Mr NYC in St. Louis

This is going to be an odd entry in my travel blog posts because St. Louis, the "Gateway City" in the "Show Me State" of Missouri, is the only city besides NYC that I've lived in for any length of time. I recently went back for a short visit, and it was more like a weird kind of homecoming than a regular trip. It was like putting on a pair of old, familiar, worn-out shoes that you know you should really throw away. 

So this won't be a comprehensive recording of either my trip or the city itself -- if you want to know more about the history, culture, and vagaries of City of St. Louis, the same town that produced TS Eliot, Tina Turner, Josephine Baker, Nelly, Chuck Berry, Scott Bakula, Jon Hamm, Maya Angelou, Andy Cohen, Yogi Berra, William Buroughs, John Goodman, Red Foxx, Betty Grable, and Fred ReRun Berry (amongst many others), go here.

That said, during this trip I discovered some gems in St. Louis that I didn't know existed before and that I'm happy to share. But first ...

There are two important things to understand about St. Louis, particularly for New Yorkers, something that makes it typical of most American cities and something quite unique to it.

The typical thing is that St. Louis is, like most towns, a highly segregated place where the vast majority of the white and/or wealthy people don't actually live -- the city has numerous rich suburbs and exurbs like Ladau, Town and Country, Chesterfield and others that are gorgeous, rich, and very conservative. Then the city is mostly poor, black, and left behind -- the typical American racist urban nightmare/tragedy (remember, this is the same place as Ferguson). People from the other areas commute into downtown St. Louis to work or see shows and then, at night, the downtown area clears out. If you drive around St. Louis at night you might think you were in a ghost town or that a zombie apocalypse had hit it -- it didn't need COVID to become completely empty. So there's that.

But the a-typical thing about STL is that, as its nickname connotes, it is the "Gateway City", its iconic arch symbolizing the gateway to the west. Nestled against the mighty Mississippi River, St. Louis is really the last midwestern, or even Eastern city, in the United States. Once you cross the Mighty M into STL, and certainly if you go west of the city itself, you are in the capital W WEST, the Plains and Rockies and Coast beyond it. It is a city betwixt and between the expanse of not only a country but an entire continent.

Like NYC, STL is a place in the American journey -- if NYC with its Statue of Liberty is the entry point into America, then STL with its Arch is an entry point into its Manifest Destiny.

In short, both cities with their symbolic structures are basically glorified welcome maps. 

So what about my trip?

Well, besides visiting some familiar haunts, I did what I most enjoy doing during travel -- eating well and looking at interesting architecture.

St. Louis actually has a thriving Italian American neighborhood called The Hill. A neighborhood where the descendants of immigrants still live and preserve their culture and history, it is full of Catholic churches and good restaurants. We actually ate lunch in a sandwich store called Adriana's that had AMAZING fresh made sandwiches. There were several varieties of hot roast beef sandwiches with au jus available but I actually got the below ham and salami hero with vinegar and oil dressing that was amazing. It was called the Carlo.

Hello Carlo ...

And here's a statue of anonymous Italian immigrants to St. Louis that you can find in the Hill.

Just so you know, just about every business in the Hill, or ON the Hill as they say, is called "Whatever, whatever" ... "on the Hill." There's a restaurant called Charlie Guido's on the Hill, and one time a friend of mine was told by the maitre'd, "YOU are ... TOTALLY underdressed for Charloe Guido's ... on the Hill."

Anyway ... 

I also drank well, visiting a couple of bars that couldn't be more different. One is called The Vandy, a specialty cocktail join with low lights, sleek surfaces, and you have to scan the menu with your phone comme ca: 

The exact opposite of that is the Venice Cafe and, despite its name, it's cash only bar that's a cross between a honky-tonk and crazy aunt's apartment (there is no Venetian influence aparent). It has bands playing, lots of noisy crowds, and a whole wild scene going on. And they mostly just serve lots and lots of beer.

My final night in STL I ate at a restaurant in the residential downtown neighborhood called Benton Park with cute buildings such as this:

The restaurant, however, was also AMAZING. Called the Sidney Street Cafe, I had one of the best meals I've had in any city anywhere ever. From the veal dumplings and seafood pastries as appetizers, to my gourmet corned beef entry (yes, you read that right) to my bizarre granola yogurt dessert ...

... it was a delectable, wonderful gastronomic experience.

So those are the parts of the STL trip that I wish to share and greatly enjoyed. St. Louis is a city worth visiting, if only to see a unique, quirky city that is an essential part of the American landscape and story -- and that resonates in the aforementioned strange way with NYC.

P.S. My short return to St. Louis coincided with the death of another St. Louis icon Beatle Bob. Who was he? He was a social worker from St. Louis with a 1964 Beatle-like haircut who, from the mid-1990s until a year or two ago, went to a concert almost every night in town and could be seen dancing around. During my time back in the day in STL I saw him many times -- in fact, it so that he would introduce bands sometimes and rev up the crown. Along with other icons of my younger years, like Paul Reubens, Beatle Bob has gone to the great concert in the sky. RIP.