St. Louis, Missouri 作者： 来源： 发布时间：2021-11-09
I.Population and Area
₋Area
Land: 61.74 sq mi (159.92 km2)
₋Population
Total: 319,294
Density: 4,868.02/sq mi (1,879.56/km2)
II.Natural Geography
Street View
₋St. Louis is a city in Missouri, on the western bank of the Mississippi River, which forms the state line between Illinois and Missouri. The Missouri River merges with the Mississippi River 15 river miles north of Downtown St. Louis, forming the fourth-longest river system in the world. In 2019, the estimated population was 300,576, and of the bi-state metropolitan area, 2,804,724. Greater St. Louis is the largest metropolitan area in Missouri, second-largest in Illinois, seventh-largest in the Great Lakes Megalopolis, and the 22nd-largest in the United States.
₋Before European settlement, the area was a regional center of Native American Mississippian culture. The city of St. Louis was founded in 1764 by French fur traders Pierre Laclède and Auguste Chouteau, and named after Louis IX of France. In 1764, following France's defeat in the Seven Years' War, the area was ceded to Spain. In 1800, it was retroceded to France, which sold it three years later to the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase. In the 19th century, St. Louis became a major port on the Mississippi River; in 1870, it was the fourth-largest city in the country. It separated from St. Louis County in 1877, becoming an independent city and limiting its own political boundaries. St. Louis had a brief run as a world-class city in the early 20th century. In 1904, it hosted the Louisiana Purchase Exposition and the Summer Olympics.
₋A "Gamma" global city with a metropolitan GDP of more than $160 bi llion in 2017, metropolitan St. Louis has a diverse economy with strengths in the service, manufacturing, trade, transportation, and tourism industries. It is home to nine of the ten Fortune 500 companies based in Missouri. Major companies headquartered or with significant operations in the city include Ameren Corporation, Peabody Energy, Nestlé Purina PetCare, Anheuser-Busch, Wells Fargo Advisors, Stifel Financial, Spire, Inc., MilliporeSigma, FleishmanHillard, Square, Inc., U.S. Bank, Anthem BlueCross and Blue Shield, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and AT&T.
₋Major research universities include St. Louis University and a small portion of the Washington University in St. Louis main campus; most of the latter's main campus is in unincorporated St. Louis County and Clayton. The Washington University Medical Center in the Central West End neighborhood hosts an agglomeration of medical and pharmaceutical institutions, including Barnes-Jewish Hospital.
₋St. Louis has two professional sports teams: the St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball and the St. Louis Blues of the National Hockey League. In 2019, the city was awarded a Major League Soccer franchise, which will begin play upon the completion of a 22,500-seat stadium in the city's Downtown West neighborhood in 2022. Among the city's notable sights is the 630-foot (192 m) Gateway Arch in the downtown area. St. Louis is also home to the St. Louis Zoo, and the Missouri Botanical Garden, with the second-largest herbarium in North America.
III.ECONOMY
₋According to the 2010 United States Census, St. Louis had 319,294 people living in 142,057 households, of which 67,488 households were families. The population density was 5,158.2 people per square mile (1,990.6/km²). About 24% of the population was 19 or younger, 9% were 20 to 24, 31% were 25 to 44, 25% were 45 to 64, and 11% were 65 or older. The median age was about 34 years.
₋The population was about 49.2% African American, 43.9% White (42.2% Non-Hispanic White), 2.9% Asian, 0.3% Native American/Alaska Native, and 2.4% reporting two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 3.5% of the population.
₋The African-American population is concentrated in the north side of the city (the area north of Delmar Boulevard is 94.0% black, compared with 35.0% in the central corridor and 26.0% in the south side of St. Louis). Among the Asian-American population in the city, the largest ethnic group is Vietnamese (0.9%), followed by Chinese (0.6%) and Indians (0.5%). The Vietnamese community has concentrated in the Dutchtown neighborhood of south St. Louis; Chinese are concentrated in the Central West End. People of Mexican descent are the largest Latino group, and make up 2.2% of St. Louis's population. They have the highest concentration in the Dutchtown, Benton Park West (Cherokee Street), and Gravois Park neighborhoods. People of Italian descent are concentrated in The Hill.
