Calling efforts to beautify 39th Street extremely important to the Shaw neighborhood, leaders of the community say they are pleased by the recent $15,000 beautification grant from Southwestern Bell and the St. Louis Community Development Agency.
”Thirty-ninth runs through the center of Shaw,” said Michelle Duffe, vice president of the Shaw Neighborhood Improvement Association. It is ”extremely important how people perceive one of the main entrances to the neighborhood,” she said.
The landscaping, trees and light pole banners that the grant will pay for will tie in the north and south parts of the area between Magnolia Avenue on the south and Chouteau Avenue on the north, Duffe said.
Hardy trees such as green ash and red and hard maples will have different colors in spring and fall. The leaf colors will match those in the three-block redevelopment area from DeTonty Street south to Russell Avenue in the center of that stretch of 39th Street, Duffe said.
She said the association also would prepare brochures for prospective commercial tenants.
”The idea is to expand what is now the 39th Street Business Association,” she said. Grant funds will not be used in the redevelopment area, she said.
About $10,000 has been raised for landscaping, with much of that coming from neighborhood residents. ”We always wanted to deal with the whole,” Duffe said.
”Regardless of the controversies going on about 39th Street,” said Alderman John Koch, D-8th Ward, ”it’s still viable and has workable businesses.”
The plan shows an effort ”to try to make the neighborhood an attractive place for families, a real home neighborhood where small-business owners can work and thrive, ” he said.
Part of the area to be landscaped is in the Tiffany redevelopment area. ”We will be able to take a rather drab 39th Street, dress it up and make it far more attractive,” said Thomas J. Mangogna, executive director of the Midtown Medical Center Redevelopment Corp., whose area includes the Tiffany neighborhood to the north.
The building interiors are in good shape, Mangogna said, but the view is a ”stark streetscape.”
A ”rock” party was held Saturday at a vacant lot at 39th and Castleman Avenue when youths were offered 50 cents for every bucket of rocks picked up. The party was sponsored by the Shaw neighborhood group.
A Southwestern Bell spokesman said the purpose of the grant program is to improve the economic climate of the neighborhoods. The grant was one of eight awarded. He said 34 groups had applied for funds under the program.
Shaw Archives 