Downtown St. Louis is the victim of a war of do-gooders

The latest blow is the announcement that the state will move nearly 600 of its downtown workers to Chesterfield, while selling the Wainwright Building, which was renovated in 1974 under Gov. Kit Bond to help downtown. Imagine that – a Republican governor wanting to help St. Louis.

When I moved here in 1980, the downtown area was thriving. The sidewalks were crowded. There were all kinds of shops, big and small. I remember wanting to buy jewelry for my wife. Someone from the newspaper recommended a small jewelry store on an upper floor of one of the office buildings on Olive Street. It was a one-man shop. The owner was an old man. He spoke with a thick accent that I couldn’t place.

Such people and businesses were just as much a part of the picture as the large department stores.

Back then, the thought of moving from the bustling city to sleepy Chesterfield would have seemed like a punishment.

Nowadays, there is such a thing as remote working. You don’t even go to Chesterfield. You work from home. Studies show that many young people actually like this. Some even prefer it. Even those with young children.

I don’t blame them. They don’t know any better. When they came of age, drinking and driving were taboo.

Alcohol fueled the vibrancy of downtown. People would have a few drinks after work. To forget the stress of the day. Laugh with your friends. I remember the saying: “Feeling underappreciated at work? There’s a club for that. It’s called Everybody and it meets at the bar.”

There were a number of bars downtown, but most people chose one. Like most of my colleagues at the paper, I was loyal to the Missouri Bar & Grille, but I would sometimes stop by the Pit of the Seventh Olive to talk to members of the legal profession. The Mine Shaft was also popular. So were Freddy O’s and Dooley’s.

There were many places to eat. Few were fancy. But after work they were crowded. On Fridays after work it was so busy that many of us invited our spouses.

Two things stand in the way of the revival of these happy times. First, the moralists have won. They have eradicated smoking. At the same time, they have attacked drunk driving.

Of course good for her.

In retrospect, the first sign of the victory of the moralists and the subsequent decline of the inner city was subtle. Small groups of smokers suddenly appeared in the doorways. They were forbidden to smoke in their offices. They were literally outsiders. They joked about it among themselves, but the jokes missed their mark.

The smoking ban hurt bars. Some of their best and most loyal customers were smokers.

In fact, several of the owners were smokers. Raise your glass and smoke if you have any for the late John McMahon, owner of Kelly’s Korner, which moved from one downtown location to another as it was hounded by urban renewal projects but was never on a corner or owned by anyone named Kelly.

“The sign was in the window when I bought it,” McMahon told me in 2005 when he closed it. He had bought the place in 1970. He rightly felt like a victim of the moral war.

“The do-gooders are after you with guns drawn,” he said. “You shouldn’t drink. You shouldn’t smoke.”

He was connected to a portable oxygen machine that was on the bar in front of him.

“I know smoking is not good, but it is a choice, right?” he said.

One of my favorite stories – and it is often told, as my wife always reminded me – occurred years ago just before Christmas at Kelly’s Korner. Mickey McTague, a deputy sheriff and a friend of mine, came to the bar for a few drinks before delivering the legal documents assigned to him. He placed them on the bar in front of him.

“Let’s see these things,” McMahon said. McTague pushed the stack toward McMahon, who looked at the first one.

“That’s an eviction notice,” he said. “It’s almost Christmas and you want to deliver this to a poor family?”

“I don’t,” McTague said. McMahon looked at the rest of the pile. All sad songs. Foreclosures, eviction notices, disasters of one kind or another. McMahon recited them disdainfully, one after the other.

Finally, McTague picked up the stack, walked onto Market Street and threw the papers in the air.

That couldn’t happen today. Wouldn’t. Shouldn’t. And what was the point of delaying the delivery of bad news? Certainly nothing, but I can tell you that grown men cried tears of joy when McTague stood in the street with his arms outstretched while snowflakes and papers rained down around him.

In addition to the victory of the moralists, a second development has negatively affected the inner city: fairness, justice, whatever you want to call it.

For some time now, the police have been focusing on helping the neighborhoods that need it most, investing their resources in areas with high crime rates.

This is a right thing and is directly related to the concept of “local control” of the police authority.

In the bad old days that I miss so much, the police force was run by police commissioners appointed by the governor. They were businessmen, usually white, and almost always male. If they had a motto, it would have been “Keep the lid on.” They weren’t overly concerned about high-crime neighborhoods. They wanted their own neighborhood to be safe, and they wanted downtown to be safe.

The city center is no longer such a high priority. And why should it be? Only a few voters live there.

So those are the two problems facing the inner city. Can you make it vibrant without encouraging drinking, which means driving under the influence? Can you make it safe without giving it priority over other neighborhoods?

On the other hand, we could already be in the early stages of a renaissance.