TALK OF THE TOWNS

In our July 14 issue, the U. City item featuring Mannequins on the Loop contestant Yolanda Newson contained incorrect information. Newson’s mannequin tied for second place with the one from Artists First STL, and the $1,000 prize was split between the contestants. (Side note: First place and its $1,500 prize went to Christine A. Holtz.) Newson did not receive $1,000 as the second place audience favorite; Kayla Kemp won a $500 prize as the audience favorite. We regret the errors and oversight.

OF THE TOWNS talk

by bill beggs jr.

overland

Are you one of those folks who always means to but neglects to fill that plastic bag with nonperishable food items at Thanksgiving when the Boy Scouts go door-to-door ‘Scouting for Food?’ The pandemic kept the scouts away last year, but you don’t have to wait until November to help your neighbors. This weekend, while you shop for your family, you can help feed someone else’s: Operation Food Search (OFS) is hosting its annual Shop Out Hunger Day with help from Schnucks, Dierbergs and Straub’s markets. Volunteers will host an active drive Aug. 14 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at stores throughout the metro, where shoppers can donate nonperishable items needed to restock the shelves of the OFS distribution center and its 200-plus food partner agencies in communities throughout the region. (Schnucks will continue to accept donations through Aug. 22.) “Food insecurity has increased by 23% in Missouri over the past year,” says Kristen Wild, OFS executive director. “The need has never been greater.” In 2020, OFS collected more than $1 million worth of food from fundraising and food drives. The agency, 1644 Lotsie Blvd. in Overland, hopes to top that amount this year. One in four Missouri children is now at risk of hunger, and two-thirds of people receiving food assistance benefits are either under 18, elderly or disabled. With a strategic focus aimed at ending childhood hunger, OFS provides food and services monthly to 200,000 people through a network of 330 community partners in 27 Missouri and Illinois counties as well as the city of St. Louis.

clayton

The venerable shingle oak towered four stories, dwarfing Brian and Christine Calsyn’s two-story home on Walinca Drive in Clayton. Probably a hundred or so years old, it wasn’t only an insurance claim waiting to happen. It was its own ecosystem, as you’ll see. A week after the freakish July storm that resulted in widespread loss of branches, limbs and trunks, Christine pointed out a significant crack had appeared in the old shady oak. Overnight, sounds like acorns falling came from outside, but it was wood splitting. Early on the morning of July 17, the crack had plunged deeper into the trunk and widened at the juncture where the tree had spread over the decades into three distinct vertical limbs; a triple threat, as it were. Christine told Brian to call the police. He obeyed. Not soon after the authorities arrived, one-third of the tree crashed into the alley. Cops taped off the area, and a little while later, the second third cracked and fell across the power lines, taking out part of a neighbor’s fence. But one-third of “the Amityville tree,” as Christine had taken to calling it, remained standing. It wasn’t officially haunted, but it was home to a family of raccoons, who’d been gorging themselves on the honey that coexisting bees had diligently manufactured. A couple black-and-white furry heads of different sizes poked out of the remaining trunk as confused worker bees buzzed around with nowhere to go. The Calsyns, who’d spent much of their weekend before and after the crash on the phone with Ameren, animal specialists, tree surgeons, etc., learned that the raccoons would find another place to live in short order. Indeed, by the time a tree guy showed up on Monday the 19th, the raccoons had vamoosed. The remaining stump is 6 feet in diameter in spots. Brian has set aside a large chunk of the bee-tunneled, ‘trash panda’ residence for an expert woodworker to make into something beautiful. Then, as luck would have it, a few days after the frantic Calsyns had left multiple emergency messages for an undoubtedly harried utility, a representative stopped by to assess the situation. Brian shrugged and pointed out how close a neighbor’s tree, though heavily trimmed over the years, has ventured toward the power lines. To be continued?

cwe

Progress vs. preservation is something like cats vs. dogs. Preservationists want to save the Optimist International complex at Taylor and Lindell in the CWE, while developers want to raze it in favor of 7.5-story apartment buildings. Recently, a city preservation board kicked the can down the road, voting to postpone a decision until its next meeting. The buildings represent mid-century modern architecture, preservationists posit. Built in 1961, the pavilion has appealing geometrics on the exterior. The tall building, from 1978, is kind of meh in my opinion. But any opinion, whether lowbrow or lofty, becomes moot when another vision—plus money—argues against it. The Optimists have been pessimistic, if you will, for a while; staff and membership have shrunk, and the building has been on the market for years. We’ll have to wait and see what happens when the board reconvenes. Many still rue the day in 1984 when the Buder and International buildings downtown were dynamited in the name of progress. Gives one cause to wonder the significance of the structures razed along 34th Street between 5th and 6th avenues in NYC to build the Empire State Building in the early 1930s. Once the world’s tallest, it’s a stunning example of the Art Deco period. But were buildings from the Beaux Arts or Art Nouveau schools of the late 19th century hammered into dust in its favor?

