A Personal Reflection on Protests In the South Grand Business District

Apparently, I just missed the mayor. By a minute. I usually don’t hear that I when I walk into The Gelateria, my coffee shop of choice on South Grand Boulevard. And I’m here every day, basically, so the rhythms of the place are pretty well-known to me. After a year of regular visits, I’m down with the staff, who pull my drink before I ask. I can ID the usual, daily allotment of grad students and workers who call this their remote office; the tattoo artists and piercers are daily nods. While the mayor’s left, the buzz remains as I start typing, at least a dozen city staffers scattered around The Gelly’s first floor, phones universally in-hand.

The mayor’s here today because South Grand’s business district, roughly bounded by Arsenal Street on the north and Gravois Avenue on the south, was subject to a streak of vandalism last night, much of it occurring after midnight on portions of the street that the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department had ceded to outliers within the Michael Brown protest group. With flashpoints of civil protest breaking out across the city, the police department’s presence on Grand was found in thick pockets, with many police officers at the intersection of Arsenal and Grand.

There, the action was centered on MoKaBe’s, another linchpin coffee shop/café and one that had become embroiled in social-media controversy in recent days, thanks to the business declaring itself a 24-hour safe space for protesters. On that corner, the scene played out in a visually dramatic way, one that could’ve almost been scripted. Local peace activists, clergy members, and regulars mixed with out-of-towners on one side, while riot-ready police stood on the other, batons drawn behind shields. An armored police vehicle warned everyone to move; for a minute, and for the second time in the evening, I was sure that I’d be netted with everyone else, in a major sweep. (A similar “everyone move, this is an unlawful assembly” message went out earlier, at Grand and Interstate 44. It, too, dissipated.)

But as things got to that exact interesting point, the police moved west, en masse, tear gas still hanging in the air, canisters lying in the gutters. If you believe in “energy,” the corner had weird energy by the million, the kind of tension that can erupt with any single act.

As it turned out, plenty of single acts were taking place farther south, with the bulk of the business district already on lockdown.

Today, from the safety of a coffeehouse occupied by mayoral staffers, I already feel different than a few hours earlier. I’m being told by members of my Facebook news feed that what occurred on South Grand wasn’t violence, that it was a natural reaction by an oppressed group or that the acts were the result of a centuries-old epidemic of racism in our community. The check had come due. The birds were home to roost. And so on.

Except I don’t disagree with a lot of this. The embedded racism of St. Louis pains me. The over-abundance of municipalities, taxing and school districts, fiefdoms, is complicit in this condition. Surveillance is everywhere, used for both ill and good; anyone on the streets last night was likely being recorded by everyone from the FBI to Anonymous, a disquieting thought. There are moments when you can sit and rationally discuss nuance; you can debate theory and have a solid exchange with someone on the opposite side of an issue.

Last night lacked those moments. Instead, I saw rocks thrown into buildings and, honestly, I found that a bit violent. A bit too aggressive, really.

As someone who’s lived off of South Grand off and on since 1969, I’d tell them that The Medicine Shoppe is full of friendly workers who greet you by name and have worked there for years. I have a pickup due there today and will be by for it, grabbing my order from behind a wall of plywood, the lovely art deco of the exterior damaged for a second time since August.

I’d tell them that Parsimonia is a new business, a vintage clothing store that’s one of a string of such businesses to call the area home since the neighborhood’s slow revival in the 1990s. New businesses add density and vitality, giving new owners a voice in neighborhood and business associations that can become tired, stodgy, and unadventurous. Having watched the rock go through this window, I’d tell the thrower they honored no one’s memory or name by that action, advanced no agenda, save for those who deal in tired stereotypes. 

I’d tell them that the gorgeous, floor-to-ceiling glass building at the corner of Juniata and Grand used to be called “the old bank,” as it sat unused for the better part of forever. It’s now Rooster, a locally owned restaurant that’s gone to pains to hire Tower Grove residents.

I’d tell them that you shouldn’t throw a rock through a building’s window when the owner is begging you not to do that, which some folks did at Salon St. Louis. People get hurt when things like that happen. People can also lose their will to visit such a business, or to even operate one, when an area is (rightly or wrongly) considered dangerous. I don’t imagine this long-running business to leave the strip, but I couldn’t imagine someone throwing a rock past a pleading human being before last night.

I’d tell them that chain businesses… Well, chains are chains, and the real money made in them doesn’t always stay in the neighborhood, but there is something to be said for occupied storefronts. And more than a few of those storefronts were damaged last night as well. It’s probably an indictment of my own class issues that I find the flares against these businesses less bothersome. But it’s there, that feeling. We all bring our own baggage to this larger conversation about region-building, race, class, institutional privileges and limits.

This piece has taken me hours to mentally organize and type, being sleep-shy and too attuned to social media. The mayor’s staffers are gone now. Presumably, Grand will be given a higher-dose of more-thinly-distributed police tonight. Hours later, I’m trying to figure out a way to end this. As in: end this piece. Because ending “this,” whatever “this” is, is a job too big for me, or any one person. I can only try by being consistent, by advocating for “peace-only,” not “peace-with-qualifiers.”

And that’s going to be tough. Last night, I strode down the middle of Grand Boulevard, weirdly invisible to most, when I passed a young guy with my same skin color, his bandana pulled up to his eyes. I’d just seen Salon St. Louis stoned, and I wasn’t feeling the good vibes. This guy wasn’t either, from who-knows-what-perspective. We locked eyes briefly, and I saw a flash of anger, and I’m sure that I returned it. It was unsettling. It was unnecessary. It felt sickening and slightly exhilarating, to be honest. And I know that I couldn’t really tell this cat much of anything, as he was part of the dozens-strong contingency of people who’ve come to town to play their own small roles in the huge history pageant that we’re awkwardly presenting to the world.

Guess I can’t begrudge the guy his radical moment, but I’d prefer he do it in his own city. So I’ll try to tell you this: Please move along, fella. Let us get to work fixing our many messes.