Labor Day I started a new chapter in my life, but was at a loss about how to realistically keep in touch with the many friends I made during the last 20 years. A former neighbor of ours (Curt Miller) moved to Spain a few years back and sends us his occasional thoughts on his new life by email blog. Merry and I both enjoy reading Curt's blog so we decided to try doing something similar. Since we have different views on events and a somewhat different list of friends we decided to each write our own blog. If you do not want your mailbox filling up with our random thoughts, please let us know and we will take you off the list – no questions asked and no hard feelings.

The three of us (Merry and I and Joli the dog) arrived safely in St. Louis this past week and have bought a classic (circa 1900) brick home in a city neighborhood called McKinley Heights. Here is our new contact information. Our new address is 2115 Ann Ave., St. Louis, MO 63104. Our new phone is 314-865-0699. My new office phone is 314-588-7534 x 3015 and my office email is Edward.Pitts@ssa.gov. We are working on a new Internet connection and will probably get new email addresses soon but our current addresses will work for at least another month.

Yesterday (Saturday) was pleasantly warm so we took Joli for a walk in Forest Park. Forest Park sits in the heart of St. Louis and at 1,371 acres is one of the largest urban parks in the country. By comparison Central Park in New York is 843 acres. The park was dedicated June 24, 1876, and was originally four miles outside the St. Louis city limits. George Kessler, a well-known Midwestern park designer of the time, redesigned the park as a part of his master design for the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. A popular myth says that Frederick Law Olmsted designed the park, fair grounds and Washington University campus. Kessler briefly worked for Olmsted as a Central Park gardener when he was in his 20s. The vistas in Forest Park seem to show Olmsted's influence.

There were 15 main palaces built for the 1904 Fair, but only one (now the Saint Louis Art Museum) was constructed as a permanent building. Today the park is an urban paradise with acres of lawns and gardens, walking trails, playing fields, several lakes, a golf course, bike and boat rentals and “the Grand Basin.” The Art Museum is the dominant architectural feature but there is an open pavilion from the Worlds Fair, the “Jewel Box” glass house, a beautiful boat house, some cafes, the Municipal Theatre, outdoor Opera and the Science Museum. A few illustrative pictures are attached.

The park's PR says that more than 10 million visitors come each year to relax, walk, play sports or attend events. Saturday was a prime day. We parked near the “Grand Basin” where a large wedding was underway. We arrived just in time for the “I dos.” The view from the Grand Basin is a classic of 19^th Century park design. Water in a formal setting with fountains and row boats; marble arch bridges, then a steep lawn with the neo-classic museum at the top of the hill. People and dogs were everywhere. Wedding parties were every where. I lost count at 10 sets of brides, grooms and magenta colored bridesmaids.

We met everyone who was walking a dog and all the little kids who wanted to pet Joli. Most importantly we started to relax. Our new home has a spacious guest room. Please keep in touch and start to plan your visit to the Gateway to the West. Ed