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All posts written by St. Louis City Talk contributors unless otherwise noted.
One of the questions I've been asked over the years is who named and plotted out the 79 neighborhoods of St. Louis.
Through a recent Twitter conversation with someone trying to understand how old the name of their neighborhood is, the topic is once again top of mind.
You know, it would be kind of cool to have a born on date for neighborhoods in the current vernacular.
"Fox Park, Established 1885" something like that...you catch my drift?
I've been putting off the neighborhoods with the largest area simply out of laziness. I'm VERY interested in Carondelet, Dutchtown, Baden and others...but they are huge and will take me all day or weekend to capture.
Central West End and Downtown will probably be last on the list simply because they will require walking to do them justice and I could take 1000s of pictures of these two premier locations in St. Louis.
Some neighborhoods are branded well and recognized throughout the region. The Hill, would be a perfect example. Almost everyone in the city and the metropolitan region knows the Hill. Soulard is another example of a clear regional identity that is well branded and defined. Maybe we should sell this "city of neighborhoods" thing a little more. Maybe this should be our city slogan. Mound City, Gateway to the West....The City of Neighborhoods. Who knows.
Back in September, 2009 I made it a personal goal to visit and document each of St. Louis' 79 neighborhoods. I've come to the conclusion that it's going to take me years to reach my goal of posting on all 79 neighborhoods in St. Louis at the rate I'm going. It's not that hard, it just takes a lot of time. So far, I've done 9 neighborhoods in 4 months. I'm only 11% of the way toward completion! At this rate it will take me over 3 years to complete this task.
Many refer to St. Louis as a city of neighborhoods. According to this source, there are 79 distinct neighborhoods in St. Louis. I recognize most of these neighborhoods by name only. Sadly, I could only accurately describe how to get to 32 of them. That means I could not reliably tell you how to get to 60% of my own city. Pretty lame, eh?
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