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Ice cream hike offered opportunity to muse on St. Louis’ past
(by Jeff Fister - May 26, 2010)
So how far would you walk for ice cream?
Twelve miles?
The event showed up on my son’s Boy Scout schedule a few months ago: the “ice cream hike.”
This sounded interesting.
Not all Boy Scout hikes are over the river and through the woods. My sons are part of Troop 98, based at St. Roch school in the Central West End. There is a tradition at Troop 98 — and at other urban Boy Scout troops — of plotting hikes through the city, often along historic or architecturally significant routes. And this one ended at a place that had concretes made of chocolate.
I went on an urban hike several years ago. It was a frozen morning in January. We started at Carondelet Park in south city, hiked to Jefferson Barracks Park in South County, then back to Carondelet Park. It was a gritty walk: past a homeless tent city near River Des Peres and along a string of vacant storefronts. The view of the Mississippi from Jefferson Barracks was nice, but we only stopped twice — once to eat frozen pizza and another to warm our toes and use the restrooms at a QuikTrip.
But this hike sounded more promising. It would start at Crown Candy Kitchen in north St. Louis city and end at Ted Drewes in south city. I didn’t really think of the intervening 10 miles or so… just the ice cream at both ends.
We gathered for the hike at the DeBaliviere/Forest Park MetroLink station. It was not a large group. It included my two sons, three other scouts and two scout leaders, Paul Winter and Ralph Wafer.
I still feel a little funny going on “scoutings.” I was a Boy Scout for about three weeks when I was a kid; we had a bad leader and the whole thing seemed vaguely conformist and militaristic. And for a pre-teen, not fun.
But two of my sons have found a good troop and a good leader. I help out with the activities I like — hiking and camping — and my sons go along with the rest. I don’t quite understand the whole passion for collecting “badges” but then there’s the “fun stuff.” Last summer, one of my sons took a train to New Mexico with scouts and spent 10 days backpacking in the mountains, an experience I would never have the time, money or opportunity to give him.
Anyway, the ice cream hike was attractive to me in several ways: not just the chocolate, but the chance to walk through the city and glimpse the architecture and history.
Ralph Wafer was a good person to have along; a veteran scout leader, he’s also an urban architect and St. Louis history buff.
We got off MetroLink at Laclede’s Landing around 9:30 a.m. and headed north. Though I consider myself a “city person” I had never walked north of the landing or taken the Riverfront Trail. This is the bicycle trail built by Trailnet that travels along the river north to the Chain of Rocks Bridge.
This particular Saturday morning was cool and there was a light rain. The plan was to take the trail north to St. Louis Avenue and then head west to Crown Candy Kitchen.
The first mile or two was fascinating. We saw: Bob Cassilly’s amazing sculptures on the flood wall; the old Admiral/President Casino boat being shut down because of rising river water; the “Hopeville” homeless encampment that had just moved from Tucker Boulevard; the beginnings of the new Mississippi River bridge; and the seemingly endless industrial buildings and railways along the river.
This was not a nature stroll at Babler Park. This was the city, and the river, in all its urban glory and decay. Meanwhile the boys were jumping in puddles, climbing walls and asking: how far to Crown Candy?
By 10:15 a.m. we arrived at ice cream oasis number one. Crown Candy, run by the colorful Macedonian (don’t call them Greek) Karandzieff family for several generations, is a wonderful St. Louis anachronism. It’s a ’60s-style ice-cream-soda-fountain joint that caters to tourists and adventurous natives. It’s plopped in the middle of a historic red-brick neighborhood peopled with poor families, liberal homesteaders and hopeful rehabbers.
We walked in and ordered malts “to go.” The boys wanted to sit and eat, but we told them we had a LONG way to go. That’s the great thing about youth: fresh springy legs and undying optimism untempered by the knowledge of the trek ahead.
Leaving Crown Candy we walked south through the 14th Street Mall, a new redevelopment effort by the Old North St. Louis group. The mall seeks to re-create one of the city’s once-thriving shopping districts, like the University City Loop and Wellston, before shopping malls and strip centers made the streetcars obsolete. One city official called it the “Soulard of the 21st century.”
The mall features two blocks of old storefronts and offices painstakingly restored. New sidewalks and curbs are installed and the street seems ready, if not for the rain, for new paving. One of the scouts observed, “So where are the stores?” Wafer, a veteran of urban rehab, replied, “Yes, all they need now are more tenants. That’s always the hard part.” Given the recession and fears of crime in the city, this may be harder than ever.
If you’re a middle-class suburban-raised person like myself, one of the endlessly fascinating aspects of “city living” are the contrasts that exist from one street to another, from one block to the next.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the near north side where we walked. From homeless tent people to large industrial complexes. From run-down row houses to sparkling new suburban-style homes. From trash-strewn vacant lots to blossoming urban community gardens.
At the corner of North Market and Hogan Street is the old St. Liborius church. The rectory building is the home of Karen House, a Catholic Worker settlement inspired by Dorothy Day that serves the poor in the area. A little farther down Hogan Street we walked by New Roots Urban Farm. This is a patch of vacant land claimed by young people who grow vegetables and work with residents to sell them and to create a “sustainable” community. I’d been here before; my son, an “eco kid” who had graduated from Truman State University with an environmental degree, had volunteered there last summer and had given me a tour (for more information: Newrootsurbanfarm.org). Who says hippies are dead? On the farm’s website is this statement: “We are here because we believe that in order to create a more ecologically-sound lifestyle we must create radical systems that actively oppose the dominant capitalist model of exploitation and oppression.”
From there we walked closer to the city’s core; past the old Falstaff brewery, which had been one of the north side’s first residential rehabs. We also passed numerous vacant plots of land owned by Paul McKee and slated to be used for his ambitious north side development.
A distinctive landmark is St. Stanislaus church. This old Polish Catholic church, the subject of much recent controversy, is emblematic of the city of St. Louis, which is dotted by large Catholic churches built by immigrant communities in the 19th century. As the city population has shrunk and people have moved to St. Louis County, these large, historic, often architecturally stunning churches have met mixed fates. Some survive due to being in gentrified neighborhoods or support from the heirs of the original immigrants — like St. Stanislaus — but many have closed or have been sold.
When we first saw St. Stanislaus, one of my sons said, “Isn’t this the church that’s in trouble?” It wasn’t that simple; I wanted to explain the church’s struggles with the Archdiocese of St. Louis about governance and recent efforts to resolve the controversy.
But that would have to wait. As I’ve learned on other scout hikes, the main goal is to keep moving. And there were many miles to go.
• Check back next month for the conclusion of the ice cream hike.
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