E. St. Louis

Has anyone been to the Casino Queen? How far is Collinsville from E. St Louis? Also, do a lot of the poor people in E. St Louis use the Casino Queen? Are there any white people living there? Can anything be done to save it? Do people live in Sauget and in Alorton?

I've never been to the Casino Queen but I'm from st.louis. E. St louis,well, don't know whether the political climate is ready for a big change. I've heard investors are buying up commercial property though.

Are they going to gentrify the city?

Just use it as a convenient location to downtown St. Louis a place where liquor laws are looser. Besides, the population of E.St. Louis is concentrated in the downtown area.

nt

I've posted a good post and nobody's responding. Did the same thing the other day only to find that someone posts the same story today and gets feed back. What's up? Mines "Let's Ask Fox News... I'd like feed back.

nt

I have family scattered all over that area, but I'm not as up on the recent developments as I should be.

As for Sauget, I thought the only thing there was the Monsanto plant. Sauget used to be called Monsanto, until the PR nightmare forced them to change the name. Maybe just the plant and employees are there.

There are VERY FEW whites living in ESL. Some of them are related to me. I've heard of some gentrification, but I doubt it is rampant. The most I can see for ESL is turning into a large entertainment district for St. Louis. I feel the relatively low wages paid to the residents will keep the area from ever being what it was in 1960 or so: an "All-America City".

You're right that'll never happen, it's unfortunate. Did you go on the Eads bridge on the 4th? Great view of the fireworks! Kind of cool to walk to IL from MO. First time for me.

...they reopened the Eads Bridge? :o I thought the Chain Of Rocks Bridge was the coolest - did they ever demolish it? I heard something about a pedestrian footbridge, but maybe that's Eads?

If so, when did they open it back up?

There was a big stink about that. The bridge's closing would have cut off car-less ESLers from jobs, resources, entertainment, recreation, etc., that they could get across the river in St. Louis. Many saw this as a prime example of institutional racism.

I know there is a Casino there now.

...of white people are there.

Other than seeing it go by while on an Amtrak train.

St. louis is a great town! Oh, yeah others call it a city but really it's just a real big town. Lots of good restaurants, thriving nightlife, blues etc. We love to have fun. Out-of-towners always remark on how nice we are!

I have heard it is a nice place.

I went to Collinsville High School. Once upon a time long ago.

:evilgrin:

Eloriel

E. St. Lousis isn't?

Awww, nevermind.

Eloriel

it is really important (beyond political discussion) I have a good friend who lives in St. Louis but works just outside of East St. Louis and should have a good lay of the land. If it is very important I can get in touch with her. Let me know by PM if this is the case.

and why it has problems.

but from what I hear isn't East St. Louis in the jurisdiction of Illinois...so the tax laws are all funky because its right across the bridge from a major metropolitan area. That's just my guess...but from what I've heard and seen, its a pretty rough area. I'd say 85% of the population is black...but the surrounding towns...Edwardsville..Alton...Sauget, are overwhelmingly white.

The towns or Alorton and Sauget exist so that Monsanto doesn't have to pay taxes to E. St. Louis.

Sauget family owns property of Sauget including where Monsanto and other businesses have 100yr leases. Funny huh?

Why were they allowed to become separate cities?

close neighbor. Tis true E. st. louis has had a decline in part b/c of beating of downtown prisoner, he won ownership to city hall. Not quite sure what happened but I think he sold it off to private investors.

There are siginifiant numbers of Jewish and Elderly voters who trend Dem. We get fairly good reception when we canvass in Ladue. It is not fair to pigeonhole someone b/c of where they live.

When East St. Louis was hit by White Flight, it was hit hard. There was no middle-class tax base left behind. St. Louis has also suffered more than most Rust Belt/Northeastern cities by White Flight because the city is separate politically from its suburbs and tax base.
Also, ESL is in the bottom land. Collinsville is on high ground. Most of our noxious industries are in the bottom lands, such as steel mills, smelters, chemical works, etc. The high ground in the St. Louis area has always been much more desirable. No floods, a little cooler, less mosquitoes. The flood plain across from St. Louis is huge...about 10 miles wide. At the Bluff Line is where the Illinois middle-class suburbs of St. Louis begin.

