Arch turns 50

GATEWAY ARCH 50TH ANNIVERSARY SECTION

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INTRODUCTION

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“Riverfront Memorial Committee is Chosen” So noted a headline in the Dec. 16, 1933, Post-Dispatch describing a luncheon at the Hotel Jefferson downtown. Mayor Bernard Dickmann appointed a civic committee to pursue plans for a riverfront memorial honoring the Louisiana Purchase and President Thomas Jefferson. The reporter who GILBERT attended the session described how the assembly wanted BAILON something “monumental in character.”

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Thirty-two years later, the last piece of the Gateway Arch was fitted into place to great ceremony on the riverfront.

Among the dignitaries on the VIP stand was former mayor Dickmann.

Through the years in between, the Post-Dispatch chronicled the twisting, complicated tale of events that led to the glistening monument on the Mississippi River. The newspaper earned a Pulitzer Prize for exposing vote fraud in the St. Louis referendum in 1935 that adopted the critical first financing for the project, a $7.5 million bond issue. The voting results stood and the story continued, all through lawsuits and battles from City Hall to the nation’s Capitol.

When Eero Saarinen’s distinctive Arch was chosen in 1948, the newspaper devoted most or all of four pages for stories, PHOTO COURTESY WITMAN COLLECTION drawings and photographs portraying the Post-Dispatch photographers Renyold concept and introducing its designers.

Ferguson (left) and Arthur Witman atop From the 1950s, when the main issues were the Arch in February 1967. appropriations and final design, through to the highly anticipated “topping day” on Oct. 28, 1965, the newspaper’s accumulated work filled more than 200 file envelopes in its clip library, still known to newspaper people as the morgue. Forty-eight of those envelopes are stuffed with stories about building the Arch itself.

Post-Dispatch photographers recorded almost every foot of progress, especially Arthur Witman and Renyold Ferguson, who crawled along the catwalks with the construction workers high above the ground. Witman’s photos were donated to the State Historical Society of Missouri to be preserved for posterity. Some of the photos in this section were drawn from that collection.

Over the last 50 years, we have sought to understand what the monument means to St. Louis. It certainly is the city’s trademark and a gathering place for major events. It has secured St. Louis as the Gateway City, and it endures as a daring statement of design, engineering and civic purpose.

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ARCH 50TH ANNIVERSARY • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • 10.25.15

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Eero Saarinen with models of the Gateway Arch; Yale University Library, Manuscripts and Archives © St. Louis Post-Dispatch

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10.25.15 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • ARCH 50TH ANNIVERSARY

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HISTORY OF THE PROJECT • CREATING AN IDEA

Vision and politics merge DECLINE OF ONCE-BUSTLING RIVERFRONT SETS STAGE FOR SOMETHING GRAND

BY TIM O’NEIL / ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

The Arch stands where St. Louis began as a colonial village on the edge of a vast wilderness. Back then, it was more outpost than gateway.

The French-speaking settlers established their town in 1764 atop a bluff where the grand staircase to the Gateway Arch now rises from the cobblestone levee. St. Louis prospered in the fur trade and grew in bounds during the golden age of steamboats. Not even a cholera epidemic or a firestorm, both in 1849, could halt the bustle. Noise, smoke and immigrants filled the land we now call the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.

But the railroads arrived shortly before the Civil War, heralding the decline of the steamboat era. Commerce began moving west of the riverfront. By the time St. Louis held its biggest party ever — the 1904 World’s Fair — the riverfront was a place of sleepy decay. Civic-minded people began wondering what to do about it.

Shortly before World War I, the city created its Plan Commission to, among other things, deal with the riverfront. A major goal was to find ways for downtown to accommodate the increasingly popular automobile. Nobody said a word about Thomas Jefferson or westward expansion.

Befitting a time when stately old buildings had few defenders, talk moved toward obliterating the river district and starting over. Into the 1930s there were serious calls to build an airport, new commercial buildings, a north-south highway, even a dirigible base. Plans were drawn for boxy stone monuments and curving staircases. By today’s standards, much of it was hideous. Over the decades, there were plenty of times when the whole Luth the f er Ely Sm thing almost came to naught. ath ith He di er of the is consid ed in river ered down f 1 Along came the Great Depression and two men town 951 while ront park . for w In 19 head of boundless optimism — a do-gooder Republican smal 70, the ci ork at ag ing e7 ty n l pa lawyer named Luther Ely Smith and Mayor Cour rk in fron amed th 7. e thou Bernard Dickmann, an enthusiastic New Deal t se in of the O his h l Democrat. In 1933, while city leaders were typing onor d . up a pitch for federal money, Smith urged Dickmann to dedicate the riverfront to Jefferson. He said it would give the effort a national flair. Dickmann was all for any tactic that might help put hungry men to work.

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FACT

POST-DISPATCH

New Deal Mayor Bernard Dickmann was eager for any project that would put hungry men to work.

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In April 1934, Smith led creation of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial Association, known as Jenny Mae. He provided the vision, Dickmann the politics. Together, they cleared the way for something big on the riverfront.

