A native St. Louisan goes looking for the Mississippi, wondering how we lost it
By James Nicholson
Anyone who has walked Thames-side in London or by the Seine in Paris knows the magic of water. Berlin’s main museums sit on an island. Dining literally on the East River, beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, makes Brooklyn’s River Café a habit-forming experience. Bars, restaurants, parks, walks and government buildings draw the public to the waterfronts of other cities.
The best St. Louis has to offer is the Forest Park Boat House.
St. Louis exists because of the Mississippi River. In legend and reality, the two are inextricably linked—even though contemporary reality has all but removed the city from the river. Mile after mile of St. Louis riverfront is devoted to industry, but the general public is denied access. Dead-end streets, locked gates, an unforgivably ugly flood wall and sheer industrial residue conspire to keep the public from the river. If one believes the theory—and anyone who has visited the state park at the eastern tip of St. Charles County will be hard pressed not to embrace it—that the Mississippi actually flows into the Missouri, then what is arguably the largest and most powerful river in the world is all but invisible in the city it created.
At the moment, St. Louisans have access to the Mississippi in only four locations. Bellerive Park in South St. Louis sits on a bluff and provides a postcard-perfect vista of the river. Yet the former lovers’ lane of local renown has been allowed to deteriorate, the hidden entrance challenges the uninitiated and the vegetation on the bluff often invades the park at eye level. All too often the sheer discomfort of visiting the park diminishes the experience of viewing the river.
The opening of the old Chain of Rocks Bridge to foot traffic gave us a stunning opportunity to contemplate the power of the river, yet it provides no access to the river proper. The Mississippi is there for all to see—and off-limits to all who are there. Slightly downriver from the Chain of Rocks and north of the waterworks, an obscure bike-trail park does provide access to the river, in a manner that would make Huck Finn feel right at home. Walk to the edge of a small bluff, hurtle down to the bank and settle yourself in the driftwood, and you can cast a line and fish for hours. It’s sylvan and, for an urban area, relatively unspoiled, but it’s on no one’s path to anywhere, and most visitors to St. Louis (and, for that matter, most St. Louisans) would have no idea how to find it even if they knew it existed.
This funnels nearly everyone who wants contact with the river to the immediate vicinity of the Arch, where, at least until we experience another thousand-year flood, the Mississippi looks more or less like a hardworking, fast-flowing drainage ditch with lots of barge traffic and a fair amount of flotsam. The broad and once-bustling levee that once connected St. Louis to its river was so truncated during the construction of the Arch grounds that it is now an unimpressive remnant of its formerly impressive self. The levee blocks that were once washed by the Mississippi were “salvaged”—probably to replicate levees elsewhere, even as our own became an afterthought of Arch-grounds planning. One can, at least, reach the river, but to do so, one must navigate through a continually shrinking assortment of commercial riverboats unworthy of the name.
The recently opened walkway on the Eads Bridge provides a true view of the river, but—amazingly, considering its engineering and economic significance—neglects to explain to anyone who might like to know that it is the structure that tamed the river.
Laclede’s Landing is cut off from the Mississippi by a continuously financially troubled President, a shade of the Art Deco Admiral that once provided generations of St. Louisans a proper introduction to the Mississippi. Anchoring a true riverboat in cement at the very site where Laclede made his landing is a fitting metaphor for a river city determined to remove itself from the river.
As St. Louis continues to view the Mississippi solely as an industrial entity, other river cities are using their rivers as the focus of civic activity. Cincinnati and Pittsburgh planted their sports stadiums riverside and reactivated their waterfronts. San Antonio’s River Walk is constantly active and tourist-friendly. The Milwaukee River is lined with restaurants and microbreweries and cruised by private and public boats. New York, Memphis and Boston are well aware of the attraction of their riverside areas. Even friendless Detroit boasts riverside restaurants and Olmstead Park, located on an island.
I’m an egalitarian; I believe that every citizen should have equal access to bodies of water
belonging not to individual owners but to all of us. It’s high time St. Louis reunited with the Mississippi. Tourists deserve a variation of the St. Louis riverfront Mark Twain has planted in their brains. Locals deserve greater access to the river and more ways to experience its magic. As options go, standing and staring has to be the least attractive, albeit the only current, possibility. Waiting for another flood to unite the river and the city seems to be the default option for far too many city officials invested in the status quo.
Bring the romance of the river back to the extended St. Louis riverfront, and we’ll bring new life to a city whose official seal just happens to be a steamboat on the Mississippi.
