After 30 years spent working downtown, I'm happy with an office move that keeps me in the suburbs....
The Cardinals And The Cubs
As the Major League Baseball season winds down, we’re going to have a treat: a four-game series in St. Louis between the Cardinals and the division-leading and World Champion Chicago Cubs. My friends know that I don’t hate the Cubs like a lot of St. Louisans. Heck, I consider Chicago my second city, and...
Old Trees, New Trees
These pictures were taken from the same spot on the Gateway Arch grounds, looking north toward the Arch. The top photo was taken in October 2014, just before workers started removing all of the rosehill ash trees that lined the walkways. The ash trees were threatened by the emerald ash borer, and for that and other...
Back To The Arch
They’re making some progress on the Arch grounds. More than a year ago, contractors for CityArchRiver project started cutting down all of the ash trees, and when they did that, they closed off all of the sidewalks that criss-crossed the park. Just in the last couple of weeks, they reopened some of the sidewalks, and...
Compton Hill Water Tower
Near the intersection of Grand Avenue and Highway 44 in St. Louis stands the Compton Hill Water Tower, built in the 1890s to improve water delivery to city residents. The “guts” of the tower is actually a 140-foot-tall, six-foot-diameter standpipe. The city found that somewhat unsightly, so the brick and limestone tower was built...
The Game After The Storm
It was 10 years ago tonight—July 19, 2006—that I had the best seats I’ve ever had for a baseball game, and it was one of the wildest nights I’ve spent at the ballpark. My brother, who at that time worked for Anheuser Busch, which at that time was one of the better employers in St. Louis,...
The Captains’ Return … Returns!
There have been 161 posts on Shoulblog so far. And the one that, by far, gets the most traffic over time is About That Statue, a series of pictures of the Lewis & Clark Statue on the St. Louis riverfront. The statue, named “The Captains’ Return,” was somewhat unique in that it was regularly...
Ready Or Not, Baseball Season Starts In One Week
I had some time before work this morning, so I took a walk around downtown to take some pictures. I gravitated toward Busch Stadium to see how “Ballpark Village” is coming along, visit the statue garden, and see if the yard looked ready for baseball. Well, it might be ready, but it’s hard to...
Not Much Going On At City Garden Today
Temperature right around 32 degrees. Steady snow falling that felt, really, like rain. And a cold, cold wind whipping around between the city buildings. Not a great day for City Garden, and for much of the time that I walked through today, I was the only soul in sight. A perfect day for black...
Graffiti Building Coming Down
If you’ve driven northbound through St. Louis on I-55, you’ve seen this building. It’s nestled in the curve of the exit ramp that leads you onto the Poplar Street Bridge, and it’s been a point of interest for many years. I’m not sure what it was in its original lifetime, but some time ago...