Historical June–August 2000 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
It’s early morning, the streetlights are still on, there are few cars in sight, and I am entering Forest Park from Des Peres Boulevard for my morning bike ride. Almost nobody is out, and it feels like I have the whole park to myself.
The wonderful thick, humid St.Louis summer air sits like a heavy blanket on me as I head east. (Maybe I am too lazy to ride up the hill on Skinker.) As I view the lights of the Jefferson Memorial, I admire the new addition.
As I head toward the eastern end of the park, I steer around the geese crossing the bike path from the meadow to the mist-shrouded ponds. (After being chased by a goose last summer, I give them a really wide berth.) As I go up and down hills by the zoo, I sometimes hear the symphony made by the animals waking up.
I move through the Kennedy Forest, but slam on the brakes so I don’t hit a wild turkey, that’s right a wild turkey, hurrying across the path.
As I go around one more time, more runners and cyclists enter the park, and as I head home, I leave the paths to the others who will come throughout the rest of the day. It’s been another breathtakingly beautiful ride in Forest Park, and I feel grateful to live so close to one of the most valuable resources in St. Louis.
As I make my way home, I stop by our plot in the McPherson Community Garden to water our vegetables.
This attempt at urban farming has been a new phenomenon in our family, and we take great pleasure in it.
We have enjoyed weeding the garden, while making salad with our own lettuce, weeding, dining on some of our beet greens, weeding, cooking with our home-grown cilantro, and oh yes, weeding. Did I mention that we have to weed our garden? Anyway, thanks to the help of one of Skinker-DeBaliviere’s kindest citizens, Andy Cross, we have grounded, pun intended, ourselves, even more into this neighborhood.
The garden has offered us another way to enjoy the company of our neighbors, given our children the chance to get their hands dirty, and allowed our family to have a typically rural activity in the city. Cycling through Forest Park and working in the community garden reminds me of just how green of a city St. Louis is. (So does driving down our streets at spring as everything is in bloom.) I remember once in the autumn several years ago when I stood on the balcony of a high-rise apartment in the Central West End and looked west.
The gorgeous fall foliage that covers everything except the Art Museum from Kingshighway to Clayton reaffirms the natural beauty of this city.
As urban residents, my wife and I have chosen to live in the city with all of its concrete.
We like the sidewalks beneath our feet, the buildings rising above us, and sounds of buses and cars on the street: Walking amongst the tall buildings on a downtown street, feeling the heat coming off the sidewalk, and waiting at the corner for the “walk” sign reminds us of the energy generated in a city.
We forego the tranquility of the forest or the bucolic beauty of the countryside for the adrenaline rush of the avenue. It’s fast paced, it’s frenetic, it’s sweltering in the summer and freezing in the winter-but it’s fun.
However, even the hardcore urbanite once in a while craves a little nature. Maybe it’s a need deep inside us to maintain some connection to the ground underneath the asphalt. Maybe it’s an antediluvian attachment to trees and a need to sit under them and feel the protection of their shade. Maybe it’s something inexplicable in our genetic code forcing us once in a while to lie down on a cushion of grass and stare up at the clouds and the sky. What ever it is that compels us to look for the green within the gray, we need it and we seek it out.
I had the pleasure last year of reading Witold Rybczinski’s A Clearing in the Distance, a biography of the American pioneer In landscape architecture, Frederick Law Olmstead.
In addition to being a beautifully written book, this piece of non-fiction compels the reader to look anew at green spaces in our cities. Olmstead realized that cities need manicured parks, but they also require unkempt, wild, green places.
In creating these spaces, we offer a haven from the hustle and bustle of the crowded and loud streets, and a place for us to re-energize ourselves by tapping into something almost primeval.
However, the importance goes beyond this. By balancing the excitement of the urban life with the tranquility offered by green places, we make ourselves whole. Whether it’s spending time in Forest Park or sticking our fingers in the soil of the community garden, we combine the best of the city with the joy of nature. Even as one rides through the newly developing wetland in the eastern end of the park, one can see the lights of the Barnes-JewishChildren’s Hospital complex above. It’s this combination of wild nature with the most conspicuous form of shaping our surroundings, a city, that offers us a balance in our own selves. (Maybe it’s like staying out all night before we go into work or study for an exam-we require structure but we also like to ignore the rules or go crazy every once in a while.) Fortunately for those of us lucky enough to live in this part of the St. Louis area, we don’t have to leave our homes to have the green and the gray.
We have both, and that’s the way it should be.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, June–August 2000.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times2000_06.pdf, printed page(s) 4; PDF page(s) 4.
