Since 1960

Let me share my memories of this neighborhood with you and you might find others who remember the same story.
This was a bouncing neighborhood when I was moved here in July of 1960. I was going on ... View more 14. I lived in one of 5 little houses on Newstead behind Adam's School. My Mother moved me here so I could walk to O'Fallon Tech High School. We moved from one of those big single family homes on Forest Park to this neighborhood.
This was a different kind of neighborhood. It had everything. It had multiple everythings. We were great. This was a good neighborhood. Catty corner across the street from where I lived is where the Westbrook's lived, Cassie, Charles and all the kids. They were my other family. Everybody knew everybody and so did the kids, We had a good neighborhood. Cassie and I would set out on the corner at night just hangin out. Down on the corner where the St. Louis Mission is now was Jesse's All Night Diner. 24/7 if you needed somewhere to go to get away from somewhere else the diner was always open. It was safe for everybody. You could step in out of the weather while you waited for the bus. Lots of glass to see the bus coming from both directions. The diner was a place for anybody as long as you minded your manners. There was a jukebox but no dancing allowed and the tables prevented to much swaggering. Those were the 'good old days', for me. My neighborhood was a sought after place to live. Property was very desirable here. We had everything. I remember Rhinehart's IGA, Tom-Boy Market, Freddies Market, as the ones we shopped at most. There were several other grocers in the neighborhood.as well. I'm just saying this was a fantastic neighborhood and that from the mouth of a 13 year old. The neighborhood was safe, people walked the streets at night because they had somewhere to go, window shopping. People used to walk the sidewalks at all hours and window shop. The street was all lit up with signs and lighted store fronts. You could spend hours looking in the Woolworth's windows. There was a bar at every intersection. There were restaurants skattered in as well with all the other stores. You never had to leave the neighborhood to make a purchase. We had gas stations serving the residential community and that was OK, back then the gas stations had garage bays to work on the neighborhoods cars. We had all kinds of services on Manchester and other streets throughout the neighborhood. There are not many left, original storefronts . Everything has been converted. The past is nearly gone and soon there will only be memories. The neighborhood had it all. People used to drive here to do their shopping. People who worked here lived here. This neighborhood is where the MacArthur's Bakery got it's beginning. They were one of our neighborhood bakeries. They had the best whipped cream puffs. They had a gooey butter coffee cake to die for. We had a few furniture stores, appliance, TV's, drug stores, ladies wear, men's wear, children's clothing store, shoe stores, and so many more. I could go on and on. I left home when I turned 16. Joined a magazine crew and left the state to work for my money. Met a guy, came back here to raise a family. My Mother bought the house on Oakland and Jerry and I moved into the house she vacated on Newstead where I had lived with my Mother, I had returned home. Even then, property was at a premium, people waited to move here. Selling property was nearly an overnight transaction. I had two babies while I lived at 1307 S Newstead. So did Cassie. This was home. I would push the stroller down the streets. Back then our sidewalks were in excellent condition, because people used them and saw to it they were maintained. Fortunately, our grocers delivered if we couldn't take the groceries home with us. The delivery guy would carry them or put them in a wagon and walk with us back home. We had a great neighborhood. For awhile we had the Manchester Theater, but the hooligans ruined that. There were four laundromats on Manchester. We had a cookie factory, paint factory, window factory and Renard Paper Company. Back then Henri Renard was running the business and his kids were learning the business. Joe Roddy was the Alderman and he took care of his people. The neighborhood was the apple in his eye and so were all the ladies who would do anything for Joe. Joe in turn would do nice things for the neighborhood. He took baskets around to families in need on special occasions, he kept the young people working, he took care of your tickets, he found jobs for people, he was a good man. Then he got swept up in the future. Wash U wanted this neighborhood in the future to be it's own bedroom community. In order to do that they would need to have control over it's future development. To insure it's future rested with Wash U, the neighborhood would have to change from the peaceful healthy safe neighborhood it was in 1968 to a boarded up has been with the higest crime rate in the city, even the police avoided coming here. They set about to destroy the neighborhood and they have done a very good job from my perspective. A lot of people got in on the ground floor of getting a fine piece of property for nothing. Some of them came here to buy their neighbors homes as they vacated. That was a very dark time for our neighborhood.