ARCH 50TH ANNIVERSARY • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • 10.25.15

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Luther Ely Smith thought dedicating the riverfront to Thomas Jefferson would bring national flair. stltoday.com

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10.25.15 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • ARCH 50TH ANNIVERSARY

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HISTORY OF THE PROJECT • CLEARING THE WAY

Steamrolling the opposition TAINTED VOTE GETS MONEY FLOWING, AND PRESERVATION ISN’T A PRIORITY

POST-DISPATCH

An aerial view of the St. Louis riverfront taken in 1933. Demolition soon swept clean a 37-block area. Only the Old Cathedral and the Old Courthouse were spared.

BY TIM O’NEIL / ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

Dramatic drawings on easels are inspiring, but money moves the dirt.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt offered St. Louis some New Deal money and a three-to-one funding formula to transform the riverfront, but only if the city ponied up. Mayor Bernard Dickmann asked voters to approve a $7.5 million bond issue for the city’s share of the bargain.

Dickmann wanted a winner and he let his patronage cronies know it, even hinting that their jobs were on the line. They responded with enthusiasm, and it is not a stretch to say that fraudulent votes helped make the Gateway Arch possible.

Paul O. Peters, a former newspaperman and fervent critic of the New Deal, cried foul with energy equal to that of Dickmann. Peters rushed to Washington and persuaded a few fellow Republicans to scorn the city’s egan olition b s to m e d , wickedness in speeches before Congress. Dickmann called at the White 9 3 k bloc In 19 iverfront nal park. r 7 3 House, where Roosevelt awarded the idea $6.7 million from his Public s s o acr natio y for the dings were a w Works Administration. The Missouri Supreme Court dismissed legal e k a il m ut n 480 bu challenges on technicalities. The Post-Dispatch won a Pulitzer Prize.

More tha y were vacant, b t an The election results stood. razed. M e elaborately buil r ded Age. some we m the Gil o fr s m e g On Oct. 9, 1939, Dickmann took a crowbar to a vacant building at 9 Market Street. He sent the first brick to FDR, kept the second for himself, and soon was autographing bricks as fast as he could knock them loose.

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On Sept. 10, 1935, the bond issue carried with 71 percent approval in an unusually high turnout. Some of the results were suspicious. The 5th Ward downtown was 97 percent in favor. One precinct in the 22th Ward, west of Fairground Park, reported 505 voters in favor to none against. Opponents cried foul, and a Post-Dispatch investigation turned up a long list of people who said they hadn’t voted, even though their names were checked at the polling places. The paper also found precincts with fewer “no” votes than residents who claimed to have opposed it.

Of course, some of the dead got counted in the “yes” tally.

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Demolition swept clean a 37-block area with little regard for history. Only the Old Cathedral and the Old Courthouse were spared. Workers dismantled sagging old warehouses along with gems from the Gilded Age, buildings fashioned of marble and elaborate cast-iron facades. Today’s fondness for old buildings wouldn’t have allowed such a thing — or, by extension, an Arch — but the drive to create jobs and reverse the decline of downtown real estate values overwhelmed the few voices for preservation.

Most of the land was cleared by the time Pearl Harbor was attacked. Workers dropped their tools and joined the military. stltoday.com

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10.25.15 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • ARCH 50TH ANNIVERSARY

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HISTORY OF THE PROJECT • VISION BECOMES REAL

Bold design wins the day BUT PROGRESS COMES IN FITS AND STARTS, AND YEARS OF DELAYS LIE AHEAD

PHOTO COURTESY OF KEMPER ART MUSEUM

A 1948 drawing of Eero Saarinen’s winning design for a 590-foot arch near the levee and a forested park. When it was built, the arch was on higher ground and 40 feet taller.

BY TIM O’NEIL / ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

In the closing months of World War II, the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial Association revived the riverfront project by announcing a design competition. It gathered a top-flight panel of judges from across the country. The goal was for something dramatic, not just another big statue.

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ARCH 50TH ANNIVERSARY • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • 10.25.15

Among the 172 entries were Eliel Saarinen, an established architect from suburban Detroit, and his up-and-coming son, Eero. They made separate proposals. Eero Saarinen’s was of a towering arch on the edge of the levee. Dan Kiley, his landscape-architect partner, wanted to make the open riverfront a forested park. In the final cut, the judges unanimously chose the arch. stltoday.com

HISTORY OF THE PROJECT • VISION BECOMES REAL

On Feb. 18, 1948, they announced their winning design during a dinner downtown.

Public reaction was mixed, ranging from praise for the bold design to the first jokes about a giant croquet wicket. St. Louis leaders set about finding money. Once again, war intervened.

Two weeks after President Harry Truman dedicated the riverfront park in June 1950, the Korean War began. After its inconclusive finish, the continuing Cold War with the Soviet Union and President Dwight Eisenhower’s quest for a balanced national budget kept Congress from spending on things like monuments along Midwestern rivers.

Not until 1956 was the first $2.6 million appropriated for the riverfront, and the bill prohibited spending any of it on the Arch itself.

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There never had been enough money for Saarinen’s original plan for one long tunnel through the park. It wasn’t the only design change made to fit chronically tight budgets.

