Heavenly Places by Amanda Russ

Once I opened my eyes I realized that I was standing in front of a huge broad golden gate. As I approached this gate, which seemed taller than two tall buildings stacked up on each other and beyond reason, I noticed the perfectly designed art that had a sculpture of the finest creation known to mankind. It had designs that were shapes, curving, and little angels praying and dancing around clouds and figures of that nature. The masterpiece was beautiful. I reached out to touch this lovely gate and to my surprise it was warm. A fine golden gate like this would be cold, icy cold, I thought to myself. I looked around to see these beautiful clouds, unusual clouds matter of fact. The clouds somehow were life like, as if they had a mind of their own. For every movement the clouds made it seemed as if they were ballerinas, dancing, reaching out to give me a welcome hug. It frightened me at first, because I never encountered such lovely clouds that were so pure and bulging before. As if I wanted to leap and dive into them, they would catch me by observing my body figure and wrapping around me like a boxing glove.

Crown Square by Monulita Boey

Crown Square is located in the historic Old North. By the mid-19th century, north St. Louis had emerged as an important manufacturing district. Proximity to the Mississippi River provided businesses with easy access to raw materials and excellent opportunities for shipping their goods.

The business district on North 14th Street was converted into a pedestrian mall in 1977; however, the urban planning experiment failed due to decades of deterioration and abandonment of the historic buildings. Now the area has come a long way though. There’s a farmers market, several neighborhood beautification projects, pedestrian mall, and I can’t forget Crown Candy Kitchen.

Crown Candy Kitchen is a great place to hang out. I recently had a great eating experience there. I visited for lunch and ordered a BLT. I had no idea it would be 13 slices of bacon, fresh lettuce, ripe tomatoes and toasted bread. I washed it down with a thick, chocolate shake. The weather was so nice I decided to take a tour of the newly revived 14th street pedestrian mall.