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St Louis, Missouri
I paid 25 cents to light a little white candle
We’re actually traveling a little farther than the Grounds for Sculpture as we visit St Louis, one of the great American cities for a weekend trip.
Of course if you’re in St Louis on an (actual) weekend trip, you’re either going to have to come up with a believable excuse not to visit the Gateway Arch or you’re just going to give in and go up the damn thing again. Eero Saarinen’s iconic monument is always amazing to see, both at ground level and from inside. And while you can only see the rest of St Louis from the observation level, you can at least sometimes get that killer shadow to remind you once again of exactly where you are.
I have been to museums in St Louis (the Contemporary Art Museum, the Pulitzer Museum, the City Museum- more about that one later) but this was my first visit to the actual St Louis Art Museum. Located in Forest Park, it consists of a Cass Gilbert building and a new David Chipperfield addition which are pretty easy to tell apart. In addition to all that architecture, there is also some art, including the arches of Stone Sea by Andrew Goldsworthy. You can never have too many arches in St Louis.
We’re graduating from arches to domes at the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis, dedicated not to the city of St Louis but to the Louis who is a saint who the city of St Louis is named after. Saint Louis is actually Louis IX, a French King who was a hostage in the crusades and died of dysentery, which was probably an easy way to die in 1270. Inside his cathedral in the city named after him, there are glorious golden mosaics on every surface, although I’ve yet to find one about dysentery. That’s probably for the best all things considered.
Now that we’ve seen arches in three different places (the monument, the museum and the cathedral), we’re going to throw that theme away and just enjoy the City Museum. This place is absolute awesome chaos. And incredibly dangerous. I’m still not sure how the place hasn't been sued out of existence. Maybe they haven't heard of lawyers in Missouri yet.
You don’t really need a reason beyond the City Museum to visit St Louis, but this time I had one. A hockey game at the Scottrade Center downtown, where I took my father for his annual hockey-game-on-the-road birthday trip. We stayed out at the Delmar Loop at the terrific Moonrise Hotel (not pictured), then boarded the Red Line to the arena only to watch the hometown Blues lose to the Columbus Blue Jackets 4-2. At least they weren’t shut out.