Excavation for the Arch finally began in 1961. The first stainless-steel wedge was set on Feb. 12, 1963. Two key players weren’t there to see it. Luther Ely Smith, the energetic quarterback of the effort, had died in 1951. Eero Saarinen had died in 1961. e m a s , h t hig is 630 fee The two legs rose slowly but steadily over the riverfront, and local The Arch th of its base. Eero pride climbed with them. Families drove downtown in station wagons as the wid ginally proposed ori ut raised Saarinen to admire the progress. Newspapers covered almost every new foot of b t, e fe 0 f 59 a height o oncern that new height. On Oct. 28, 1965, the last piece was fitted snugly into place as it out of c g up downtown bands played and towboats blew their horns. Bernard Dickmann, the goin buildings inish its stature. city’s mayor when the idea was first floated but since superseded by would dim five other mayors, was among the giddy VIPs on the ground.

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That was partly because St. Louis had a train-trestle problem. Back in 1891, civic leaders built a steel trestle along Wharf Street to connect the north side yards with those in the Mill Creek valley, future site of Union Station. FDR’s administration warned back in the 1930s that the trestle would have to be removed before a national park could be built. In the way was the Terminal Railroad Association, which owned the ugly but sturdy trestle. The TRRA was interested in moving trains, not attracting tourists, and didn’t hurry to help the riverfront plans.

In 1959 — 24 years after the original bond issue — work finally began on a series of short tunnels and open cuts to reroute the riverfront line. The design was a matter of necessity.

FACT

It hardly was the end of the story. Tight budgets and engineering challenges delayed opening the public tram in the north leg until July 1967, followed by the south leg eight months later. The underground museum didn’t open until 1976, and the grand staircase wasn’t completed until 2003.

The Arch itself was built for about $11.4 million, the whole park for about $56 million. Not bad, really, for a signature landmark and daring piece of engineering and architecture known around the world. And it secured St. Louis as the Gateway to the West.

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10.25.15 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • ARCH 50TH ANNIVERSARY

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BUILDING THE ARCH

Simple design, complex task ENGINEERING MARVEL LEAVES LITTLE ROOM FOR ERROR AT THE TOP

BY TIM O’NEIL / ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

The Gateway Arch is strikingly simple in design — a sweeping curve of stainless steel rising 630 feet above the ground. Its 142 welded pieces are equilateral triangles, one of nature’s most durable forms.

But there was nothing simple about building it.

The Arch is embedded deep into limestone bedrock and held in place by foundations made of 26,000 tons of concrete, more than 2,000 truckloads. The engineers had to be precise in measurements and calculations, from their drafting boards to fitting the last piece. Much was at stake — a “miss” of the two legs at the top would be a mortifying and expensive embarrassment, to say the least.

A view of the future site of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, looking southeast above Washington and Third streets. More than 480 buildings, many of them in decline, were razed for the park.

The triangles, known to the workers as “cans,” were double-walled structures of carbon steel inside and stainless steel exterior skin. For the first 312 feet, workers poured concrete between the walls and ran continuous reinforcement rods. Above that height, welds held everything together.

The engineers and iron workers knew their stuff. Each time a can was installed, engineers would measure the tips to a tiny fraction of a degree. Then the iron workers would grind, shim and weld the next can to keep the legs true. When the final piece was installed, the legs were only three-eighths of an inch off, making for an easy fit.

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ors imat kers t s e r e 3 wo ranc Insu ed that 1 ing the d t ic d. uil pred ld die b kers die wou No wor .

Arch

FACT

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The old St. Louis Courthouse in 1939, shortly before the National Park Service accepted it for the riverfront park. By then it was vacant and covered in soot from the area’s habit of burning cheap, dirty coal from Southern Illinois.

It was built in stages before the Civil War as the St. Louis County Courthouse, but became city property after the city-county divorce became final in 1877.

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The the Old Co n u stag ationa rthous l par e, pa e s b its d e ome ginnin k, was b rt of firs uilt com g in Cou t was th pleted 1839, w in r i e buil thouse, St. Lou in 1862 th ding is Co . It but split when becam unty beca the e me fi city-c a city nal i ount y n 18 77.

FACT

A worker removes a beam from the old Blue Lantern Club, on Commercial Alley just uphill from Wharf Street.

It was one of the bohemian hangouts that made way for the riverfront park.

POST-DISPATCH PHOTOS stltoday.com

BUILDING THE ARCH

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The riverfront site in May 1940, seven months into the demolition work.

Most of the razing was finished before the U.S. entered World War II, but war needs stopped the project.

The south leg of the Arch rises behind the Old Cathedral in May 1963. Standard cranes hoisted the pieces until the legs reached 70 feet, when the creeper derricks took over. The derricks climbed on rails bolted to the legs.

POST-DISPATCH PHOTOS

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When E ero for the Saarinen’s p rop Ar a finali ch made the c osal s t f o r the rive ut as project rf ,t mistak he competitio ront enly co n staff n more-f amous gratulated his f a submit ted a se ther, who had parate design.

FACT

The first train through the tunnels and cuts in the riverfront park in November 1961. The line replaced an old steel trestle that had run along Wharf Street for 70 years. The federal government made the trestle’s removal a condition for the riverfront park project, and it took two decades of negotiating with the Terminal Railroad Association to make that happen. stltoday.com

Double-walled panels arrived from mills in Pennsylvania by rail to the Arch site, where they were assembled and welded into triangles, then hoisted into place.

MORE ON PAGES 12-13

10.25.15 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • ARCH 50TH ANNIVERSARY

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BUILDING THE ARCH

Workers ease one of the triangular pieces, which they dubbed “cans,” into place on the south leg.