₋In 2000, the median income for a household in the city was $29,156, and the median income for a family was $32,585. Males had a median income of $31,106; females, $26,987. Per capita income was $18,108.
₋Some 19% of the city's housing units were vacant, and slightly less than half of these were vacant structures not for sale or rent.
₋In 2010, St. Louis's per-capita rates of online charitable donations and volunteerism were among the highest among major U.S. cities.
₋As of 2010, 91.05% (270,934) of St. Louis city residents age 5 and older spoke English at home as a primary language, while 2.86% (8,516) spoke Spanish, 0.91% (2,713) Serbo-Croat, 0.74% (2,200) Vietnamese, 0.50% (1,495) African languages, 0.50% (1,481) Chinese, and French was spoken as a main language by 0.45% (1,341) of the population over the age of five. In total, 8.95% (26,628) of St. Louis's population age 5 and older spoke a mother language other than English.
IV.Industrial Characteristics
₋As of 2018, the St. Louis Metropolitan Area is home to ten Fortune 500 companies, the 7th-most among U.S. cities. They include Express Scripts, Emerson Electric, Monsanto, Reinsurance Group of America, Centene, Graybar Electric, and Edward Jones Investments.
₋Other notable corporations headquartered in the region include Arch Coal, Bunge Limited, Wells Fargo Advisors (formerly A.G. Edwards), Energizer Holdings, Patriot Coal, Post Foods, United Van Lines, and Mayflower Transit, Post Holdings, Olin, and Enterprise Holdings (a parent company of several car rental companies). Notable corporations with operations in St. Louis include Cassidy Turley, Kerry Group, Mastercard, TD Ameritrade, and BMO Harris Bank.
₋Health care and biotechnology institutions with operations in St. Louis include Pfizer, the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, the Solae Company, Sigma-Aldrich, and Multidata Systems International. General Motors manufactures automobiles in Wentzville, while an earlier plant, known as the St. Louis Truck Assembly, built GMC automobiles from 1920 until 1987. Chrysler closed its St. Louis Assembly production facility in nearby Fenton, Missouri and Ford closed the St. Louis Assembly Plant in Hazelwood.
₋Several once-independent pillars of the local economy have been purchased by other corporations. Among them are Anheuser-Busch, purchased by Belgium-based InBev; Missouri Pacific Railroad, which was headquartered in St. Louis, merged with the Omaha, Nebraska-based Union Pacific Railroad in 1982;[64] McDonnell Douglas, whose operations are now part of Boeing Defense, Space & Security; Trans World Airlines, which was headquartered in the city for its last decade of existence, prior to being acquired by American Airlines; Mallinckrodt, purchased by Tyco International; and Ralston Purina, now a wholly owned subsidiary of Nestlé. The May Department Stores Company (which owned Famous-Barr and Marshall Field's stores) was purchased by Federated Department Stores, which has its regional headquarters in the area. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis in downtown is one of two federal reserve banks in Missouri. Most of the assets of Furniture Brands International were sold to Heritage Home Group in 2013, which moved to North Carolina.
₋St. Louis is a center of medicine and biotechnology. The Washington University School of Medicine is affiliated with Barnes-Jewish Hospital, the fifth largest hospital in the world. Both institutions operate the Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center. The School of Medicine also is affiliated with St. Louis Children's Hospital, one of the country's top pediatric hospitals. Both hospitals are owned by BJC HealthCare. The McDonnell Genome Institute at Washington University played a major role in the Human Genome Project. St. Louis University Medical School is affiliated with SSM Health's Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital and St. Louis University Hospital. It also has a cancer center, vaccine research center, geriatric center, and a bioethics institute. Several different organizations operate hospitals in the area, including BJC HealthCare, Mercy, SSM Health Care, and Tenet.
₋Cortex Innovation Community in Midtown neighborhood is the largest innovation hub in the midwest. Cortex is home to offices of Square, Microsoft, Aon, Boeing, and Centene. Cortex has generated 3,800 tech jobs in 14 years. Once built out, projections are for it to make $2 billion in development and create 13,000 jobs for the region.