So becaues it is in a flood pain that is why E. St. Louis has been devistated.

is problem 1. No cities in the flood plain here are very desirable. It became a ghetto in the flood plain after the middle-class left.. North St. Louis has a sizable ghetto, White-Flight-enabled, that would be gentrified before ESL, but most people think its "scary" in both places and will not go there, much less invest there.

As for St louis it depends on which neighborhood. But downtown absolutely. South city doing great as well as tower grove and CWE.

I live in University City.

I have some clients who own property in E. St. Louis and I can tell you that property values are not appreciating there like they are elsewhere. I know there has been some push to upgrade the riverfront area of E. St. Louis.

They built an absurd fountain that shoots four pillars of water over 200 ft in the air at noon every day. When I worked downtown I watched it in dismay. All that money for a ridiculous fountain and no investment in the area around it to make it more fit for construction.

I think you will see E. St. Louis gentrify in the next 10-15 years. Urban sprawl has to end somewhere. With property values staying low and the continued westaward and eastward growth of the subaurbs, E. St. Louis will become attractive to developers in the not-to-distant future. Unfortunately, if the construction goes to the same companies as usually get it, there will be but a tiny trickle of jobs and growth for the residents of E. St. Louis.

I also think completion of the metrolink extension will help bring economic opportunity to E. St. Louis.

Hey YaYa! I'm a U. City High Grad.

I disagree about ESL becoming attractive to developers. I wish it were so, but North St. Louis is much nicer geographically and architecturally, and people continue to invest in the exurbs of ChuckCo; JeffCo and FrankCo., fools that they are.

I grew up in Louisiana so I did not go to high school here (that really confuses people in this town, they don't know how to judge me).

I have several friends that graduated from U City high. They are all interesting people; it must be a great place to go to school (or at least it was).

Withrespect to E. STL development. I think you are correct about other areas being better opportnities now. I think E STL is several years away from gentrification. They have lots of space in the warehouse district still and as you said the North is attractive. I just don't see how this town can keep pushing west. At some point the drive becomes more than is bearable.

to a certain extent. Downtown commercial will develop first. There's potential there. gentrification, I don't know subarbs are a good distance from downtown and some of them in spite of reputation are quite nice. Fellow St. louisan hi and good evening to all.

Casino Queen

Well the money's pouring down and the people all look down,
And it's floating out of town
I hit the second deck and I spend my paycheck,
And my wife that I just met, she's looking like a wreck

Casino Queen, my lord you're mean
I've been gambling like a fiend on your tables so green

I always bet on black, blackjack,
I'll pay you back
The room fills with smoke and I'm already broke,
And the dealer keeps on joking as he takes my last token

Casino Queen, my lord you're mean
I've been gambling like a fiend on your tables so green

Casino Queen, my lord you're mean
I've been gambling like a fiend on your tables so long

edit - fixed bad paste - incidentally, Wilco is a band from the St Louis area.

yes, the whole city!

http://www.cjfearnley.com/fuller-faq-5.html#ss5.7

"I originally came to East St. Louis to discuss the design and possible realization of the Old Man River's City, having been asked to do so by East St. Louis community leaders themselves... It is moon-crater-shaped: the crater's truncated cone top opening is a half-mile in diameter, rim-to-rim, while the truncated mountain itself is a mile in diameter at its base ring. The city has a one-mile-diameter geodesic, quarter-sphere transparent umbrella mounted high above it to permit full, all-around viewing below the umbrella's bottom perimeter. The top of the dome roof is 1000 feet high. The bottom rim of the umbrella dome is 500 feet above the surrounding terrain, while the crater-top esplanade, looks 250 feet radially inward from the unbrella's bottom, is at the same 500-foot height. From the esplanade the truncated mountain cone slopes downwardly, inward and outward, to ground level 500 feet below.

"The moon crater's inward and outward, exterior-surface slopes each consist of fifty terraces - the terrace floors are tiered vertically ten feet above or below one another. All the inwardly, downwardly sloping sides of the moon crater's terraced cone are used for communal life; its outward-sloping, tree-planted terraces are entirely for private life dwelling."...

Old Man River would have provided housing and services for several thousand families in the most depressed section of St. Louis. It would have been built and managed by a non-profit corporation, and taken something like 20 years to complete; in Fitzgibbon's evocative phrase, it would have been not only good housing, but a ``job machine,'' a huge project creating new industries in the area by virtue of its immensity. Fuller claimed that it would be the incubator of a new classless, raceless society. However, it never got anything close to the $1 billion required to build it, and the St. Louis municipal government never seemed to have taken it seriously.