Each leg consists of 71 cans, which meet at the top in a weld line. There is no “keystone” piece.

Police officers arrest Percy Green after he climbed down from the Arch during a four-hour protest on July 14, 1964. He and Richard Daly climbed up the north leg during the workers’ lunch break to demand more jobs for black workers on the project. Only a few black laborers took part in the job. Citing hiring at the Arch, the federal government later filed the nation’s first lawsuit to integrate construction-trade unions under the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Workers strain to tighten one of the bolts that held the creeper derrick track onto the Arch. The scene is on the north leg at about 300 feet in September 1964.

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An Army searchlight team illuminated the Arch and riverfront in March 1965 as the legs stood at 400 feet.

The view is from the East St. Louis riverfront.

Bob Mohr, a federal construction inspector, checks reinforcement rods in the south leg of the Arch. In the background is the S.S. Admiral excursion steamboat.

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BUILDING THE ARCH

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BUILDING THE ARCH

The final piece of the Gateway Arch, dubbed “One North,” is moved slowly into place on Oct. 28, 1965.

It was slipped between the two legs after heavy hydraulic jacks slowly widened the gap. After all the careful calculations and adjustments, the legs were only threeeighths of an inch off, making for an easy fit.

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Fro Jeff m inco e r Mem rson Na poratio t o iona n of t rial to t h men opping Associa l Expan e sion tion the s e r A v Bern in 19 ed a rch Beck ard Dic s mayo in 1965 34 , k r e Dar r, Aloy mann, of St. L six st, R s Ka ouis Will aym i u : on fman am De Cerv d Tucke n, Josep e ante r and h s.

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FACT

POST-DISPATCH PHOTOS

“Topping Day.” The last piece of the Arch is fitted into place to fanfare and boat horns on the crisp morning of Oct. 28, 1965. It took two years and eight months to raise the stainless-steel monument from its foundation — and three decades from the first serious planning for a riverfront memorial to Thomas Jefferson and westward expansion.

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BUILDING THE ARCH

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ARCH

ed to esign way in d s i s ach Arch The inches e . It move d 9 a n sway -mph wi h way in c a 150 nches ea h. p m 1.5 i 50

FACT

POST-DISPATCH PHOTOS

Richard Bowser, who designed the Arch trams that take visitors to the top, examines one of the capsules. Bowser, an elevator builder, joined the park staff to supervise maintenance of the trams.

Members of the public first rode to the top on July 24, 1967.

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Fireworks erupt on the riverfront on New Year’s Eve 1999 as St. Louis took part in the worldwide millennium celebration.

The Jefferson National Expansion Memorial has been the scene of many popular fireworks shows since before the Arch was completed.

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10.25.15 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • ARCH 50TH ANNIVERSARY

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LUTHER ELY SMITH SQUARE

What’s New

ridge Eads B

1

RENOVATION

ELEMENTS OF A RENOVATED GATEWAY ARCH G AND WORK IS EXPECTED TO CONCLUDE IN THE SUM

North overlook OCTOBER 2015 • This square west of the Arch now connects to the park grounds, thanks to the walled and noise-protected park-over-the-highway.

It also will serve as a drop-off area for buses, shaded rest for visitors and bench-filled gathering place for the city.

2

2

Grand s Train tracks Laclede’s Landing

LEONOR K. SULLIVAN BLVD.

KEY

4

Gatew Vehicle drop-off zone

5

Pedestrian paths Pedestrian entrance (Most are closed during construction.)

Stairs Drop-off zone

3

SOUTH CIRCULATION LOOP

Museum’s underground footprint

Completion timeline: Blue, 2015 Purple, 2017

4

NORTH GATEWAY

5

Pine St.

Red, 2016

Drop-off spot for Downtown Trolley (No. 99 bus) and cars.

ton Washing Avenue

OCTOBER 2015 • The trails district Great Rivers Greenway raised the river road so it won’t flood as often, and added flood-resistant benches, lighting and separated biking and walking paths; wide spots allow for food carts, beer gardens and cafés.

NORTH POND

6

EAST SLOPE PATHWAYS

JULY 2016 • A divided biking and walking trail wraps around the Arch grounds and connects to Leonor K. Sullivan at the north and south ends, boosting the exercise appeal of the park and creating a path around the worst floods.

16

JULY 2016 • The old Arch garage has been demolished, angering some park employees and puzzling some locals.

But that will allow pathways under the Eads Bridge to directly connect the park to Laclede’s Landing. Plans include a children’s garden, an elevated pathway and a grass amphitheater.

ARCH 50TH ANNIVERSARY • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • 10.25.15

AUGUST 2016 • Reflecting ponds dominated the north and south Arch grounds, but bad design led to algae-filled waters. The new park will absorb rain runoff and circulate pond water. Ash trees that were threatened by an invasive beetle will be replaced with a different species.

SUMMER 2016 • Wheelchairs and strollers at the Arch legs have never found an easy route to the river. These new paths snake down the east hills to the river road, providing gentle slopes and river views.

Chestnut Street

Broa

RENOVATION Poplar Street Bridge

w At The Arch?

GROUNDS BEGIN TO OPEN TO VISITORS THIS WINTER, MMER OF 2017. HERE’S A GUIDE TO OPENINGS AND ACCESS.

