Timothy Birdnow

Yesterday was my birthday and the wife and I went to Landry's Seafood House at Union Station in downtown St. Louis. As I don't see well at night and wanted to have a couple of drinks we took a cab, which dropped us in front, at the entrance to the Hyatt Hotel. Now, Union Station was a great thing in it's day, a major entertainment and dining spot built in the old train depot. Unfortunately the Hyatt is the only thing operating in the Station, everything else having closed (they intend to renovate and open a huge aquarium), and we couldn't cut through. Had to walk around the building, the mammoth, enormous building in the dark. At one point there were two rather seedy looking dudes hanging out on the corner and we were walking down a path bordered by landscaping so you could only go forward. These guys suddenly came around and got on the path behind us. Nobody else around. My wife was having a particularly hard time walking last night, too, (she was wearing heels) and we no doubt looked like easy pickings. Fortunately for us she had a stroke of brilliance; she turned around and called out to her sister (who was not there, of course) and said "they were just right behind us". The two men passed and kept walking, cutting across the street.

Luckily there were a bunch of buses  along the side of the building with their motors running so once we were on the side we had some measure of protection. It was a close, scary thing, though.

The restaurant was excellent and the service impeccable. Our waiter was a fine young man who went over and above, and I had a wonderful time of it. I would heartily recommend Landry's, at least the one in Union Station.

At any rate, I had the restaurant call the cab to take us home, and they could then drive onto the parking lot to get us. There was no way I was going to make that dark, empty walk again.

Funny thing; this older couple sitting next to us was from New Jersey and THEY walked there from the Omni two blocks away. Said they never saw a city so empty and asked if it was a good neighborhood. I told them it was a good neighborhood to get mugged in. It's pretty bad when people from New Jersey are afraid to walk the streets in St. Louis.

That is one of the things that killed Union Station. There is no free parking. The lot there has always been quite expensive, and it used to be you could park on the streets nearby, but the city put in parking meters, and with the proximity of the Rev. Larry Rice's New Life Evangelistic Center, the area is full of mentally ill homeless people, drug abusers, etc. And downtown is poorly lit, making a walk to the Station fraught with peril. St. Louis is not a city designed for walking, especially not the downtown area. Union Station lasted longer than a lot of other things down there, because it was unique. There was a shopping mall downtown - St. Louis Center - which was always empty and then closed. Why? You had to pay to park for the privilege of going to the same stores you could go to for free just a few miles outside the city limits. Nobody in the municipal government that promoted the idea thought of that - or tried to address it. It's typical of a city run for 70 years by the Democrats.

At any rate, Landry's is one of the investors in the new aquarium, which is going to feature big sharks and whatnot. Hopefully it will do well; the old station is a grand place, a magnificent relic of the Gilded Age, the days of glory past for st. Louis. I would hate to see it torn down to put in a strip mall.

Suffice it to say it was an entertaining night. Never thought I'd have people from JERSEY frightened to walk down a street in St. Louis. But then, we ARE ranked as the third worst place to live in America and number one]/link] as the most violent city in the United States.

Glad we finally made it to the top!

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:21 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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