In a town where there is nothing around but empty streets and empty shops, those left will empty out… only empty people will fill back in.
I was in the 7th grade when Northwest Plaza, directly across the street from our school on St. Charles Rock Road, reopened as a stylish, modern indoor shopping center. When our family finally got a chance to go inside the fresh new mall, all I can remember from my 12 year old perspective is how crazy crowded it was. We waited hours for our turn to play mini-golf in the Tilt. I remember thinking how terrible the colors were, but I was no fan of pink and purple back then. Everyone else seemed to like it, including my sister who couldn’t get enough of the place.
By the time I was in high school, my friends and I drove miles away to the Galleria to avoid the place. Our families forbade us to enter that mall, and it was one rule we all loyally obeyed.
Shortly after Northwest Plaza opened, fights broke out and people were hurt. Some were even killed. Many St. Louisians swear it was a race issue, but those of us who lived close enough knew all races were involved in the scuffles and warfare in some fashion. The decline of Northwest had more to do with demographics and bad management than race. The middle class suburbs surrounding the mall was disappearing and deteriorating while the management did nothing to keep attractions while uncontrolled large groups kept coming to the mall. In 20 years, the only updating done was the addition of gaudy, badly designed, sculpture-like eyesores which were supposed to be mall signs off Lindbergh and the Rock Road in 1996. Even those were tossed out around 2002. Nothing, not even a fresh coat of paint was added to the inside. They never even bothered to change the very dated early 90s colors. Stores continually shuttered, despite allowing anchor stores remain rent-free. Now, two anchors are gone and the rest are threatening to leave.
Probably the most major contributing factor of the decline of NWP: Just to the northwest of Northwest Plaza, the mall’s largest customer base of over 5,000 middle-class suburban residents during this exact time period were in ythe process of being forced out of their homes due to Lambert’s short-sighted runway expansion plan. Well over half of Carrollton’s residents were gone by 1998, so it makes perfect sense that 10 years later, the area mall is in serious enough trouble to finally catch some media attention. Problem is, the mall was in serious trouble back in 1998. Denial is a big problem in general in the Lou… just ask what our friends over at Lambert told us after TWA folded. You guys still need a great giant runway with some houses in the way despite no hub? No problem!
Many still believe St. Ann, Bridgeton’s neighbor to the east and the home for NWP, is still very much a safe, mild suburban homestead as it was just maybe a dozen or so years ago. I really do wish that were true, but I have seen enough otherwise. Since the late 1960s, my grandparents lived within walking distance from the mall. A few months before my grandmother’s death in 1996, she was robbed at gunpoint at a store in St. Ann. After stealing from her and the store, the robber shoved her frail body into the ground, causing great injury. All this during broad daylight in the middle of the week. I still have the watch she wore that day, with deep gouges in the face from where her body was thrown into the concrete ground. My grandfather had taken up a job at the Wal-Mart between their house and the mall to keep himself busy after her death. While at the Wal-mart, he helped to stop a $2000 crack deal. He had many, many other issues with drug-related incidents near his home in his last days. Do I trust the city of St. Ann? No. Do I trust that they should rebuild the mall, with Wal-Mart attached? No. Sorry St. Ann, you have far worse problems to take care of than to give a $96 million TIF project to rebuild Northwest Plaza. The good people who just want to shop are gone. What is left has become a wasteland. You can thank Lambert in part for your troubles.
Munincipalities whose neighbors are in trouble over shaky deals or bad planning, WILL come back and affect them in some shape or form. I hope that this is a lesson in community leadership and neighborhood cooperation. It is important to pay attention to what happens behind the fence in your backyard. You never know when something might come out and bite you. St. Ann too has been rerouted, inconvienced, and now has no major destination within for its people. That once quaint little municipality now has streets filled with Payday loan stores, trashy lingere, porn, pawn shops, rental shops and gun stores. I would hate, absolutely hate to see Bridgeton turn into the new Jennings with its own Northland Shopping Center problems. I will soon probably not drive through as much. I already avoid my hometown at night.
One last little thing… a few months ago, I decided to poke around and photograph the area around the Lemp brewery, with all its grand desolation and decay. It was shortly after the In-Bev buyout, and a friend made a comment about how, perhaps in 20 years, we’d be poking around an abandoned Anheiseur-Busch factory in this same way. It seemed like such a far cry I laughed him off… how could AB, the staple of STL close down?
After today’s layoff of 1,000 of the 6,000 the St. Louis A-B workers, I see it very possible. My heart goes out to you folks for such a terrible loss of your livelihood and the city’s livelihood. Right before the holidays is such a callous move… I wish I could slap the faces of every AB sell-out stockholder who is responsible for the possible economic collapse of St. Louis. We’re on our way of becoming the next Detroit. Bridgeton is just a microcosm of what is happening. BTW St. Louisians… Why the **** are we not rioting in the streets over this yet?!? Are we that broken already that we can’t get our **** together and start knocking down the A-B boardroom doors demanding answers? Or, did we already send the Clydesdales off to the glue factory?
This collapse is going to be extremely detrimental to STL. Don’t believe me, then Google how many organizations rely on A-B donations and grants to survive. Belgium doesn’t give a rats ass what happens in our corner of the world, and they proved it today.
