St. Louis by James

Growing up in St.Louis Mo hasn’t been easy. My name is James. I grew up on the west side of the STL. I am a 29 yr. old father. The neighborhood I grew up in is called the ‘’trax’’ which is known for drug sales and violence.

  At the age of 13, I started to do what I witnessed others doing in my neighborhood: selling crack, smoking weed and carrying guns. My choice for doing these things was voluntary and I thought it was the right thing to do because I saw that and worse on a daily basis. My lifestyle choice started to catch up with me around the age of 16. At 16,I started getting expelled from school and making regular trips to juvenile detention. The older I got I didn’t care too much about the trips to juvenile because the trips were short and quick and usually ended with my mother picking me up after 30 days or less.

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.