ALAN writes:

We met when you were still in your glory days in the 1950s and when I was a wee lad.  Among my earliest memories of you are the colorful parades and bands who marched along Washington Avenue through the garment district, where thousands of people worked in companies that made clothing, hats, and shoes; when my father took me downtown and we walked along the cobblestones on the riverfront; and when my mother and I stepped aboard the majestic S.S Admiral for a river cruise from downtown to Jefferson Barracks.

As I grew up, you continued to flourish in the early 1960s when groups of businessmen expressed confidence and optimism in the pages of their Downtown Newsletter.

Goodbye to the Ambassador Theater and Lowe’s State Theater, Miss Hulling’s Cafeterias, the Forum Cafeteria, and the Pope’s Cafeterias.  And to the old Sheraton-Jefferson Hotel, with its attractive lobby, bank of pay telephones, Gas House Room, and elegant Gold Room, where actress Lucille Ball spoke one winter evening in 1965.

Goodbye to the big Woolworth and Kresge dime stores, Hunleth Music on Broadway, the Mark Twain Hotel, the Old Spaghetti Factory, and the magnificent Union Station, where we greeted loved ones when they arrived on passenger trains in the 1950s.

Goodbye to the masculine police officers –never women– who directed traffic at busy intersections, and to the streetcars and many bus routes that crisscrossed downtown.

Goodbye to the magazine departments in drug stores and department stores, to Gladys at the Baldwin Piano Company, and to my good friend Mr. T. and the Catholic book store on Olive Street where he worked.

When she worked as a secretary before getting married, one of my cousins lived downtown in the Evangeline Residence, and she had fond memories of the Orient Restaurant on North Seventh Street.

On many Sunday afternoons, my mother took me downtown to dine in our favorite cafeteria. To get there, we walked two-three blocks through a canyon of tall buildings and warehouses, with few people on the streets because most stores did not open on Sundays. Safe as could be, every step along the way.

Goodbye to the Arcade Building, where my Aunt Helen worked as an elevator operator in years long before I was born.  And to the Western Union office, the all-night drug store, and the typesetting shop where my boyhood friend Tony’s father worked. And to the tall apartment buildings where retired men and women lived in 1969 and from which they walked several miles throughout downtown on their daily constitutional.

And how could I forget those evenings in 1964-’65 when my mother and I would “go downtown” to dine in a cafeteria and then go shopping at Famous-Barr, a department store that occupied an entire city block and had ten floors of merchandise.  Funny thing about those years: We never had to organize a search party to find sales clerks.

On some such evenings, I enjoyed the happy coincidence of hearing Petula Clark’s hit record “Downtown” being played on my pocket-size transistor radio. It doubled the pleasure. I remember feeling the very confidence and uplift that she projected through those words, that melody, and her wonderful voice.

Nor was I the only one to hear and feel those things in that song. Businessmen in the Downtown St. Louis consortium were looking upward for our city when they quoted portions of the lyric in their Annual Report for 1964-’65.  What she sang about was right there in front of us.  The irony was that “Downtown” was an atypical song in a mid-1960s radio world of increasingly raucous-and-rebellious rock “music”.

Goodbye to the escalators and elevators that took us to the book department on the sixth floor or the record department on the eighth floor. We spent many pleasant hours browsing in that book department. It was there that my father purchased Dorothy Horstman’s Sing Your Heart Out, Country Boy and where I purchased Edwin Newman’s I Must Say, and other books about music, science, or baseball.

Famous-Barr gave Eagle Stamps with each purchase. The store was always immaculate and tastefully decorated. On many such evenings we walked into the store from the bridge above Olive Street from their parking garage, in which parking levels were color-coded, so that it was easy to remember where we parked. And there was always the feeling of being safe and confident, whether in the store, in the garage, or on the streets.

Goodbye to those happy hours of browsing in downtown’s oldest and biggest antiquarian bookshop, where I discovered treasures in old books and tall stacks of old picture magazines like Life and Collier’s and the Saturday Evening Post, and where I met veteran sportswriter Bob Burnes when he walked in to purchase a copy of his own book.

Goodbye to the evenings in 1968-’70 when I did research in the Central St. Louis Public Library building at 1301 Olive Street, consulting decades-old city directories and newspaper articles from the 1890s, and from which I departed five minutes before closing time and then walked seven-eight blocks to catch my bus that would take me home, never with any concern for my safety.

Goodbye to Bader’s Art Supply store, where customers could “Learn to Draw” with artist Jon Gnagy, and to the Municipal Reference Library, where my friend Pat worked for many years. Goodbye to the big “Tree of Lights” on Eighth Street at Christmastime, and to the display windows in your three big department stores that became a Christmas wonderland. Goodbye to Mary, Clyde, and Carl, to Dave, Rita, and Laverne, to Pauline, Pete, and Juanita, to the ever-reliable newspaper vender on Pine Street, and to that cold day in 1968 with Susan and Richard.

Goodbye to the Doubleday Book Shop, the donut shops, S.G. Adams office supply store, the Map Shop, the Mavrakos Candies stores, the wonderful Mercantile Library, the Frisco Building and the Katy Railroad offices in the Railway Exchange Building, where my uncle worked; and to breakfast at Teutenberg’s Cafeteria and supper at the Quiet Corner Restaurant.

Goodbye to the drug store on Fourth Street where the old Mansion House Hotel stood many decades earlier, and to the dental office on Olive Street where I almost met veteran sportswriter Bob Broeg, and to the Adam’s Mark Hotel and the chili parlor on Pine Street where friend Kathy and I enjoyed breakfast and conversation on many mornings before the workday began, and to the days in later years when we walked throughout downtown, pausing here and there to remember stores, offices, theaters, restaurants, or streetscapes from the 1950s-’80s, “ages ago, when we were young…..”

Goodbye to KMOX Radio studios overlooking the riverfront, from which the legendary John McCormick addressed listeners for decades on his all-night program, the younger but equally-legendary Ron Elz hosted many programs, and where my friend Elaine worked behind the scenes and behind the sounds.

Goodbye to KSD TV studios on Olive Street, where St. Louis housewife-turned-entertainer Charlotte Peters presented her daily variety program of music, interviews, and comedy sketches.

When you’re alone and life is making you lonely, you can always go downtown….  Linger on the sidewalks where the neon signs are pretty….  The lights are much brighter there…  You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares.  So go downtown…..

               — “Downtown”, words and music by Tony Hatch, sung by Petula Clark

All those things were true in 1965. None of them is true today. To the contrary: If you “go downtown” in St. Louis today, your troubles are just beginning.

Some parts of Old Downtown survive in their material form. No parts of Old Downtown survive in their metaphysical form. The thrill of old is gone. The anticipation, the feeling, the texture, the sparkle, the uplift …. are long-gone. That entire cultural setting and sense of life are gone forever.

When principled White men ran the city of St. Louis in the 1930s-’60s, they gave us: A downtown thriving with commerce, industry, entertainment, dining, theaters, nightlife, shopping, three big department stores, policemen directing traffic, efficient mail delivery, thousands of people walking here and there, and unapologetic law enforcement. They left all of it to their descendants, who then gave it all away.

(For anyone who missed it, the key word in that paragraph is “White”.)

Goodbye, my Old Downtown. What terrible things they have done to you. I have now lived longer than the years when your lights gleamed their brightest. I prefer to remember you as you were in your glory years of charm and splendor.

— Comments —

Dianne writes:

This reminded me of my hometown of Wallingford, Connecticut.

Reading, PA would also very much fit this description, even more so, being a larger city.

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