St. Louis Neighborhoods Guide 2015: Grand Center’s Past, Present, and Future

Past

In 1900, midtown was considered a second, junior downtown. Later that decade, after several theaters arose, it took on a more specific identity as the Great White Way, our theater and vaudeville district. The Odeon went up in 1904, followed by the Princess in 1912, the Victoria in 1917, and the Empress and Grand Central in 1913. By the late 1920s, there was also the Liberty, the Missouri, and the Fox. In 1925, the year in which this photo was taken, the 4,500-seat St. Louis Theatre, modeled after the opera house in Versailles, opened its doors. We know it now, remodeled and with a few thousand fewer seats, as Powell Hall.

Present

Disinvestment in midtown began in the 1950s, when car culture took hold. But by the ’70s and ’80s, the call to preservation had begun. In the early 1980s, a group of organizations formed the City Center Redevelopment Corp. In 1987, the name Grand Center was adopted. It’s been slow, steady progress since. Two of the area’s anchors, the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts and Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, recently celebrated 10-year anniversaries. But progress has accelerated as local arts and media organizations such as KDHX-FM, Craft Alliance, Channel 9, and St. Louis Public Radio have relocated to Grand Center.

Future

The proposed Grand Center Art Walk aims to boost the area’s identity and safety, while leading pedestrians across the neighborhood. Co-founded by Wash. U. professors Heather Woofter and Sung Ho Kim, architecture firm Axi:Ome submitted a design, complete with periscopes that may one day allow visitors to “look up and over Grand Center, since there’s a lot of elevational change that you don’t notice due to the scale of the institutions,” says Woofter. A series of “interventions” call for lighting elements, wind devices, and rainwater collectors. The end goal: to beautify, connect the dots between venues, and familiarize visitors with the area.