9

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MUSEUM & VISITORS CENTER

Leonor K. Sullivan Boulevard

6

staircase

JUNE 2017 • Workers have already dug the new western entrance (A on diagram below) to the project’s single most expensive feature: the $200 million expansion and renovation of the Arch’s underground museum and visitors center. The new layout features a fountained entry, glass walls and completely revamped exhibits (B), including multiple video screens depicting life-size stampeding bison and voyaging western pioneers, which greet visitors as they enter. Visitors will exit through the Arch’s legs (C).

Train tracks

way Arch Ranger station

The south leg is open for visitors.

Eventually, both legs will become exits only.

3

9 Old Cathedral

55 Memorial Drive

A

64

C B

Spruce Street

Walnut St.

1

Purchase Arch tickets at the Old Courthouse.

44

Fourth Street

C

7

KIENER PLAZA

8

OLD COURTHOUSE

8 VISIT DURING CONSTRUCTION

7

Market Street

adway

Start your visit inside the Old Courthouse, which you can reach by driving (drop off or park nearby), walking, biking, or by taking mass transit —Downtown Trolley (No. 99 bus), or the MetroLink stop at Eighth and Pine.

The Arch is also accessible by foot, bike and riverboat drop off from the southern end of Leonor K. Sullivan Boulevard.

SPRING 2017 FINISH • The cityowned Kiener gets a redo, too, with pavers and shade trees in the style of the neighboring Citygarden.

Designs open up views to the historic Wainwright Building and propose a new water feature for the well-loved “Runner” statue.

SPRING 2017 • Delayed but not forgotten, construction at the Old Courthouse starts in 2017. The historic building will get wheelchair ramps and exhibit renovations.

10.25.15 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • ARCH 50TH ANNIVERSARY

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JOIN US TO

PARKING

MEET THE TEAM!

DOWNTOWN PARKING

4th

Broadway

6th

7th

8th M

Market Walnut

Start Arch visit here

Clark Spruce

NEW

Arch Old Courthouse

M

Busch Stadium

Spruce

Old Cathedral

44

Handcrafted

Mississippi River

Chestnut

You’re Invited to View Our

Future museum entrance

Pine

Leonor K. Sullivan Boulevard

9th

Olive

10th

Locust 11th

Tucker

Visitors to the Arch are encouraged to park in one of the garages downtown. A full list of “preferred parking” options that meet the St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission’s standards for accessibility, payment options, technology, signage, safety and security can be found at getaroundstl.com.

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ARCH 50TH ANNIVERSARY • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • 10.25.15

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10.25.15 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • ARCH 50TH ANNIVERSARY

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A GATHERING PLACE

Meet me at the Arch MONUMENT BECAME ST. LOUIS’ GATHERING PLACE, EVEN BEFORE IT WAS FINISHED Even before the Gateway Arch was completed, it became a gathering place for big public events, from holiday frolic to times of national mourning.

riverfront was a rally for Barack Obama, then the Democratic presidential candidate, on Oct. 18, 2008. The Secret Service estimated the crowd at 80,000.

BY TIM O’NEIL / ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

Barely four months later, the first local gathering of “Tea Party” conservatives met on the grand staircase beneath the Arch to protest the new Obama administration’s policies.

For all but a few years since 1964, the riverfront park has been a setting for Fourth of July fireworks. Beginning in 1981, it was the scene of the annual VP Fair, later known as Fair St. Louis. That multiday extravaganza moved to Forest Park in 2014, when work began to reshape the landscape of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.

Chances are it will return to the river.

But mainly, people have gathered there for fun. The monument was only halfway completed when thousands jammed the hillside and levee on July 4, 1964. They cheered water-skiers, thundering fighter jets and 30 minutes of fireworks that splashed bursts of light upon the Arch. Ever since, the Arch has provided an irresistible frame for photographers at the fireworks shows.

President Lyndon Johnson visited the construction site on Feb. 15, 1964, during the celebration of St. Louis’ 200th anniversary. On that day, the legs were less than 200 feet high. Since then, two vice presidents and a presidential candidate have held forth beneath the Arch.

The Arch is an international draw, although total visits per year had been going down in the years before the park was closed for renovation. The decline was one of the big reasons for the work underway.

It also has been a setting for solemnity.

After President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, mourners met on the east side of the Old Courthouse, which is part of the national park.

Even so, visitor numbers are big. The high was 4.6 million in 1966, the year after the Arch was topped. In 2013, the count was 2.3 million, making it the 31st-most-visited site among the National Park Service’s 370 sites. And nearly 1 million people ride to the top every year.

And on April 7, 1968, three days after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered in Memphis, Tenn., 7,500 people assembled at the Arch for a commemorative march to Forest Park. By the time they reached the park, they were 30,000 strong and stretched along 30 blocks.

Vice President Hubert Humphrey dedicated the Arch in the unfinished underground visitors center on Memorial Day 1968, when a cloudburst chased the ceremony indoors.

Vice President George Bush attended the 1988 VP Fair. In 2006, first lady Laura Bush turned on lights that bathed the Arch in pink for the campaign against breast cancer.

The biggest political event on the 20

ARCH

POST-DISPATCH

Some 30,000 people marched downtown on Nov. 24, 1963, in memory of President John F. Kennedy. The scene is looking eastward from the Old Courthouse toward the legs of the Gateway Arch, in the early stage of construction. The president had been assassinated during a visit to Dallas two days before.