₋Boeing employs nearly 15,000 people in its north St. Louis campus, headquarters to its defense unit. In 2013, the company said it would move about 600 jobs from Seattle, where labor costs have risen, to a new IT center in St. Louis. Other companies, such as LaunchCode and LockerDome, think the city could become the next major tech hub. Programs such as Arch Grants are attracting new startups to the region.
V.Attractions
1. Gateway Arch
₋The Gateway Arch is a 630-foot (192 m) monument in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Clad in stainless steel and built in the form of a weighted catenary arch, it is the world's tallest arch, the tallest man-made monument in the Western Hemisphere, and Missouri's tallest accessible building. Built as a monument to the westward expansion of the United States, and officially dedicated to "the American people," the Arch, commonly referred to as "The Gateway to the West" is the centerpiece of Gateway Arch National Park and has become an internationally recognized symbol of St. Louis, as well as a popular tourist destination.
₋The Arch was designed by Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen in 1947; construction began on February 12, 1963 and was completed on October 28, 1965 at an overall cost of $13 million (equivalent to $80.6 million in 2018). The monument opened to the public on June 10, 1967. It is located at the site of St. Louis's founding on the west bank of the Mississippi River.
₋Physical characteristics
₋Both the width and height of the arch are 630 feet (192 m). The arch is the tallest memorial in the United States and the tallest stainless steel monument in the world.
₋The cross-sections of the arch's legs are equilateral triangles, narrowing from 54 feet (16 m) per side at the bases to 17 feet (5.2 m) per side at the top. Each wall consists of a stainless steel skin covering a sandwich of two carbon-steel walls with reinforced concrete in the middle from ground level to 300 feet (91 m), with carbon steel to the peak. The arch is hollow to accommodate a unique tram system that takes visitors to an observation deck at the top.
₋The structural load is supported by a stressed-skin design. Each leg is embedded in 25,980 short tons (23,570 t) of concrete 44 feet (13 m) thick and 60 feet (18 m) deep. Twenty feet (6.1 m) of the foundation is in bedrock. The arch is resistant to earthquakes and is designed to sway up to 18 inches (46 cm) in either direction, while withstanding winds up to 150 miles per hour (240 km/h). The structure weighs 42,878 short tons (38,898 t), of which concrete composes 25,980 short tons (23,570 t); structural steel interior, 2,157 short tons (1,957 t); and the stainless steel panels that cover the exterior of the arch, 886 short tons (804 t). This amount of stainless steel is the most used in any one project in history. The base of each leg at ground level had to have an engineering tolerance of 1⁄64 inch (0.40 mm) or the two legs would not meet at the top.
₋Located in: Gateway Arch National Park
₋Address: St. Louis, MO 63102, United States
₋Height: 192 m
₋Construction started: February 12, 1963
₋Architect: Eero Saarinen
₋Website: https://www.gatewayarch.com/
2.Forest Park
₋Forest Park is a public park in western St. Louis, Missouri. It is a prominent civic center and covers 1,326 acres (5.37 km2). Opened in 1876, more than a decade after its proposal, the park has hosted several significant events, including the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904 and the 1904 Summer Olympics. Bounded by Washington University in St. Louis, Skinker Boulevard, Lindell Boulevard, Kingshighway Boulevard, and Oakland Avenue, it is known as the "Heart of St. Louis" and features a variety of attractions, including the St. Louis Zoo, the St. Louis Art Museum, the Missouri History Museum, and the St. Louis Science Center.
₋Since the early 2000s, it has carried out a $100 million restoration through a public-private partnership aided by its Master Plan. Changes have extended to improving landscaping and habitat as well. The park's acreage includes meadows and trees and a variety of ponds, manmade lakes, and freshwater streams. For several years, the park has been restoring prairie and wetlands areas of the park. It has reduced flooding and attracted a much greater variety of birds and wildlife, which have settled in the new natural habitats.