Start drinking Schlafly.
J. Desy Schoenewies
56 Houses Left 
I have to say I disagree. While NWP is not the mall of my childhood, I still live in the area (Woodson Terrace) and I think the area is quite safe. That’s not to say there is never crime. There is crime in the “good neighborhoods” too. I recently read that the person who commotted a roberry and murder at the West County mall was sentenced. I am certainly not afraid to go anywhere in WT, St. Ann, Overland at any time of day. When you go out with fear and suspicion you get fear and suspicion.
Also, AB is not laying off 3/4 of it’s workers. 1400 out of 6,000 salaried workers. That does not include all the hourly workers and union workers, not to mention the subsidiaries. While this is a serious loss, it is not 3/4 as you say.
I totally understand your point. My father lives in Woodson Terrace too. Although he was never a victim of crime as his elderly parents were in St. Ann, he still faced a crack house directly across the street for a number of years in the 90s and a condemned house next to that. Today, the crackhouse has been renovated a family now lives there. The condemned house has not been renovated, and still sits there. Those crimes did not cause him personal harm, but the demographics, in other words, the conditions, had the potential for harm. Its not the harm itself, but the potential that drives folks away. Sadly, a depressed area with few destinations and growth potential with a further decline in property values simply will scare people off. Are there good people there like yourself and my father? Absolutely. Is there a daily problem in your neighborhood? Absolutely not. Neither is there in St. Ann. The problem is when cities are faced with abandoned buildings, empty strip malls and heavy home sales to the point homes sit vacant. People have a psychological reaction to empty places (which is why I love them so), and the fear effect spreads out like dominoes. It is sad indeed, and I wish there was a fix so people can be reasonable and help rebuild their hometowns when things begin to happen. As far as location, affordable housing, and such, Woodson Terrace, St. Ann, Bridgeton, etc. are all good places to live. The problem happens when businesses becomes skittish and move away, people too become skittish.
You were absolutely right about the A-B layoffs. I completely read the Post wrong, and read it as they were laying off three-quarters of the STL workers at the plant. They are laying off 1,400 people in the US total, about 1,000 being from STL. Still, that is 1,000 STL families that will be without a job, and still a sad day for our region. Obviously, I do not trust InBev, and I don’t think there is much future for A-B in STL.
Thanks for your comments Brad!
Thank You for this post. It was an amazing post. I linked to this post on my blog where I wrote about this very issue.
Thanks for the linky! : ) Your photos of NWP are a terrific find! I went into the mall last winter with my sister one day just for the heck of it, and we had to get out of there before we got to the fountain… this being from the movie theater entrance right by the fountain. Yeah, we were afraid, only because we were the only two people in the mall during the weekday a few days before Christmas. I’m curious enough now to take yet another trip there again soon.
BTW I read over at your blog… you find some very cool deals indeed! Thanks again!
Northwest Plaza…..What an ignominious end. I well remember the old large farmhouse that once stood on the ground now occupied by NWP. It was considered haunted, and was in fact owned by the aunt of a high school friend. I do remember NWP opening in 1966, My mother quit her successful job with Avon to go work at the Sears store there. The Plaza itself was across the street from my high school, Pattonville. Many memories were formed in that plaza, it was a wonderful open air market, billed as the largest shopping mall in the world at the time it was built. So sad to see that it as well as the whole of the area of the northwest county around it, has seemed to have fallen into some sort od malaise, at best, or outright decay, at worst. It all used to be solid middle class. The fact that over 5000 people who lived close by, the residents of Carrollton, were uselessly and for all purposes, forcefully, removed from the area helped to lead to the demise of NWP. I t is somewhat sad. Several years ago, I brought some friends with me on a visit to the area. We all live now in the Southwest U.S. My friends anointed the visit as the tour of places that aren’t there any more. All of Carrollton, the old Pattonville high school, Grandpa Pidgeons, Floyd Hauhe auto auctions. The community of Vigus. Is Branneky hardware still in Business? We walked where my my house once stood (in Carrollton) It was surreal. Now, due to bureaucratic incompetence, the ground itself may be wasted, not even allowed to become a park. NWP may be restyled with a Walmart as it’s anchor…..there’s a proud event. I suppose there really is a time and place for everything. I just never really expected to outlive not only my home, but the entire community that comprises the memories of my childhood and adolescence. Cest Le Vie!!
Hard to comprehend what has happened to NWP, St. Ann and the area around it. I graduated from Pattonville HS in the early 60’s and remember the area (Carrollton in particular) as being about as complete a picture of middle class America as one could envision. I can remember Carrollton being made up of mostly young families, well manicured lawns, and all things middle class.
Sad that it’s gone but very glad for the memories of the people and the place it was. Hope I’m wrong for my grandchildrens sake but wonder if in todays world places like Carrollton exist to the extent they did back then.
Losing Carrollton was such a tragedy and I sure wish some developers would emulate this planned community and create more of them in Bridgeton and other places in St. Louis which could use a heavy dose of tight community living. The emphasis needs to be on moderation and not how expensive the houses can get to exclude the middle class and make more money for the developers. St. Louis has always had a pretentious streak and unfortunately the gap has only widened over the years with no one benefiting from the deterioration of the north county area.