ARCH 50TH ANNIVERSARY • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • 10.25.15

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10.25.15 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • ARCH 50TH ANNIVERSARY

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PHOTO CONTEST

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH 2015 ARCH PHOTO CONTEST PRESENTED BY EXPLORE ST. LOUIS GRAND PRIZE WINNERS

CATEGORY

HISTORICAL

• Readers’ Pick: “Glass & Steel” Corban Swain, St. Louis • Staff Pick: “4th of July Fireworks” Hassan Abdallah, St. Peters

• Readers’ Pick: “Kathleen at Arch 1965” Carol Malone, St. Louis

• Staff Pick: “Carrara Family at the Arch” Christine Lester, Lake St. Louis

CATEGORY

SELFIE

• Readers’ Pick: “Riding to the Arch!”

Jim Moore, Grover

22

ARCH 50TH ANNIVERSARY • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • 10.25.15

• Staff Pick: “Celebrate: Gateway Arch Anniversary and Our Engagement” Jennifer Ho, St. Louis

stltoday.com

PHOTO CONTEST

CATEGORY

FAMILY

50

CATEGORY:

• Readers’ Pick: “Fall Frolic” Julie Matthews, St. Charles • Staff Pick: “50 Years in the Making “ Scuba Linneman, St. Ann

CATEGORY

CATEGORY

WEDDING

GENERAL

FIREWORKS

• Readers’ Pick: “Ooh and Aah Under the Arch” Michael Bailey, Wildwood

• Readers’ Pick: “Twin Spans” Wayne Sheridan, St. Charles

• Staff Pick: “Pyrotechnic Bow on the Arch” Gary Bollinger, St. Louis

• Readers’ Pick: “iPhone Silhouette” Kevin Miller, Chesterfield

• Staff Pick: “Arch Newlyweds” Kevin Miller, Chesterfield • Staff Pick: “Above the Clouds” Michael Vaughan, St. Charles

stltoday.com

10.25.15 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • ARCH 50TH ANNIVERSARY

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REVITALIZING THE ARCH GROUNDS

Holding feet to the fire THREE KEYS TO ARCH REDO: A SENATOR, A SECRETARY AND A DEAL-MAKER

BY DAVID HUNN / ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

pushed them. Kempthorne pushed Bradley.

Civic leaders here have pined for years to improve the Gateway Arch grounds.

But nothing stuck until a former U.S. senator talked to an old colleague and tapped a deal-making attorney.

In October 2009, after a speedy review, the Park Service released its new report — which agreed to close Memorial Drive, expand the underground museum and sponsor the design competition.

The three then pushed all parties — the National Park Service, local government and a sometimes hesitant public — to build a bridge between the city and the Arch, reimagine the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, and embark on the largest single project in Park Service history.

From there, Bradley said, Metcalfe took the reins. When Danforth quit the effort, he donated $1 million to seed a new nonprofit, CityArchRiver, to raise money for the project and coordinate construction.

Architects Eero Saarinen and Dan Kiley did not originally design the Arch grounds, more than 60 years ago, the way they are now.

They suggested two museums, a restaurant complex, plus a long promenade housing a sculpture garden, museum shops and exhibits. A reconstructed French colonial village was to be built in a wooded area near Memorial Drive, as was an amphitheater for interpretive programs.

Over the years, some have attempted to drum up support for an Arch update. But plans always foundered.

Then former Republican senator and U.N. ambassador John C. Danforth got involved.

In 2007, after two years of study and $2 million, his family foundation concluded that a vibrant park required a pedestrian bridge over downtown’s below-ground interstate and the development of “active uses” on the grounds.

Danforth ultimately grew frustrated with the National Park Service, and pulled his money.

But not before he invited then-Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne to visit St. Louis. Kempthorne, a former governor of Idaho, served with Danforth in the Senate.

Kempthorne lambasted the Arch grounds.

He told Danforth that the Arch had the worst entrance to a national park in the d in cate ty country. And he became the project’s i d e l, d er next key advocate, said current park edra rch prop k. It h t a ld C on chu nal par to O Superintendent Tom Bradley. e Th , sits natio ever 1834 ling the parcel n the d y e strad only cit ers sinc is.

It was Kempthorne, Bradley said, n e is th ange ow of St. Lou who urged the Park Service to ch nding revisit the Arch management plan, fou which guides the park’s future, and Kempthorne who insisted it get done.

ARCH

Mayor Francis Slay declared that the foundation had “defined the problem with unprecedented clarity and detail,” and appointed a Danforth confidant, Bryan Cave senior counsel Walter L. Metcalfe Jr., to head a strategy committee. Its vision: an international design competition.

24

POST-DISPATCH

Senator John Danforth, with Mayor Francis Slay, talks in 2005 about plans for renovations at the riverfront and the reconnection of the Arch grounds to the city.

FACT

“I tell you, he held our feet to the fire,” said Bradley, who had worked with public-private partnerships in previous posts, and was recruited to St. Louis in part for this task. Arch employees were a little defensive. Bradley

ARCH 50TH ANNIVERSARY • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • 10.25.15

And it was Metcalfe, as CityArchRiver’s board chairman, who became the project’s single most important influence, both Danforth and Bradley told the Post-Dispatch this month.