₋Forest Park is home to five of the region's major institutions: the St. Louis Art Museum, the St. Louis Zoo, the St. Louis Science Center, the Missouri History Museum, and the Muny amphitheater. It has several recreational facilities, including the Dwight Davis Tennis Center, the Steinberg Skating Rink, the Boathouse Restaurant (with boat rentals), the Forest Park Country Club, the Highlands Golf and Tennis Center, handball courts, and fields for softball, baseball, soccer, cricket, rugby, and archery. The park also features extensive walking and bicycling paths.
₋Address: 5595 Grand Dr, St. Louis, MO 63112, United States
₋Area: 1,326 acres (5,370,000 m2)
₋Website: https://www.forestparkforever.org/visit
3.City Museum
₋City Museum is a museum whose exhibits consist largely of repurposed architectural and industrial objects, housed in the former International Shoe building in the Washington Avenue Loft District of St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Opened in 1997, the museum attracted more than 700,000 visitors in 2010.
₋The City Museum has been named one of the "great public spaces" by the Project for Public Spaces, and has won other local and international awards as a must-see destination. It has been described as "a wild, singular vision of an oddball artistic mind."
₋City Museum was founded by artist Bob Cassilly and his then-wife Gail Cassilly. The museum's building was once an International Shoe Company factory and warehouse but was mostly vacant when the Cassillys bought it in 1993. Construction began almost immediately after the purchase of the building, and was shrouded in secrecy until visitors were first allowed into the museum to see the work in progress on New Year's Eve 1996. With the construction of the iconic giant whale in the lobby completed in 1997, the museum opened to the public on October 25 of the same year. Within two years, it was drawing 300,000 visitors a year. Cassilly remained the museum's artistic director until his death in 2011.
₋The museum has regularly expanded, adding new exhibits such as MonstroCity in 2002, Enchanted Caves and Shoe Shaft in 2003, and World Aquarium in 2004.
₋A circus ring on the third floor offers daily live acts, and the museum has also hosted concerts. It houses The Shoelace Factory, whose antique braiding machines make colorful shoelaces for sale. The building's fifth floor consists of apartments, dubbed the Lofts at City Museum, which range in size from 1,300 to more than 2,800 square feet (260 m2).
₋Address: 750 N 16th St, St. Louis, MO 63103, United States
₋Opened: October 25, 1997
₋Website: https://www.citymuseum.org/
VI.History
₋Mississippian culture and exploration
₋The area that would become St. Louis was a center of the Native American Mississippian culture, which built numerous temple and residential earthwork mounds on both sides of the Mississippi River. Their major regional center was at Cahokia Mounds, active from 900 to 1500. Due to numerous major earthworks within St. Louis boundaries, the city was nicknamed as the "Mound City". These mounds were mostly demolished during the city's development. Historic Native American tribes in the area included the Siouan-speaking Osage people, whose territory extended west, and the Illiniwek.
₋European exploration of the area was first recorded in 1673, when French explorers Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette traveled through the Mississippi River valley. Five years later, La Salle claimed the region for France as part of La Louisiane.
₋The earliest European settlements in the area were built in Illinois Country (also known as Upper Louisiana) on the east side of the Mississippi River during the 1690s and early 1700s at Cahokia, Kaskaskia, and Fort de Chartres. Migrants from the French villages on the opposite side of the Mississippi River (e.g. Kaskaskia) founded Ste. Genevieve in the 1730s.
₋In 1764, after France lost the Seven Years' War, Pierre Laclède and his stepson Auguste Chouteau founded what was to become the city of St. Louis. (French lands east of the Mississippi had been ceded to Great Britain and the lands west of the Mississippi to Spain; France and Spain were 18th-century allies. Louis XV of France and Charles III of Spain were cousins, both from the House of Bourbon.) The French families built the city's economy on the fur trade with the Osage, as well as with more distant tribes along the Missouri River. The Chouteau brothers gained a monopoly from Spain on the fur trade with Santa Fe. French colonists used African slaves as domestic servants and workers in the city.
₋France, alarmed that Britain would demand French possessions west of the Mississippi and the Missouri River basin after losing New France to them in 1759–60, transferred these to Spain as part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. These areas remained in Spanish possession until 1803. In 1780 during the American Revolutionary War, St. Louis was attacked by British forces, mostly Native American allies, in the Battle of St. Louis.