☛TT trivia

HOW LONG AGO DID OUR BELOVED UTILITY CHANGE ITS NAME TO AMEREN MISSOURI, AND TO WHOM DID WE BEGRUDGINGLY WRITE OUR CHECKS OUT TO BEFORE?

LAST ISSUE’S Q&A

What was Tennessee Williams’ birth name? Tennessee Williams was the dramatist’s pen name. His name at birth was Thomas Lanier Williams III. If you can truthfully tell us that you didn’t just Google the answer or ask Alexa, you can choose a very expensive prize to buy for yourself.

south st. louis

Any number of streets in the StL need more than TLC. An up-and-coming stretch of South Kingshighway Boulevard is a case in point. The wrong types of businesses sprouted up like noxious weeds in certain neglected spots along the Chippewa-Kingshighway corridor: predatory lending places, salons and convenience stores that may or may not have been fronts for nefarious activity. But several blocks are making a turn for the better, thanks to a pair of brothers doing some heavy lifting in what they’ve dubbed The Crown District. Simply labeling them ‘real estate investors’ would sell them short. Yes, they’re entrepreneurs, having relocated here from Chicago in 1999. Mix some urban planning in with a keen sense of place, and you’ve come a little closer. Add an affection for south side neighborhoods and the hardworking people who live and have businesses there, and you’re closer still. “Our business is the neighborhood,” one says. Was it Berto Garcia, 48, or Ivan Garcia, 47? These not-quite twins are the brains and brawn behind The Golden Hoosier drinking and dining spot, open since May in a vintage 100-year-old brick building with distinctive stone and concrete detailing. Just a few steps north, at Tholozan Avenue, caffeinated refreshments will be served at Pipers Tea & Coffee, to open later this summer. Ivan and Berto bring similar skills, yet one doesn’t just nod while the other talks. (We did observe Berto start a sentence, “In order to effect change … ” and hear Ivan finish it, “we had to be part of the solution.”) They’re catalysts for one another. So, anyhow: OUR BUSINESS IS What the heck is a golden hoosier? We might be making some of THE NEIGHBORHOOD. this up, but Sasquatch swore his information was passed on by a wee Scottish lad who’d just seen the Loch Ness Monster: A golden hoosier is every bit as real as the jackalope, legendary denizen of the Wyoming wilderness, a jackrabbit with antelope horns. There’s one taxidermied in the Garcia brothers’ bar if anyone needs confirmation. Well, a golden hoosier—there’s one painted on the front door glass, and a 3D head mounted above the restored, 1930s-era bar—could be a muskrat, but with sharp, scary teeth. Now, no one looks down on working-class folks around here. One would do best to embrace his or her own inner hoosier. “We’re in the cultural heart of the city,” asserts Ivan. Original artwork portrays favorites. Redd Foxx. Dolly Parton, who once said, “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap!” In another painting, Ivan’s late father-in-law lounges in an inner tube on the Black River. (‘Pastor Dale’ Bartels was known to drink Stag, that southern Illinois brew. Busch is on tap here; 4 Hands and other local and craft brews also are poured, along with top-shelf everything.) Another painting: Herbie, the brothers’ dad, working on the oil pan from a big commercial truck. Ivan leads us to show off the patio, designed to look like a Missouri campground in the Mark Twain National Forest, albeit scaled-up considerably. Polished natural wood on barstools, lacquered stumps around the fire pit. Light fixtures on both levels are period 1920s ‘milk glass.’ Everything’s authentic, much like Berto and Ivan. “The most dangerous person to be is yourself,” says Ivan. Berto adds: “Here, it’s more who you’re drinking with, not what you’re drinking.” C’mon down to 63139; visit thegoldenhoosier.com. &

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