St. Louis Community Foundation & Invest STL
We all LIVE here, we all GROW here, we all INVEST here. With the support of St. Louis Community Foundation, Invest STL announced the recipients of a grant to help drive equitable revitalization in some of our city’s neighborhoods. So they reached out to HOSTL to gather people’s stories from the West End neighborhood and neighborhoods around the Jefferson-Gravois corridors — because if you want to hear from voices in the community, you go to those who know it best.
“I’m just walking Willie and Fez and picking up the recycling. Recycling is something we all should be doing something more of. We have a clean-up day here in Hamilton Place in the spring. We get a few dumpsters, neighbors come out, and students help. We’re hoping to get a regular cleanup day in the fall. My first grandchild was born this year and I want to be able to say to him that I did something. I doubt it’s going to be enough, but if more people do it… I joke that when I get done picking up the recycling, then I’ll get started on the other trash. I don’t think I’m ever going to get there. At least, not at this rate.”
- Robert Strikwerda, West End resident, Board member of West End Neighbors, Representative to Saint Louis Association of Community Organizations, & Saint Louis University Women's and Gender Studies Department
“I’ve been living in this area for more than 17 years. I think of myself as a pioneer. I’ve seen the neighborhood change at least three or four times. When I first moved here, it was rougher than what it is now and most of the houses were vacant, abandoned, or empty. My neighbor bought his house for $1,000. My house also was a stupid steal. I live in a historical home with six fireplaces, and the architect that built it is the same one who built Union Station. It’s made from the same stones too. I saw some of the plans for the trolley 10 years ago and, in that time, I’ve seen a turn in the neighborhood. People care enough that they’re trying to bring this area back. It’s amazing because as time went on I could see housing prices rising. And there are mansions over here, so you know that at some point there had to be people of wealth in this area. I bought my house from a lady who was 104 years old. I think of myself as a pioneer. I’m the third owner in 130 years, and I imagine I’m the first Black person to live here who wasn’t a slave.”
- Julin Harrell, West End resident
“I’m a chef. I’ve worked in four different restaurants on Delmar. I have a catering business, and I rent my house out for parties. We had a masquerade party here, everybody was dressed in costumes. And since Cabanne Place has a history of ghost stories, I had a booklet of the stories that were read as you went up and down the street in carriages. I’ve had so many different incredible parties, from baby reveals to a memorial service. My girlfriend had a memorial service for her ex-husband here. We had live music because he was a musician, and it was a party. I didn’t know they had him on the mantle in the living room until I went in there. They had a picture on an easel and next to the easel was a vase. I said, ‘What is that?’ And my friend said, ‘That’s him.’ I thought we were having a memorial service for him, but I didn’t know he was actually here. It didn’t even register in my mind that it was him until they said, ‘Well, it is HIS party. Shouldn’t he be here?!’”
- Julin Harrell, West End resident
“When I pull up in my neighborhood and nobody tells me that somebody got shot or robbed or anything like that, it’s a smooth day. When one person gets hurt, it doesn’t just affect one person. It affects everybody — friends, neighbors, their cousins, their brothers, their sisters. We take care of the old people around here. We look out for them. If there are some people that don’t have family, we buy them something to eat, take out their trash. It’s basically like any other neighborhood. It may seem like it’s bad over here, but it’s no different here. We know everybody over here, except for the new people who move over here. They look at us like we’re somewhere we’re not supposed to be. And we’ve been here our whole lives. So instead of them getting to know us, they’re looking at us strange. But we’re somewhere, we’ve always been. This is home.”
- Lamarkco Sherrill, West End resident
“I walked by a lady up the street, and I didn’t know her from a can of paint, but her car broke down and I was trying to act funny. She worked at Dominos, so I was like, ‘I want some Dominos.’ She said, ‘I’m finna be late. I can’t even get there. I can’t even get a jump.’ I had just hopped out of my friend’s car, so I made them come back. She was thinking I was playing, but I was like, ‘No, I’m gonna have them give you a jump, for real.’ So my friend pulls back up to help her, and she was so shocked. She was sitting there talking to us for like 10 more minutes. I was like, ‘You don’t owe me anything. Just get to work.’ She was like, ‘Thank you! God’s going to bless you.’ I said, ‘It ain’t nothing.’ I’m young, but men of respect raised me. I’ve come up under them. You’ve got certain people who want to see you do better in life the right way. When you’ve been around somebody for so long, and you feel the genuine love, you’ll understand. They don’t come up to me like, ‘Nephew, go hit the corner and do this…’ No. Instead, they’re asking, ‘Are you in school? Are you playing sports? What’s up with those grades? What do you have going on, and what do you need?’”
