IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO COME LIVE HERE DON'T DO IT.
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6/1/2008
Saint Louis is a Mid American city. St Louis is a mid western city. St. Louis is a middle to low brow city with very little to offer culturally which has any stimulating quality. You will read about the architecture and the parks; you will read about the universities and colleges; you will read about the night life. Please do not believe a word of it. A grain of salt, please.
(You will also read about the high crime (tue)and poor schools (also true). But those are issues beyond the scope of this comment).
Yes, there is fine architecture in St. Louis, though you most likely won't be able to buy it. There was much more fine architecture before the low brow politicians and even lower browed developers pulled it down,wiping out a vast architectural history from Victorian to Art Deco to 50's moderne and destroying the soul of the downtown and the city proper, as well. It was destroyed for two reasons: to shift the black population and to get white people out of the city and into the suburbs; those very suburbs being invented and built by the same people who, coincidentally, were destroying the inner city and the downtown.
St. Louis is numb with racism. Both sides of the issue are at frustating ends with each other. And, it's subtle but intense. Like rust, it keeps on going. I know white people who have lived here all their lives who never had a social interaction with a black person other than hired help; and black people who have had little or no interaction with white people.(same context, perhaps). This in a city that's pretty evenly split along racial lines!
There are two large universities here, one small one, and a few small colleges. Washington University and St. Louis University are the two major educational instituions but neither one has much input or offers much to the city. This is not Boston where the colleges and universities are felt and heard from. (Or Manhattan or Berekely, for that matter). In fact both major schools are rather conservative instituions from a political and social standpoint. The only time you hear from St.Louis University is when some catholic priest has a complaint about an issue like abortion or gay marriage.
Yes there are lots of restaurants. Most of the ethnic ones (vietnamese, chinese, italian, mexican, greek, etc) have watered down their menus to fit the tastes of, or to attract, those accustomed to the local meat and potatoes food ethic. this is the land of fat people, one must not forget, so the fast food outlets really dominate. And those restaurants which are acclaimed, and there are some, would be minor minor players in food cities like NYC, Miami, San Francisco,Chicago, or even Dallas.
The St. Louis art musuem is a mid level place with a competent but rather boring assembly of stuff you've seen everywhere else, and not particularly good examples of it. Lots of French Impressionist shows come and go. The symphony, a major orchestra,is humbled by having to play mid level music. Lots of Tschiakovsky and Beethoven's 9th.
There is, however, one gem here, and that is the Puliltzer Musuem, a vanity musuem run by the Pulitzer foundation headed by Emily R. Pulitzer, wife of Joseph Pulitzer. But this is a private place, open two or so days a week showing, mostly, the private collection of a very very very wealthy art aware family. The building is gorgeous too, built, of course, buy the Pulitzers. But it really has naught to do with St. Louis other than it was seemingly plunked down here and lives it's own life to it's own beat.
Yes there is night life, if you call going to a baseball game night life; or sitting in a bar listening to provincial musicians play provincial music of a not quite fresh manufacture. Dated, awkward, self conscious at best describes the social scene here regardless of it's colour. (or part of town, which is the same thing as colour).
St. Louis is a city that "once was". It has a great inferiority complex. So great, in fact, that many artists of high level accomplishment or ambition, be they pop culture or fine art oriented leave, very quickly. and those who remain are destined to be looked upon by the natives in two quite contradictory ways. Scorned because they stayed, (and everyone knows that if you are making art in St. Louis you must be mediocre); and praised because what really is wanted in St. Louis is mediocrity.(self fullfilling). It is telling that one of the most common descriptions you come across whilst talking or reading about an artist or scientist or anyone, actually, who lived here, left, and became famous is; so and so is a "former St. Louisan." They are actually proud of the people who left; and they give little definitive support to those who stay.
The urban sprawl, is like the level of cutlure; it's mediocre at best, with indefinable suburbs melting into other indefinable suburbs, connected by the ubiquitous strip mall. For all practical purposes you could be in Los Angeles or Houston, minus the palm trees.
St. Louis city has no malls. The malls are in the suburbs. The woman from Wentzville lives more than 30 miles away from St. Louis city, and most likely, seldom, if ever goes into the city because everything she would ever need is in those malls. Very little is left in the city its self. It all moved to the suburbs.
I guess that sums it up.
antonio | Steelville, MO