Metcalfe isn’t a consensus-builder, Bradley said, chuckling.

He simply doesn’t let anything stand in his way.

Danforth spreads credit widely. He praised Prop P, the voter-approved sales tax sending $85 million in bond dollars to the Arch grounds renovation; the role of Great Rivers Greenway, the publicly funded trails district collecting tax dollars for the project; and the family of Enterprise Rent-A-Car founder Jack Taylor, which has given more than $100 million toward the project’s $250 million private fundraising goal.

But Metcalfe, Danforth said, “had the vision and the attention to detail and the follow through — the ability to surmount every problem, and to work through this cast of characters.”

“I didn’t have that relentlessness in me, to just wrestle this project to the ground,” Danforth continued. “He just wasn’t going to be denied.”

Metcalfe shrugged off praise after winning an award for his work last month. He just put in the hours, he said.

“I was the one who was willing to get up in the morning and go to bed each night thinking about this,” he said.

“And that’s what it takes, frankly.”

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THE FUTURE

A vision for even more COBBLED PLAZAS, CAFÉS AND GONDOLAS COULD ANCHOR DOWNTOWN PLAYGROUND

BY DAVID HUNN / ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

The greatest promise of the rebuilt Gateway Arch grounds isn’t new trees and flowers, curving trails or even a high-tech new museum.

It’s the vow that the park’s massive upgrade and reconnection to the city will fundamentally change St. Louis.

Six agencies have been working for more than two years on the $380 million renovation. A park now stretches over the highway that long separated the Arch from the city. The riverfront road and trail are nearly complete. And workers are building a new museum. Construction is scheduled to wrap up in the summer of 2017.

But the architects, designers, planners and dreamers imagine something far more.

They envision more school and tour buses and cross-country road-trip visitors. They see more runners and bikers and lunchtime walkers. They hope for more Arch-view condos, more relocated business, more river-view restaurants.

tables, and centered on views of the old basilica itself.

• A rebuilt Laclede’s Landing, which, thanks to direct access under Eads Bridge into the Arch grounds, is packed with lofts, condos and businesses.

• And, yes, gondolas, someday, buzzing above the muddy Mississippi and landing in the tree tops of East St. Louis, surrounded by a complex of museums and reclaimed wetlands.

“If you create all of these niches around the edges, and there’s a flavor for everyone, and that’s something that grows with the daily population of the city,” he said, “then you can do more than what ass, p r e we’ve started here.” v no estria nterstate d e p e id ei had oss th lock-w The designers and planners The b ,” built acr in 2014-15, the e d s i c l e n “ i n r s a l o y and dreamers want property l d s e u ss io m depre cussed ser ting cut fro n lines to blur. They want beer s t i o i e been d but kept g . Construct gardens and cafés to spill onto s s . n 0 014 195 s and pla July 2 t city streets.

They want to stitch n e i g n d a u b beg y l l a n the Arch into St. Louis. fi

ARCH

They see a reinvigorated downtown.

Perhaps no one has gazed into the future of the Arch grounds as thoroughly and as often as its lead designer, Gullivar Shepard, a bespectacled, silver-haired Washington University graduate and principal at Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates in New York.

FACT

These ideas are far-fetched, even if the renovation goes perfectly from here on out — and it hasn’t, so far. The National Park Service doesn’t have money for big projects, and isn’t going to give up its land. But maybe it will lend out space and time.

“It’s the hardest work, to figure out how this is going to happen,” Shepard said. “It takes a nudge.”

Shepard sees a park that doesn’t stop growing. As use increases, St. Louisans will want more usable space, and they will begin repurposing unused corners for new activities.

The Jefferson National Expansion Memorial was nearly empty one recent morning, as it often is these days. Workers milled about construction zones. A few visitors trickled past the Old Cathedral and into the Gateway Arch museum. Not a soul ran the riverfront trail.

Imagine: • A cobbled plaza in place of the Old Cathedral’s parking lot, ringed with restaurants, filled with café

But that is not the future contemplated here.

26

ROBERT COHEN • rcohen@post-dispatch.com

ARCH 50TH ANNIVERSARY • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • 10.25.15

National Park Service rangers work at the Gateway Arch.

stltoday.com

THE FUTURE

50

TOP ARCH CONSTRUCTION CONTRACTORS Park renovation has largely been split among four construction companies: McCarthy Building Companies (Ladue) • $123 million • Arch museum, plus North and South Park landscaping KCI Construction (Green Park) • $31.16 million • Road improvements, the park-over-thehighway and Luther Ely Smith Square Kozeny Wagner (Arnold) • $10.27 million • North Gateway (the garden and grass amphitheater in the place of the old parking garage) Goodwin Brothers Construction Co. (Jefferson County) • $8 million • Central riverfront

TOP DESIGN CONTRACTORS Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates (New York City) $17.4 million Cooper, Robertson and Partners/James Carpenter Design Associates (New York City) $7.9 million Haley Sharpe Design (United Kingdom) $3.6 million Trivers Associates (St. Louis) $1.4 million These figures include design work and some construction administration work toward the $380 million CityArchRiver project. The largest amounts have gone to out-of-town design firms, but CityArchRiver notes these companies have hired a number of local subcontractors.