- Rashad Buchannon, West End
“The park here didn’t use to look like this. Gang members used to hang out there, and it was so vandalized and torn up that you wouldn’t have your kids play there. The people who fixed the park came out and asked us, ‘How do you feel about the park? Would you like to see a new park here? Would you like to see the community come back up?’ And they came back, and they fixed it. Over the years, they put the water fountain in and the soft stuff on the playground so kids wouldn’t hurt themselves. So if people speak up, it does count. It felt good that they cared, that they actually came here and made a difference. They could have just come out here and not asked questions and said, ‘There are dope dealers out here and drug addicts. We need to shut this park down. This isn’t right.’ They didn’t do that. They saw those people sitting out there and doing wrong. I’m pretty sure they walked through here and saw a couple of bad things that they shouldn’t have. But they didn’t judge. They asked what was going on.”
- Courtney Buchannon, West End resident
“When you put a group of minorities together, what do you think is going to happen? You put us all in one small community, and you put a liquor store on every corner and gas stations filled with vandalism, and you want us to live like this. We have to find a way out on our own. It’s not up to statistics for what we’re going to be, but I feel like they’re already planning for us to be at the bottom of a totem pole. Our St. Louis Public Schools don’t get funded with the new books and new computers, but go to Clayton or Eureka schools, and they have Promethium boards. Over here, we don’t have any recreation centers where kids go and play. I would like to see a homeless shelter over here, a newer gym, or a recreation center where all the kids can go after school. I want something where kids can go outside and say, ‘I’m going here, Mom. I’ll be right back,’ or have mentors, and tutors, Big Brothers Big Sisters, and counselors, so there are people who check on you and see if you’re doing all right.”
- Shana Buchannon, West End resident
“I look at our neighborhood like a family. Every family has some dysfunction, but we all have to suit up and boot up and certainly serve and encourage each other. A lot of neighborhoods in the city have that one apartment building where they know people are probably selling drugs, but nobody talks to the people. Nobody connects with them. Nobody says, ‘Hi, what’s up?’ or waves. Instead, when they get to a stop sign, they turn their heads like, ‘I don’t even want them to see me. I don’t want them to look my way.’ So, doing this community engagement plan, it’s important for us to be intentional and engage with everyone. Everybody has a purpose. Even the person we sometimes turn our heads from to not make eye contact. C’mon! They have a purpose. We need their voices at the table so that when we create this community development plan for our neighborhood, it’s encouraging and motivating them. And the only way we can do it is through partnerships, and partnerships only happen through relationships, and relationships only happen through trust.”
- Keaira Anderson, West End resident and Executive Director, Cornerstone STL
“She meets kids every day at this park. There are kids who come out and play here every day, and everyone plays with them. They all go to the same school district. I have not yet seen a fight or anyone about to get into a fight. They might play a little rough, get upset and leave, but they come back the next day ready to play. They’re laughing, having fun, and they’re not actually doing anything. These kids are big enough for bikes and scooters and games, and I’m happy that they’re out here just playing. They don’t have a tablet or phone they’re interested in. They’re running around and using their imagination. The promise I see is that this generation is going to make a better neighborhood because of how close they are growing up with each other and, hopefully, stick together longer.”