They got as far as building a model of it in an East St. Louis playground...

Famous East St. Louisans include Josephine Baker and Jackie Joyner-Kersee; not shabby for a place that size!

My dad was born in E. St. Louis, but when he went into the USAF at 17, his family moved to the (then) suburb of Washington Park. When I went there as a child, Washington Park was just like the rest of E. St. Louis, a depressing slum. But, my grandfather would get mad as hell if you addressed mail to him using E. St. Louis. Dammit, he lived in WASHINGTON PARK.

Also, I remember being about 7 or 8 and driving through E. St. Louis, near the high school. My dad told me that was where he attended school. It looked like someone had dropped a bomb on the place. That building didn't look fit for habitation by rats. A striking image that has stayed with me. Think South Bronx.

I hate to bring race into things, but I think it speaks to why ESL has remained ungentrified. There is a lingering resentment among whites in the area toward the blacks that live in ESL. I think they feel that they once had a beautiful city, and these black folks ruined it. This is why the county seat of St. Clair County, Belleville would have the police follow black motorists until they left town, or why the main highway into Belleville from ESL was blocked off when housing was built there. For that reason, I feel that if ESL ever gentrifies, it will be people from outside the area who do so.

Lastly, everyone who knows anything knows the scene in "Vacation" where the Griswold family goes through "St. Louis" and has their car graffitied and vandalised knows that's really E. St. Louis. ;-) I'm from there - I can kid.

Here about the crime spree that went on on the otherside of the river? Apparently some teens and young adults thought it would be fun to victimize ppl. Years ago, my car broke down at night while cutting through e st louis to cwe from belleville visiting a friend, I literally left my car ran from around city hall to downtown bars, January freezing cold, went to a payphone called the boyfriend du jour and a very nice afro-american man let me sit in his warm car until help arrived. Never forgot it!

nt

nt

in this country. just like the one in the city where you live :shrug:

The "not safe" areas of all metro areas are similar, such as the South Bronx, South Chicago, etc. The middle-class abandonded these areas, the infrastructure went to hell, and the remaining poor are blamed for destroying the neighborhood, thus further demonizing the underclass.

What about DC, Carlos? How do you think parts of the district become "scary" (as you would put it) ? Same White Flight issues IMO.

this is the second time this poster has implied that he's afraid of black people, or at least afraid of the areas where many live...the first time was about Baltimore. i've asked him before about DC. not just white flight, btw...black flight also. those who have the money to leave often do, which compounds the problem.

My uncle's a police dispatcher there. He'll hook ya up. ;-)

I used to joke about my uncle's being the last white family left in ESL, although I know they're not.

Ya know - I never felt unsafe in ESL. It looked like a freaking war zone, but I guess because I have a connection to the place, it never scared me. Made me think about things, but never scared me.

Also, I can't believe Carl Officer's name hasn't come up yet. Remember him? When 60 Minutes does a piece about how you are the mayor of a city you refuse to live in, that's saying something. Is Officer's funeral home still around?

he was in the witness protection program. apparently, someone in his family dropped the dime on some political scam there. if i took someone to east oakland or south central, he would probably die of fright...and they are paradises compared to come other places further east.

when i was in high school, our teams had to play a school in south central...i was in the band. sometimes people would shoot at our side of the bleachers...now THAT'S SCARY.

but people are people for the most part. i never feel afraid just because all the people in a community are poor or the same color.
if i want to feel fear and loathing...i can always go to some wealthy, all-white areas :D

Honestly - what IS that? LOL

Actually, lily white suburbs scare me, too. WTF is with that stepford look those people have? :scared:

i suppose i can understand our friend's fear in that sense. i wonder if he understands mine. i didn't feel afraid in NYC or detroit, but i sometimes feel a tinge of fear when driving through central california, through the michigan countryside, or in the portland suburbs. not overwhelming, of course but i feel much safer in urban areas. when i took a greyhound from portland to olympia. wa to visit a friend, she warned me not to stray to far from the bus stations...white supremacists in the area, was her fear. aside from one scary incident with a guy in a pickup truck, my stay in olympia was most lovely.