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10.25.15 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • ARCH 50TH ANNIVERSARY

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POPULAR CULTURE & THE ARCH

Movies, TV love the Arch MONUMENT HAS BECOME AN EASY, UBIQUITOUS LOCATOR FOR ST. LOUIS

BY GAIL PENNINGTON / ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

Terrorists fly between the Arch’s legs in an episode of “Family Guy.”

The Griswolds’ visit didn’t turn out so well in “National Lampoon’s Vacation.”

Ryan Reynolds (left) and Ben Mendelsohn roll into town in “Mississippi Grind.”

History Channel’s “Life After People” imagines the Arch crumbling.

When builders fitted the last piece into the Gateway Arch on that sunny day in October 1965, few could have imagined that, half a century later, the gleaming stainless steel monument would have become such a universal and ubiquitous symbol of St. Louis in popular culture, seen everywhere from big-screen movies to prime-time cartoons to homebuying shows on cable TV. The Arch has become shorthand for St. Louis, a push-pin in the national map that lets audiences know instantly where they are. No 28

ARCH 50TH ANNIVERSARY • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • 10.25.15

ARCH

e rplan ne ai Arch on i g n in-e ry the A tw through e myste t h a T d f . e roar 22, 1966 he first o he t t e e age of Jun becam man pilot t nine to only one leas l stunt, aught. c a illeg om was wh

FACT

other city between the coasts has such an easy visual locator.

That’s why we see the Arch so often in movies and on TV, whether geographically relevant or not. Has any episode of HGTV’s “House Hunters” with a couple buying a home in Ballwin or Bridgeton ever failed to show the Arch? Unlikely. TV shows actually set in St. Louis, from OWN’s “Welcome to Sweetie Pie’s” to BET’s “Nellyville,” throw the Arch in so often, viewers who aren’t local must imagine that it can be seen from everywhere in the metro area. stltoday.com

POPULAR CULTURE & THE ARCH

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One of the first regular appearances of the Gateway Arch on a scripted TV show might have come in NBC’s “Lucas Tanner,” which debuted in 1974, just nine years after the Arch was completed. David Hartman was a teacher in Webster Groves, but promotional pictures show him and his family in the Arch’s shadow.

Creators of “The John Larroquette Show” (1993-96 on NBC), set in a bus station in St. Louis, didn’t know much about our town, but they knew enough to show the Arch in the closing credits. “On Our Own” (1994-95 on ABC), about a family of St. Louis orphans, upgraded the Arch to the opening titles.

Movies about getting from there to there often come through here and do a drive-by of the Gateway Arch. That was the case in “National Lampoon’s Vacation,” in 1983, when Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) and family swung by the Arch before taking a wrong turn to disaster.

The Arch appeared in the recent season finale of “The Last Ship.”

In 1987’s “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” the bus from Jefferson City takes John Candy and Steve Martin somehow backward past the Arch en route to further misadventures.

“Identity Thief” (2013) didn’t come anywhere near St. Louis to film, but did awkwardly insert the Arch when Melissa McCarthy and Jason Bateman stopped here for dinner.

TV and movies love the Arch, but they also love to destroy it. (“Sharknado” hasn’t hit town yet, but it’s probably only a matter of time.)

Syfy’s current “Defiance” imagines a derelict, half-buried Arch at the center of a settlement once known (before aliens) as St. Louis. “Life After People,” a History Channel documentary imagining what would become of the Earth if humanity disappeared, showed a CGI’d Arch crumbling. Books get in on the act, too; Benjamin Percy’s postapocalyptic “The Dead Lands” has the Arch reduced to stumps of legs.

The Arch in the 1999 film “South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut.”

Does the Arch have super power? You might think so from the Syfy movie “The Black Hole,” which had St. Louis (and eventually everything) being sucked into the bowels of the Arch.

The as-yet-unreleased movie “Cranium Intel” has the Arch as portal to another planet.

Flashes of the Gateway Arch in movies are too numerous to count. “American Flyers” (1985) had a glimpse in the opening sequence. “Tin Men” (1987) looked down Market Street to the Arch in the distance. In the new “Mississippi Grind,” gamblers Ryan Reynolds and Ben Mendelsohn contemplate their next move with the Arch in the background.

The Arch popped up, seen from a plane, in “Up in the Air,” in which St. Louis posed as a lot of other cities. “Gone Girl,” set in Missouri, worked in the Arch when a character visited St. Louis. The movie “61” opened at Busch Stadium with the Arch in sight.

Syfy’s “Defiance” imagines a derelict, halfburied Arch in the future.

TV has shown glimpses of the Arch in “Magnum, P.I.,” which featured a St. Louis character. More recently, “Criminal Minds” investigated crimes here, and “Family Guy” rudely had terrorists flying between the Arch’s legs.

But the Arch has been particularly prominent in Showtime’s fact-based “Masters of Sex,” set in St. Louis and currently taking place as the Arch is new. Sex doctor William Masters conveniently has a view out of his window (which he most likely did not in real life). In addition, Raymond Tusk on Season 2 of Netflix’s “House of Cards” had a Gateway Arch view.

Possibly the best news for the Arch, though, came in the recent season finale of “The Last Ship” on TNT. Yes, there’s a killer flu going around, and the government is in disarray. But, turns out, St. Louis is the new U.S. capital, which makes the Gateway Arch our national symbol. stltoday.com

In “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” the bus takes a strange route from Jefferson City.

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