Marti's Garden - Update

The Marti Frumhoff Memorial Garden is my primary volunteer project and I've been on it since 2008. I like to think Marti would approve since it's on the site of the old Parker-Russell brick yards. Marti was a fellow brick hugger. I miss her.

What's the fate of the garden I wondered three weeks ago when I noticed the street was being prepared to be repaved. Black asphalt.

Now it's a heat island with a 60% increase of radiant heat. Walking across the street to turn on the rain bird sprinklers - I do that by hand, there's no timer - is a scorching stroll. If five trees in the garden were much larger they would cast some shade to help decrease the ambient temperature. Maybe in 15 years.

I'm always removing yard sale sings from the garden but when I spotted this one today - placed over the 4 way beneath the stop sign along with their address - I decided karma may be lurking in the intersection.

All the roses are diseased with rose rosette and must be removed.

Rose rosette is also called witches broom:

Yours truly working with loyal garden volunteer Don:

Jan, married to Don and friend of the garden:

Don working it:

My hella cool neighbor Brian stopped by to help haul and spread mulch:

Escape Artist

I like fire escapes!

Knowing this my dear friend, talented artist, and fellow Doors fan, Leslie Caldera sent the below this morning:

Christian, I've been keeping my eye out for fire escapes for you. Here are a few I shot on a walkabout in L.A. this week. The Morrison Hotel is the very same which inspired the title of the Doors 5th album. There were two sets of ladders. Street side was in glorious late afternoon sunlight, but the alley set was behind a big metal gate and hard to get a good angle on, so I went for an artsy look.

Unfortunately the building is vacant, and all signage is removed. Even the window the boys posed in was converted into a separate business entry, and it is boarded and gated now.

The other fire escape is in Long Beach, on my bicycle route to the Metro train I take into the city.

Below the photos is a link to a cool Youtube video telling the story of how that album title and cover photo came about.

Video Link to the Morrison Hotel Cover: https://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1#inbox/1381f7c91b5c7fb2

My Sidewalk Saga Part 1

Below are photos of the sidewalk in front of the building next door to me. I've been reporting it for over 10 years to CSB. There's literally chunks of concrete missing. Last summer I was astonished to find a city employee in front of my house looking at my perfectly sound sidewalk. He told me there had been a complaint about my sidewalk and that it was going to be replaced. We then had a discussion about an obvious mistake and looked at both sidewalks together. He insisted a slightly raised edge of pavement was due to tree roots from a city tree in front of my house and that the entire sidewalk must be replaced due to a complaint. I explained it was my complaint about the condition of the adjoining sidewalk and someone had made a mistake. He disagreed.

OK.

I received a letter asking for a 39.00 payment. I paid and one moth ago the drama ensued.

To be Continued

White Bricks & Original Mortar

Interesting texture treatment on matte white bricks spotted in the South Hampton neighborhood. Feast on that incredible mortar mix with itty bitty pieces of feldspar and quartz. You know how I love the stuff.

Marti's Garden Now and Then

My volunteer project is the Marti Frumhoff Memorial Garden on Morgan Ford and Utah here in Tower Grove South. Five years ago I presented this plan to my Alderman, Joe Vollmer who supported my vision and helped create the garden. This is the only city sponsored memorial garden and after five years of work it's a gem. Before and after the ground breaking I met with a total of 26 various City employees on site to discuss the plans. After the curbs and sidewalks went in I stood at the garden, 2,300 square feet, marveled at the scale of it, and wondered at the enormity of my plan. It was intimidating. With the help of Christopher Thiemet we raised the funds to provide the plants for the area. The Tin Can and The Royale provided us with a venue for fundraising events. Remains on Morgan Ford hosted clothing drives for fundraising (and still does). State Rep Mike Daus donated 1,500 and countless other friends of Marti's contributed. TGS resident Peggy Hoelting did the initial drawing for the garden design and Bad Tim designed the site. Sean Heim found boulders and hauled them to the site as well as hauling recent trunk loads of mulch. TGS neighbors came out to help and they still do. We tilled. We mulched. I personally planted over 96% of what's in the garden while hand aggravating soil into the clay.

I did a lot of whining.

Scroll down to see what the original site and photos of the groundbreaking then scroll back up to enjoy the lushness. And should you personally stop by feel free to pull some weeds. While on site say hello to Marti.

I miss her and she still inspires me.

Fall 2008 photos of the original site and ground breaking:

Tim Moffit (left) and John Kohler from the St. Louis Dept. of Public Service. I had asked them to pose on the spot where Marti's Garden would begin on the east end. Behind them is the former very small intersection garden. Marti's garden is triple the size at 2,300 sq feet.

An employee of The Parks Dept who created the sign which was donated to the garden:

Clifton Heights

Weekend drive through Clifton Heights on the way to meet Gus for dinner. No time for text but please, marvel at the dimensional bricks on this building with the odd updated facade.

Are you an artist, one of these boys asked. What makes you ask that? The tattoos on your arms. A lot of people have tattoos I said smiling. Not like those, he solemnly said.

Movie Star

Downtown STL. From the 80s when I dragged a wardrobe into the photo booth and created black and white movie stills.

Thinking of you

Atop the former Famous Barr parking garage where I took you for a roof top picnic circa 1982. Jon Laedke.

Coral Courts Motel Route 66

Mid 80s. I wasn't a guest but I did ride my bike in unobserved to take these photos.

D and W Snack Shop

Cherokee Street and California (NW corner) circa mid 80s during a time when I rode my bike around the city at night doing photos. The sidewalk remains. In the lower left hand side is a painted silver fire alarm box on a pole. These were originally painted yellow and all were removed in St. Louis due to the amount of false alarms called.

Up on The Roof

The Super Moon Party at Sarah Jane's Deco Fortress. Evening highlight was a discussion with Dave about purple martins, indigo buntings, how he found the Star Hopper, and also seeing Gus. Birthday Taurus sisters:

Some of the gathered are from Sarah's band. Friend Sarah Jane and The Blue Notes and The Deco Fortress on FB.

The guest star appears:

Sarah and Gus with Dave's Star Hopper.

Greetings from somewhere outside of Custer, SD

Email from Daryl who climbs and provides rock tours in SD: So this is Lorettas house, the greenhouse, the view of our front yard "mountain", and the big room. Paul and Loretta built this place out of 2x6 scraps from the local saw mill. They brought them in by the pickup truckload for free, and conned all the local climbers into nailing them together with kegs an kegs of nails. It was an 18 year epic build that was just barely finished when Loretta was killed. Pretty wild to live in a place with a cool history and a lot of sweat equity from many many of our friends. Our summer season is starting and it will be 24/7 go time for the next few months with the climbing school, but all and all its a pretty good life around here. Different then St Louis for sure. For one, its a lot colder, and tons less people. Its still all about what you want and the choices you make in life. We had a good friend leave town last fall and Cheryl and I talked about leaving. Sounded all exciting and such to uproot and move on, but neither one of us had any idea where we would go or what we would do...so I don't expect us to leave here any time soon. I'd never have guessed this would be where we would have landed, but here we are in south da fucking 'coda. All photos by Daryl and/or Cheryl.