St. Louis has a deep-rooted literary history that’s inspired generations of wordsmiths. That tradition will be strengthened with the inauguration of The High Low, a new literary arts space opening in Midtown at 3301 Washington Avenue.
A project of the Kranzberg Arts Foundation, the new space is a multilevel arts hub dedicated to serving the literary arts community and encouraging creative expression of the written and spoken word.
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The first level will house a café (open 7 a.m.–2 p.m. daily) serving Blueprint coffee and fast-casual food by James Beard Award nominee Rob Connoley. It’ll also hold gallery and event/performance space and a library with a rotating collection of books, magazines, and newspapers for in-house use free to the public. “Welcome Tables,” in the tradition of James Baldwin, will encourage conversation and camaraderie.
The large picture windows of the second-floor Writers’ Suite look out on Grand Center. This area will be the home to KAF’s writers-in-residence program. Office space has been rented by River Styx, the National Conference for Community and Justice of Metropolitan St. Louis (NCCJ), Volunteer Lawyers and Accountants for the Arts (VLAA), the St. Louis Poetry Center, UrbArts, and St. Louis poet laureate Jane Ellen Ibur.
“We couldn’t be more excited,” says Sue Greenberg, executive director of VLAA. “Working in a venue that’s dedicated to freedom of expression through written and spoken word will be a perfect fit for us.”
NCCJ St. Louis executive director Gregory Donovan shares that sentiment: “This opportunity and new space will allow us to continue to deliver on our mission to work toward true equity and promote diversity and inclusion for all people in our community.”
Even the building’s exterior will be artistically meaningful. In the alley behind The High Low, local artists and Mexican street artist Remix will collaborate on a mural that, explains KAF director of visual infrastructure Gina Grafos, is an example of how “we are thinking about our growth as a foundation and tying all of the different buildings together in a visually dynamic way.”
