The Cardinals were playing in Cincinnati while I was in St. Louis, but it was still fun to wander about outside the park.
Three of the ten statues of great Cardinal players in front of Busch Stadium.
Ozzie Smith
Lou Brock
Bob Gibson
I went back on Thursday night with THE Red Chair.
Union Station in St. Louis, built in 1894, is a very impressive building.
The front of the building is taken up by a hotel that goes to great lengths to inform people that they aren’t welcome inside unless they have a room. The mall in the old train shed is an impressive space. But it isn’t much of a mall. Many of the storefronts were empty, and most of those that weren’t empty were closed — at 4:00 on a Wednesday afternoon. The place was nearly empty.
Inside I discovered the Throne of Love.
And this painting on the wall, although the sign detracts from the mystique a bit.
Two blocks of downtown St. Louis are filled with a sculpture garden. Some of the artwork is fun, some is just there. The brochure states, “You won’t find walls or fences, admission fees or do not touch signs, because at Citygarden you are always free.”
Apparently, the security guards can’t read, because when I placed the Red Chair on a pedestal next to one of the statues, a guard came running out of his post in the pouring rain to yell at me and tell me I couldn’t put the chair there. He was rude and out of line and didn’t back down a bit when I told him I was just taking a picture. Whatever. Otherwise, the garden was pretty cool.
The work on the left, called “2 Arcs x 4 230.5 Degree Arc x 5,” is by a guy who tries to create “art” that is “non-expressive and not subject to personal interpretation.” My personal interpretation is that the sculpture is pretty cool but the author is full of himself.
The bird, titled “Bird.” The artist designed it after observing her own children. Not sure I’d want to admit that.
This one’s called Kindly Geppetto. It supposedly explores the complicated relationship between the creator and his subject.
This hollow head is called Eros Bendato.
Here’s the view from inside looking out.
I took this photo with the little red chair on Wednesday night. I returned three times with THE Red Chair on Thursday, but the first time, during a storm, the screen had an error message. The second time, it had a local TV station and the third time it had the Cardinals game — as did every other TV screen in the town.
The name of this sculpture is “Untitled (Two Rabbits).” The artist covered his rabbits with white paint to create “the impression of marshmallowy lightness.”
You may have guessed by now that my opinion of a given sculpture is based entirely on how well I can incorporate it into a red chair photograph.
My hotel in downtown St. Louis was right across the street from the Old Courthouse. (I doubt that’s what it was called when it was used as a courthouse.) It’s part of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. A monument to Dred and Harriet Scott stands out front.
The courthouse was open when I walked back to my hotel after the convention, so I went inside. The building is impressive, but there isn’t much to see — a couple rooms with a basic display on the history of St. Louis, two courtrooms, one of which is being renovated, a room on the history of the Dred Scott case. Scott was a slave who had been taken to a free state and then brought back to Missouri. He sued for his freedom and won, but the case was appealed and went to the Supreme Court. Chief Justic Roger B. Taney ruled against Scott, saying that Blacks are personal property, not citizens, and therefore, can’t sue. The decision helped bring about the Civil War. The case began in this courthouse.
This is the room in which the Dred Scott case was tried, although it didn’t look at all like this and this isn’t the original furniture. I’m guessing there wasn’t a red chair on the bench either.
The rotunda.
A model of the Old Courthouse.
The view of the Arch from inside the Old Courthouse.
I stopped for a few more photos with THE Red Chair the next day during a brief pause between violent thunderstorms.
My hotel is the brown brick building just behind and to the right of the courthouse in the photo below.
On August 27, 1853, Abraham Lincoln was asked to come to this spot to christen the new town that was being named in his honor. A nearby sign tells the story:
On August 27, 1853 the first sale of lots in the new town of Lincoln took place near this spot. In attendance was ABRAHAM LINCOLN, in whose honor the town had been named. “Nothing with the name of Lincoln has ever amounted to much,” he had reportedly quipped in response.
Lincoln was nevertheless obliging when a promoter asked him on the day of the land sale to officially “christen the town.” Lincoln picked an appropriate melon and conducted a brief “christening ceremony.”
Thirteen year-old John S. Stevens was in attendance and later recalled the event: “We were all seated on the several lumber piles. For myself I had selected the end of a projecting board which would spring nicely with my weight and near where Mr. Lincoln stood. He opened the melon with his pocket knife which just reached well through the rind, running all around, bumped the melon on the lumber, it opened nicely with all the core on one side. He cut this core, squeezed the water into a tin cup saying, ‘Gentlemen, I am requested by the proprietors of the town site to christen it, I have selected the juice of a melon for that purpose, pouring it on the ground. Therefore, in your presence and hearing, I now christen this town site. Its name is Lincoln and soon to be named the permanent capital of Logan County. I have also prepared a feast for the occasion.”
Pulling the wagon cover from the pile of melons, he took one half of the melon he had opened for christening, laid it on the board before me saying, “The youngest American on the ground shall feast with me on the christening melon.” Picking up the other half he pointed to the pile and said “Gentlemen, help yourself.”
In the 1960s, the city government of Lincoln decided to enhance it’s severe weather forecasting abilities. To do so, they placed a phone booth on the roof of city hall, with a phone connected only to the offices downstairs. During storms, the youngest single firefighter was sent up to the booth. The storm warning system has been improved, but the phone booth still sits on the roof.
You can’t have enough monuments to Lincoln in a town called Lincoln. Lincoln College, in town, has two.
At least they let him sit down for one of them. The sitting Lincoln is in front of the college library which has a Lincoln museum that is supposed to be worthwhile, although I didn’t have time to visit on this trip.
