Medium Essays (1001 - 3000 Words) Archives - Page 3 of 6

1919: The Most Distinguished Woman in Lafayette Square

In his book about Lafayette Square, John Albury Bryan wrote that Phillip North Moore and his wife Eva Perry Moore were the most distinguished couple to have ever lived there.

1857-1898: The German Newspapermen

Here’s the tale of three interlinked German-American newspapermen. They’re featured at the statue of The Naked Truth at Grand and Russell, and all three lived in Lafayette Square.

1878: The Power Couple of the Square

For starters, you won’t find the house and I can’t find a photo. How then to write about the Pulsifers? Probing a more obscure part of Lafayette Square history, it’s instructive in what it touches. Let me draw you a word picture.

1899: Petty Crime With Petty Change

Simple requests sometimes lead to weird tales from the past in the Lafayette Square neighborhood. Here is a recent case in point.

While trying to research both 1300 and 1302 South 18th Street, I found an 1899 newspaper article about the homeowner at 1300.

1939: A Local History of Coal

Walking the alleys of Lafayette Square, I came upon this old coal chute door in the side of a building.

Closer inspection yielded some specifics on its origin.

1889: A Streetcar History of Lafayette Square

In the summer of 2016 a road crew working on Lafayette Avenue in front of Lafayette Park exposed a pair of iron streetcar rails. On request, they set them aside, and they lay near Lafayette and Missouri for several weeks. Unable to reach any consensus for display, the neighborhood may have lost track of them, but it set me to wondering…

At the time of the 1904 Worlds Fair, St. Louis had one of the most extensive surface transportation networks in the country. Small wonder that a trolley became a stage for the 1944 film Meet Me In St. Louis.

1893: Skating Away In Lafayette Park

Ice skating has been popular in Europe for as long as you’d care to record it. However, mass popularity in America developed late in the last half of the 19th Century. The first formal skating club in the U.S. formed in New York in 1863. An undisputed star of the day was early figure skater Jackson Haines.

1930: The Dogleg Corner of Lafayette Square

18th Street at Chouteau has a rich history of causing traffic flow issues. Due to a quirk in the layout, there was nearly always a sharp jog (or dogleg) to the west as one headed south, then 18th Street continued as Second Carondolet. It was this way as far back as 1875, as shown in the Compton and Dry pictorial map:

2020: A Winter Tale Served Cold

The entertainer Danny Kaye (1911 – 1987) was a good many famous things contained in one person. He was an actor, a dancer, comedian, novelty song singer; try “Oh, By Jingo,” here: https://youtu.be/SAw7MA8sAIc A gourmet chef, pilot, and philanthropist, Kaye was also great with children and excelled at story telling.

1956: The First Lafayette Park Playground

An often overlooked memorial

A marker sits on the ground near the Kennett Street entrance to Lafayette Park. It looks like a headstone – concrete chipped by decades of reckless mowing; brass long ago gone green with age. “Creative Play Area” is inscribed on the plaque, and it’s a puzzle, as it overlooks a blank stretch of grass and a large shallow concrete dish. Yep, you’d have to be creative indeed to see it as a special play area. But it didn’t always look this way. The simple marker memorializes a playground once installed here, as well as the man behind it