₋City founding (French and Spanish Louisiana period)
₋The founding of St. Louis was preceded by a trading business between Gilbert Antoine de St. Maxent and Pierre Laclède (Liguest) in the fall of 1763. Maxent invested in a Mississippi River expedition led by Laclède, who searched for a location to base the company's fur trading operations. Though Ste. Genevieve was already established as a trading center, he sought a place less prone to flooding. He found an elevated area overlooking the flood plain of the Mississippi River, not far south from its confluence with the Missouri and Illinois rivers. In addition to having an advantageous natural drainage system, there were nearby forested areas to supply timber and grasslands which could easily converted for agricultural purposes. This place, declared Laclède, “might become, hereafter, one of the finest cities in America.” He dispatched his 14-year-old stepson, Auguste Chouteau, to the site, with the support of 30 settlers in February 1764.
₋Laclède arrived at the future town site two months later and produced a plan for St. Louis based on the New Orleans street plan. The default block size was 240 by 300 feet, with just three long avenues running parallel to the west bank of the Mississippi. He established a public corridor of 300 feet fronting the river, but later this area was released for private development.
₋For the first few years of St. Louis's existence, the city was not recognized by any of the governments. Although the settlement was thought to be under the control of the Spanish government, no one asserted any authority over it, and thus St. Louis had no local government. This vacuum led Laclède to assume civil control, and all problems were disposed in public settings, such as communal meetings. In addition, Laclède granted new settlers lots in town and the surrounding countryside. In hindsight, many of these original settlers thought of these first few years as "the golden age of St. Louis".
₋By 1765, the city began receiving visits from representatives of the English, French, and Spanish governments. The Indians in the area expressed dissatisfaction at being under the control of British forces. One of the great Ottawa chieftains, Pontiac, was angered by the change of power and the potential for the British to come into their lands. He desired to fight against them but many of the St. Louis inhabitants refused.
₋St. Louis was transferred to the French First Republic in 1800 (although all of the colonial lands continued to be administered by Spanish officials), then sold by the French to the U.S. in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase. St. Louis became the capital of, and gateway to, the new territory. Shortly after the official transfer of authority was made, the Lewis and Clark Expedition was commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson. The expedition departed from St. Louis in May 1804 along the Missouri River to explore the vast territory. There were hopes of finding a water route to the Pacific Ocean, but the party had to go overland in the Upper West. They reached the Pacific Ocean via the Columbia River in summer 1805. They returned, reaching St. Louis on September 23, 1806. Both Lewis and Clark lived in St. Louis after the expedition. Many other explorers, settlers, and trappers (such as Ashley's Hundred) would later take a similar route to the West.
₋19th century
₋The city elected its first municipal legislators (called trustees) in 1808. Steamboats first arrived in St. Louis in 1817, improving connections with New Orleans and eastern markets. Missouri was admitted as a state in 1821. St. Louis was incorporated as a city in 1822, and continued to develop largely due to its busy port and trade connections.
₋Immigrants from Ireland and Germany arrived in St. Louis in significant numbers starting in the 1840s, and the population of St. Louis grew from less than 20,000 inhabitants in 1840, to 77,860 in 1850, to more than 160,000 by 1860. By the mid-1800s, St. Louis had a greater population than New Orleans.
₋Settled by many Southerners in a slave state, the city was split in political sympathies and became polarized during the American Civil War. In 1861, 28 civilians were killed in a clash with Union troops. The war hurt St. Louis economically, due to the Union blockade of river traffic to the south on the Mississippi River. The St. Louis Arsenal constructed ironclads for the Union Navy.
₋Slaves worked in many jobs on the waterfront as well as on the riverboats. Given the city's location close to the free state of Illinois and others, some slaves escaped to freedom. Others, especially women with children, sued in court in freedom suits, and several prominent local attorneys aided slaves in these suits. About half the slaves achieved freedom in hundreds of suits before the American Civil War. The printing press of abolitionist Elijah Parish Lovejoy was destroyed for the third time by townsfolk. He was murdered the next year in nearby Alton, Illinois.
