Day 24 – St. Louis to… St. Louis

Cities are big, man.

On paper, this is my shortest day of this walk, spanning just 8 miles from the St. Louis riverfront to University City, where Wash U is located. In reality, we’ll see what happens–I’ll be wandering a lot through Forest Park. It’s a lovely day for a stroll, though, and I’m excited for a change of pace. 

America’s “urban-rural divide” has almost become a cliche at this point, working its way into any number of subjects and becoming a shorthand to explain Trump, Priuses, footwear, economic spending patterns, faith, television viewing habits, and fast food predilections. But after living the better part of the last three weeks in the country… my goodness, it’s jarring to be back in a city.

Leaving my hotel near the waterfront, I pass under a series of freeway overpasses, a small collection of overnighters stirring beneath the rafters. Broken glass, splintered into tiny shards, munches beneath my feet, while cars accelerate with gusto only to hit the brakes soon after. The pattern repeats. I pass “The Dome at America’s Center,” now bereft of an anchor tenant due to the Rams’ abandonment. Nearby Washington Street thrums to life, with well-dressed employees marching to work; a line of smokers clings to the wall outside of Stifel, one last puff before hitting the clock.

———-

I’m sitting in St. Louis’s Citygarden Sculpture Park, in a table on Kaldi Coffee’s patio. My coffee, which cost $3, promised hints of berries and was served in a cup that tells the story of Kaldi, a 6th century Ethiopian goatherd who noticed how energetic his goats became after eating coffee berries. To my left is a sculpture by Aristide Maillot, called La Riviere, featuring a naked woman, reclining on her left hip, arms raised in the air. The Citygarden map informs me that she is the personification of water. To my right is a man in his late-50s or early-60s. He’s wearing Brooks running shoes, a Nike tank-top, and an Apple Watch. He’s listening to something on his ear buds. In front of me is a younger man with a well-coiffed beard and designer frames, wearing Sperry top-siders. He’s eating avocado toast and drinking coffee from a personal pour-over. 

Despite being in the middle of downtown, this is a delightfully mellow spot. A light perfume wafts from the neighboring trees and bushes, while a cool breeze drifts from the pool surrounding the water lady. The shade is impenetrable. Everyone is relaxed, content, at ease. And in no hurry at all. It would be easy, indeed, to watch the world drift by from this chair.

———

A couple of miles from the riverfront, “Downtown West” greets me with a gap-toothed smile, or maybe a grimace, as parking lots sweep aside many of the grander, older structures, leaving only occasional islands to interrupt the pavement. A currency exchange business, drug rehabilitation center, and loanshark pass in quick succession on the left, while the SLC police department’s headquarters tower above them all on the right. A man urinates in the alley adjacent to the police parking lot, while two physically disabled men crouch outside the rehab center.

It doesn’t last long, though. Edifices conspire to retake the town, as “Downtown West” gives way to “Midtown” and its primary tenant, St. Louis University. Business activity perks up, with chain restaurants, pharmacies, and supermarkets all converging along Lindell Blvd. Even the road’s name has changed with the transition, leaving “Olive St” to the DW. I continue onward to “Central West End,” where the towering Whole Foods gives away the game. This neighborhood is defined, though, by the staggeringly ornate Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, a 20th century triumph that features one of the world’s largest mosaic collections, comprised of nearly 42 million pieces of glass. At 10:30am, there are no worshippers inside; indeed, the place is all but empty, save for a modest tour group. Outside, a student group comes to marvel at the fish in an adjacent pond, only to dissipate soon after.

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Lindell Blvd leads into Forest Park, St. Louis equivalent to New York’s Central Park, or San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Filling nearly 1400 acres, Forest Park has miles of trails, ponds and creeks, museums, a zoo, and a golf course. The city’s well-groomed mock wilderness, it’s surprisingly barren on a weekday afternoon, with only occasional joggers interrupting my solitude. 

Washington University sits just west of the park. Another branch of Kaldi Coffee sits astride the line between the two, filled with students, their Macs, and their iPhones, most dressed scruffily in shorts, t-shirts, and sandals. Air conditioning courses through the building, keeping the temperature in a very comfortable sub-70 range, and nobody suffers from a lack of snacks. Work happens here. Gradually. 

————–

This is the thinnest of cross-sections of a city, a handful of hours spent walking westward, nearly in a straight line. Even this, though, challenges the lie of a singular “urban” identity. Without question, though, the rhythms of life feel fundamentally different here. This doesn’t need to be embedded within an accompanying set of value judgments; I make no evaluation of what is “better” or “worse” about each, though I recognize the ease with which those conclusions can be drawn, and the temptation to do exactly that.

What’s striking, I suppose, is how willing we are to leap to assumptions of commonality when it comes in service to differentiating ourselves from others. The pursuit of arbitrary difference only bolsters an equally capricious similarity, in service to dubious ends.