![]() A small tram ($12) carries visitors to an observation chamber at the top. Eero Saarinen’s stunning 630-ft (192-m) stainless-steel monument, officially called the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, rises up from the riverfront at the foot of Market Street. Louis (you literally cannot miss it) is the Gateway Arch National Park (daily, 877/982-1410), still dominating the city skyline. Louis is, at heart, a city of small neighborhoods, such as bluesy Soulard south of downtown, the Italian-American “Hill” (boyhood home of baseball legend Yogi Berra), and the collegiate West End district near verdant Forest Park. Part of the problem may be that, although it has all the cultural and institutional trappings of a major city, not to mention the landmark Gateway Arch, St. Even the sale of the city’s iconic beer brand, Budweiser, to the Belgian company InBev was a blow to local pride. In recent years the racialized violence in its northern suburb Ferguson made national headlines. ![]() Louis has suffered from years of decline and neglect the population, which peaked at over 850,000 in 1950, is now less than half that. ![]() Unfortunately, like many other American cities, St. It was the starting point for the explorations of Lewis and Clark, and much later Charles Lindbergh, whose Spirit of St. Louis served for most of its first century as a prosperous outpost of civilization at the frontier of the Wild West. Louisįounded by French fur trappers in 1764, St. From here, numerous roads give direct access to I-55 and US-61, which link up with the scenic GRR route south to Sainte Genevieve. Louis is Kings Highway, which runs north-south past many of the city’s main destinations, including Forest Park and the Missouri Botanical Garden, before ending up at Gravois Avenue, part of old Route 66. No prizes for guessing what those names refer to, since coming from the north you enter the city on Lewis and Clark Boulevard (Hwy-367).Ī good main non-freeway route across St. 26, taking first the Clark Bridge (over the Mississippi) and then the Lewis Bridge (over the Missouri River). From Alton, US-67 crosses just below Lock and Dam No. Louis, and they’re all so poorly marked that you’re sure to get lost trying to follow any of them. ![]() Louis is not immune to.The Great River Road has many routes in, around, and across St. Further, it was designed to withstand earthquakes, something St. Louis, the Arch will only sway about an inch. ![]() Even in 50-mile-per-hour winds, which are not out of the question in St. That, of course, didn't happen, and the Arch remains perfectly solid and safe to visit to this day, open to the public since June 1967 and designated as a National Historic Landmark 20 years later.ĭespite the seemingly-flimsy nature of the structure and the precision to which it was built, the Arch is actually quite stalwart. Some observers were almost certain that the measurements would be off, and that the entire project would fail. According to Architectural Digest, workers on the two separate legs had 1/64th of an inch, or half of a millimeter, of wiggle room. That's roughly equivalent in size to one third the thickness of a potato chip, and had builders' measurements been off by any more, the two sides couldn't have been joined at the top. That construction had to be precise is an understatement. ![]()
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