Last week, a reporter from the STL Post-Dispatch contacted me. He wanted to know my thoughts on the airport’s request for redevelopment proposals for the parts of Carrollton that doesn’t currently sit under a runway. Who am I to say what they do with the space? After all, I’m just someone who was fortunate enough to have grown up there. Maybe it’s because I still care about all of the ghosts that still lurk there?
As I told the reporters, anything that benefits this great city will be far better than what is there now.
I don’t live in St. Louis anymore, but I am one of St. Louis’ proudest (unofficial) ambassadors. I wear StL pride on my sleeves. I sing my city’s praises to anyone willing to listen while on my many adventures away from my homeland. I cheer on my Cardinals and Blues, and hate on the Cubs and Blackhawks any chance I can. When I am in St. Louis, I don’t drive through Carrollton anymore. At least not alone. The roads are riddled with cracks, potholes, and glass. A couple years ago, I was followed through Carrollton so close it frightened me. When I sped up, they stayed on my bumper until I turned onto Natural Bridge.
This past March, I brought along a few friends to visit Carrollton. A photography convention took place in St. Louis so some photography friends of mine were in town and excited to see this space for themselves. They were kind to take some fantastic pro photos of Carrollton as I finish up the book project. As outsiders, they were utterly stunned at how rapid a suburban space enveloped by infrastructure could become so naturalized in such a short span of time. They definitely underestimated Missouri’s climate.
Carrollton is not a great welcome to those flying into St. Louis. Too often I had been on a flight into St. Louis and the stranger next to me comments about ‘the creepy post-apocalyptic neighborhood’ outside their window on the descent into Lambert. When my friends flew in, they knew exactly what I had been talking about for years in the moments before landing.
Carrollton will never be residential again for a myriad of obvious reasons. It also will not become retail space. If the Mills Shopping Center couldn’t make it, then it makes no sense to add retail space a mile away. Parks and green space? Light industrial? I’m very curious and excited to know what the next chapter of Carrollton’s future will look like. Utilizing the space in a capacity that will ultimately benefit St. Louis will be far more dignified than leaving miles of abandoned streets fronted by busted gates and illegally dumped furniture to ruin.
J. Desy Schoenewies
56 Houses Left 
Great to see you still wearing your STL pride, Jami! I was just in the heart of the West Carrollton “jungle” last week. As you intimated, it is stunning to see how nature has taken over the area. But it’s not surprising considering there has not been any maintenance done for almost ten years now.
I’m very familiar with post buyout changes in the subdivision and I can tell you with absolute certainty that it was 2015 when they stopped mowing and maintaining the areas behind the still open streets on the side of the highway where your old house was.
Hopefully I can chat with you before you publish your book. The story of Carrollton would not be complete without a mention of my friend and your old neighbor Mike, the only residential property owner left in Carrollton.
Definitely! I know (of) Mike and his property! Let’s chat soon! Send me your email via the ‘contact me’ link!
As someone who grew up in Carrollton I look forward to your book. (my parents included the older woman you talked about in the custom brick house on Gladwyn. Did I ever tell you about how my dad was a bricklayer & he with his friends bricked the house in a cold weekend in October or November?)
When will it be published?
Hi Brenda! Wow! I’d love to hear more about your dad’s work! I know several of the homes in Carrollton were given custom touches. It’s great to hear a personal story about it! I’ll go back and look at my records on the Gladwyn home!
Hi, my name is Mark Loehrer, I’m a curatorial assistant at Missouri History Museum. We are putting together a major exhibit that will open this fall on the topic of Mill Creek Valley, the neighborhood erased by urban renewal near downtown st. louis.
As part of that exhibit we will have a broader discussion of displacement around St. Louis from the 1970s through the present day.
I am writing to ask if I can we could use one of your photos, from flickr for our exhibit’s discussion of displacement around the airport
Hi! Absolutely! Happy to he part of the larger discussion in whatever capacity I can. Do you have exhibit dates?
Sure do. It opens in November 15th and runs through July 2026.
Hi Mark,
Absolutely! Thank you for reaching out, and I’d love to be part of the broader conversation!
-Desy
I lived there on Chartley dr. 1969-1962. I look froward to your book hoping that I get to see it before I pass. I am going to try and fly there soon so I can see it before they develope it.
It has affected the way I fill about my past, in that part of it has been erased. I still remember playing in the radioactive creek and the field there. Bowlng in the shopping center at the entrace to Carlton and shoveling snow at all the homes there for extra money. Coing to Charleston to the movie, the closet one.
I will be gone in a few years, just like Carolton.
Andy Ernst