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.

3 Letters

Photo sent to me via San Francisco from my dear friend and steel worker, Jeanne.

Learning to Dance

Gardening is ceremony and abundance is the only dance I know.

Crying over spilt bricks

Demolition begins at Pevely complex, April 2012. All photos by Darren Snow.