₋After the war, St. Louis profited via trade with the West, aided by the 1874 completion of the Eads Bridge, named for its design engineer. Industrial developments on both banks of the river were linked by the bridge, the second in the Midwest over the Mississippi River after the Hennepin Avenue Bridge in Minneapolis. The bridge connects St. Louis, Missouri to East St. Louis, Illinois. The Eads Bridge became a symbolic image of the city of St. Louis, from the time of its erection until 1965 when the Gateway Arch Bridge was constructed. The bridge crosses the St. Louis riverfront between Laclede's Landing, to the north, and the grounds of the Gateway Arch, to the south. Today the road deck has been restored, allowing vehicular and pedestrian traffic to cross the river. The St. Louis MetroLink light rail system has used the rail deck since 1993. An estimated 8,500 vehicles pass through it daily.
₋On August 22, 1876, the city of St. Louis voted to secede from St. Louis County and become an independent city. Industrial production continued to increase during the late 19th century. Major corporations such as the Anheuser-Busch brewery and Ralston-Purina company were established. St. Louis also was home to Desloge Consolidated Lead Company and several brass era automobile companies, including the Success Automobile Manufacturing Company; St. Louis is the site of the Wainwright Building, a skyscraper designed in 1892 by architect Louis Sullivan.
₋20th century
₋The city hosted the 1904 World's Fair and the 1904 Summer Olympics, becoming the first non-European city to host the Olympics. Permanent facilities and structures remaining from the fair are Forest Park and associated structures within its boundaries: the St. Louis Art Museum, the St. Louis Zoo and the Missouri History Museum, as well as Tower Grove Park and the Botanical Gardens.
₋After the Civil War, social and racial discrimination in housing and employment were common in St. Louis. In 1916, during the Jim Crow Era, St. Louis passed a residential segregation ordinance saying that if 75% of the residents of a neighborhood were of a certain race, no one from a different race was allowed to move in. That ordinance was struck down in a court challenge by the NAACP, so racists invented racial covenants, which prevented the sale of houses in certain neighborhoods to "persons not of Caucasian race". Again, St. Louisans offered a lawsuit in challenge, and covenants were ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1948 in the Shelley v. Kraemer case.
₋In the first half of the 20th century, St. Louis was a destination in the Great Migration of African Americans from the rural South seeking better opportunities. During World War II, the NAACP campaigned to integrate war factories. In 1964, civil rights activists protested at the construction of the Gateway Arch to publicize their effort to gain entry for African Americans into the skilled trade unions, where they were underrepresented. The Department of Justice filed the first suit against the unions under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
₋In the first part of the century, St. Louis had some of the worst air pollution in the United States. In April 1940, the city banned the use of soft coal mined in nearby states. The city hired inspectors to ensure that only anthracite was burned. By 1946, the city had reduced air pollution by about three-quarters.
₋De jure educational segregation continued into the 1950s, and de facto segregation continued into the 1970s, leading to a court challenge and interdistrict desegregation agreement. Students have been bused mostly from the city to county school districts to have opportunities for integrated classes, although the city has created magnet schools to attract students.
₋St. Louis, like many Midwestern cities, expanded in the early 20th century due to industrialization, which provided jobs to new generations of immigrants and migrants from the South. It reached its peak population of 856,796 at the 1950 census. Suburbanization from the 1950s through the 1990s dramatically reduced the city's population, as did restructuring of industry and loss of jobs. The effects of suburbanization were exacerbated by the small geographical size of St. Louis due to its earlier decision to become an independent city, and it lost much of its tax base. During the 19th and 20th century, most major cities aggressively annexed surrounding areas as residential development occurred away from the central city; however, St. Louis was unable to do so.
₋Several urban renewal projects were built in the 1950s, as the city worked to replace old and substandard housing. Some of these were poorly designed and resulted in problems. One prominent example, Pruitt-Igoe, became a symbol of failure in public housing, and was torn down less than two decades after it was built.
₋Since the 1980s, several revitalization efforts have focused on downtown St. Louis.