- Carl and Carly Davis, Dutchtown residents
“My parents are from Bhutan, and they moved to Nepal in 1991 before I was born. But I never had citizenship there because I was born in a refugee camp and lived there for 17 years. When we had to choose the state and city in the U.S. where we wanted to come, we chose this city because our relatives already came here and said good things about St. Louis. They told us, ‘We have an arch and a large river,’ and I had studied about the Arch back in my country. Now, I am naturalized here, and it’s going to be six years since I moved here. It was kind of difficult at first because we were new. But now it’s actually cool. I went to high school here. I’ve learned about the people. I’ve learned about the jobs. I got a better job. And our neighbors are really good. When my mom was sick, because she has asthma and gets shortness of breath if she walks longer than 15 minutes, we called the ambulance. And the neighbors came out and helped us carry her. It made me feel safe because we didn’t even know them, but they helped. So I’m most proud of being in St. Louis, being a citizen, and that I’m with my parents.”
- Aite Magar, Dutchtown resident
“This used to be a convenience store when I was a kid, but it’s been gone since longer than I was old enough to remember. My dad loves to tell the story about how I wandered over there by myself when I was about three years old. My parents were asleep, and I piled up all the furniture like an escape artist, climbed up, and unlocked the front door. They found me here trying to buy donuts at six o’clock in the morning. It’s been closed for over 20 years now. Just recently they boarded everything up.”
- Chase Oberle, Dutchtown resident
“The good thing about the neighborhood is that it’s convenient to everywhere. I can hop on the 55, 44, or 270. The older people have been here forever, and they’re great neighbors. But I’ve witnessed a hit-and-run, there are shootings all the time, I’ve seen more prostitution here in the last five years, and the reason for the prostitution is the drugs. I’ve seen people shooting up behind my building and at the gas station, and ladies and gentlemen walk the streets day and night. I haven’t looked into what the community’s doing about it, but I’d like to know. The main thing is getting help for those who need it and getting them off the streets. Just yesterday, I saw a lady walking completely naked on Grand and Meramec — totally naked with her hands covering her up in front. It was unbelievable. Everyone was so shocked that they were just gawking. After a while, the police came. I’ve never seen her before. I’ve never seen that before. And I had my 7-year-old and my 4-year-old boys with me.”
“When’s the last time you’ve walked completely naked down the street?”
“A few years ago in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. What’s the name of it? Hedonism. You gotta go sometime.”
- Aaron Wilson, Dutchtown residents
“We’ve been here three years, and we are the youngest Mexican restaurant business on the street. At a certain point in my life, I wondered, ‘What am I doing for myself? What can I offer to my family?’ I wanted to build a business, but I never thought I would have a restaurant. I was working for another restaurant for 12 years, nine as a kitchen manager, and when I hit 30, I wanted to give myself a present, move on, and do my own thing. So I decided to open my own business. There are 32 states in Mexico, and every state has different dishes and traditions. Everything we cook is handmade, authentic, and we only serve what we know how to make, like Grandma’s recipes from scratch. Regulars come like three or four times a week, and I love when people traveling from places like Chicago, Colorado, or California say, ‘Oh my god, this reminds me of how my grandma used to do it!’ On Mother’s Day, my first year, it got packed, and I didn’t expect it. We were only three months old, and I thought, ‘Whoa, this is getting real.’ And when you finally pay that last dollar of debt you owe, and you make that first dollar of profit, that’s when you say, ‘Oh my god, I made it!’ And when you get that certificate from Yelp because you’re a five-star restaurant, that’s when I said, ‘Oh my god, this is awesome.’ I’m living the American dream right now. I don’t need anything.”
- Rafael Marcelina, Owner, Chaparritos Mexican Restaurant on Cherokee Street
“The dean of students at my middle school had a knack for reading people. A lot of people didn’t know I was as smart as I was because I wasn’t interested in school. So I used to act out. If you’re the class clown, people usually associate you with that stupidity. But all kids go through phases. She saw what I was going through and told me a lot about myself that I knew no one else knew. And I kind of took to that. She helped me learn, ‘Even though you’re in this situation now, sometimes you’ve got to play the hand that’s dealt to you. Sometimes people may have a better hand, but take something negative, turn it into inspiration, and try to work harder.’ She was competitive, she didn’t back down from things, she loved to talk. Me and her used to talk for hours. Her knowledge and understanding me and where I was coming from opened up my ears more to help me get a better insight on life. Now, every time I get a chance to talk to her I always tell her, ‘Thank you.’”
- Ricky Smith, Cherokee Street resident