He recently was re-elected after around a decade being out of office. He can't do much worse than the mayors who served in the interim.

Easy for me to say. as I don't know anyone that can squeeze water out of a rock.

Goodness!!! :o

That's a surprise; well, maybe not. I don't think I'd want the job.

It should properly be called Middle-Class Flight instead of White Flight. On the Missouri side of the river, more African-Americans now live in St. Louis County then in St. Louis City (these are separate counties). Most people with the means will leave once things are perceived as "unsafe" (evidently, unsafe is now code for black neighborhoods, at least here in the STL). Thus, people keep moving farther and farther from the city, while still cherry-picking St. Louis' under-rated, world-class cultural venues.

I still like the term White Flight, since whites are the first to bail and send the snowball crashing down hill.

I remember Jiancito's "scary places" thread. He won't answer my question about why he thinks DC has "scary places" and if it differs from other inner-city areas.

East St. Louis proper is predominatly an African-American community, although there are other ethnic groups there in small numbers, including caucasians.

For almost its entire history, the small city has been corrupt and destitude. Most notable has been its political corruption-- from mafia run government in the early days to notorious embezzeling crooks in the recent past.

For a good understanding of the city, its past and present corruption, as well as the difficulties facing this community, I suggest you read the biography of Bob Shannon-- East St. Louis High School football coach of the 1980s who while leading the underdog high school to several Illinois State Championships against ALL odds, changed the lives of so many of the young men who were part of those teams.

The name of the book is: The Right Kind of Heroes: Bob Shannon and the East St. Louis Flyers by Kevin Horrigan.

Amazon link:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/094557570X/qid=1060784897/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/102-6469292-4285754?v=glance&s=books

I will read that book.

East St. Louis was not predominantly black until the White Flight of the 1960's. They have had a number of African-Americans beginning with the Great Migration. Google on the 1918 race riots in ESL, one of the darker episodes in US history and considered by some to be the deadliest race riots ever here.

You are right about the history of corruption, and the ongoing financial problems. Before the middle-class abandoned ESL, corporations did the same thing... without moving an inch. The largest companies formed their own cities: National City was National Stockyards, Alorton was Alcoa (or some other giant aluminum concern), Sauget was Monsanto until they changed the name. This corporate flight put a hurt on ESL finances going well back into last century.

Thanks for the tip on Bob Shannon's book. He's helped many of the world-class athletes that are from ESL. Famous ESL athletes include JJK, Kellen Winslow (immortalized in Canton last weekend) Bryan Cox and Darious(sp) Miles of the NBA, off the top of my head. There are many, many others.

I was referring to the municipal corruption, not the destitude environment.

Here he is a black man from the south, and he did all of this great and noble stuff for those poor kids in E. St. Louis but, as I have understood it, he is VERY conservative in his political and social views.

I grew up in Edwardsville, another part of the St. Louis metro area which has transformed from small town in the 70's when I was growing up to suburban bedroom community these days.

I was taught as a young child that E. St. Louis was unwelcome to white people - the population at that time was about 90% black. It was acknolwedged that a primary reason for this was incessant poverty and the crime that went along with it. Traveling to E. St. Louis for high school sports events wasn't consider a particularly safe activity. E. St. Louis had the most successful football and track programs in the state for many many years - Jackie Joyner and her family are products of E. St. Louis track and field - to her credit Jackie has built a large sports/community center in E. St. Louis. The constant fear in a number of towns (Alton as a good example) that had growing black populations was ending up as "another E. St. Louis."

To me, one of the most depressing components is the rife corruption in E. St. Louis government...at one period, lack of city government money for garbage collection led to literally huge piles of garbage all around the city.

I work in a public library in the state of Illinois and as in many other areas, E. St. Louis has received significant state money to improve libraries. A new central library was recently built, but questions about management linger.

It is a very depressing situation...from what I've heard through the years, E. St. Louis was once a beautiful city in the first part of the 20th century but it is now decades that there has been little hope...one of those corners of America that is far too easy for most to ignore.

nt

Yeah I live in Ladue..and the majority of the yards in my neighborhood still has Talent signs and bumper stickers :vomit: but in actuality its really not that bad. As someone said earlier a large Jewish population is situated in Ladue. U. City is really nice, especially the Loop. Awesome diversity there. Have you ever been to St. Louis bubble tea Gumbo?

nt