₋21st century
₋Urban revitalization continued in the new century. Gentrification has taken place in the Washington Avenue Historic District, Central West End and Forest Park Southeast neighborhoods. This helped St. Louis win the World Leadership Award for urban renewal in 2006. In 2017 the US Census Bureau estimated that St. Louis had a population of 308,826 which is down from a population of 319,371 in 2010.
₋In the 21st century, the city of St. Louis contains 11% of the total metropolitan population. (The top 20 U.S. metro areas have an average of 24% of their populations in their central cities. St. Louis grew slightly during the early 2000s, but lost population from 2000 to 2010. Immigration has continued, with the city attracting Vietnamese, Latin Americans predominantly from Mexico, and Bosnians, who make up the largest Bosnian community outside of Bosnia.
VII.Other Information
₋Culture
₋With its French past and waves of Catholic immigrants in the 19th and 20th centuries, from Ireland, Germany and Italy, St. Louis is a major center of Roman Catholicism in the United States. St. Louis also boasts the largest Ethical Culture Society in the United States and is one of the most generous cities in the United States, ranking ninth in 2013. Several places of worship in the city are noteworthy, such as the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, home of the world's largest mosaic installation.
₋Other notable churches include the Basilica of St. Louis, King of France, the oldest Roman Catholic cathedral west of the Mississippi River and the oldest church in St. Louis; the St. Louis Abbey, whose distinctive architectural style garnered multiple awards at the time of its completion in 1962; and St. Francis de Sales Oratory, a neo-Gothic church completed in 1908 in South St. Louis and the second largest church in the city.
₋The city is identified with music and the performing arts, especially its association with blues, jazz, and ragtime. St. Louis is home to the St. Louis Symphony, the second oldest symphony orchestra in the United States. Until 2010, it was also home to KFUO-FM, one of the oldest classical music FM radio stations west of the Mississippi River. Opera Theatre of St. Louis has been called "one of America's best summer festivals" by the Washington Post. Former general director Timothy O'Leary was known for drawing the community into discussions of challenging operas. John Adams's "The Death of Klinghoffer", which touched off protests and controversy when performed by the Metropolitan Opera in 2014, had no such problems in St. Louis three years before, because the company fostered a citywide discussion, with interfaith dialogues addressing the tough issues of terrorism, religion and the nature of evil that the opera brings up. St. Louis's Jewish Community Relations Council gave O'Leary an award. Under O'Leary, the company — always known for innovative work — gave second chances to other major American operas, such as John Corigliano's "The Ghosts of Versailles", presented in 2009 in a smaller-scale version.
₋The Gateway Arch anchors downtown St. Louis and a historic center that includes: the Federal courthouse where the Dred Scott case was first argued, an expanded public library, major churches and businesses, and retail. An increasing downtown residential population has taken to adapted office buildings and other historic structures. In nearby University City is the Delmar Loop, ranked by the American Planning Association as a "great American street" for its variety of shops and restaurants, and the Tivoli Theater, all within walking distance.
₋Unique city and regional cuisine reflecting various immigrant groups include toasted ravioli, gooey butter cake, provel cheese, the slinger, the Gerber sandwich, and the St. Paul sandwich. Some St. Louis chefs have begun emphasizing use of local produce, meats and fish, and neighborhood farmers' markets have become more popular. Artisan bakeries, salumeria, and chocolatiers also operate in the city.
₋St. Louis-style pizza has thin crust, provel cheese, and is cut in small squares. Frozen-custard purveyor Ted Drewes offers its "Concrete": frozen custard blended with any combination of dozens of ingredients into a mixture so thick that a spoon inserted into the custard does not fall if the cup is inverted.
VIII.Contact Information
Government
Type: Mayor–council government
Mayor: Lyda Krewson (D)
President, Board of Aldermen: Lewis E. Reed (D)
Comptroller: Darlene Green (D)
City Hall
To contact St. Louis City Hall call 314-622-4800.
International callers call +1-314-622-4800
The building main pedestrian access are from Tucker Boulevard (12th Street) and Clark Avenue.
The Accessible entrance is located at the tunnel on the west side of the building near Market Street.
Website: https://www.stlouis-mo.gov/government/city-hall.cfm