Happy Birthday to The St. Louis Gateway Arch


October 28 marks the anniversary of the Gateway Memorial Arch in St. Louis.  If you have never visited this national monument, put it on your list.  
Despite what you have heard in Hamilton Thomas Jefferson is one of our best Presidents. He was neither a perfect man, nor perfect President, but he accomplished great things and operated within his personal set of ethics, whether or not those mesh with 21st century guidelines or not.  Among other accomplishments, he authorized the Louisiana Purchase, effectively doubling the size of the United States of America, and laying our claim to the both coasts of the North American continent.  Jefferson then set Meriwether Lewis and William Clark off to explore, map and scientifically examine the land he had acquired for about $18 per acre. 
For this any other reasons, Jefferson is also the namesake and reason the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial exists.  What most American’s simply know as the “Arch” is part of a memorial to Jefferson and the expansion of the country westward after the Louisiana Purchase and its subsequent exploration by Lewis and Clark.  In both of these endeavors, St. Louis was a key point of focus, departure and debate.
The Arch itself is an elegant and simple design, 630 feet of unadorned stainless steel in the shape of an inverted catenary arch.  That is, the arch, forms a natural curve under its own weight when supported by its two ends.  If you take that gravity induced arch and invert it, you have the Gateway Arch.  The idea of a memorial to the vision and courage of Jefferson goes back to 1933, but it was 1947 when two men (both part of our immigrant strength) developed the design of the Arch. The construction had to wait until 1963. 
The Finnish-American, Eero Saarinen was the architect of the Arch, and German-American Hannskarl Bandel was the structural engineer. 
The builders were met with the usual skepticism from those who don’t like money or time spent on anything they can’t imagine.  The Brooklyn Bridge and the Eiffel Tower, not to mention our entire space program, were met with the same discontent.  “Why,” people ask, “are we spending money on this when we could be spending it on more practical tasks that alleviate immediate suffering and want?”  The answer is that things which are commercially or aesthetically pleasing are also of value, and, indeed, can produce more bang for the buck than money spent on small scale and transient projects.  Not that one is not more important than another, but equally so.  As my grandmother used to say, sometimes the longest way around is the shortest way home. 
The Arch cost $13 million dollars.  Using the basic money multiplier, that means it produced over $26 million in jobs, wages, production and taxable revenue.  That is a bunch of civic improvement! 
Under the Arch is a museum filled with displays, artifacts and taxidermy animals showing the westward expansion of the country.  The legs of the Arch are hollow and have a cog railway that takes people to the top of the structure where you can look out windows at the land, the Mississippi River and the grounds of the park.  Yes, you can feel the Arch sway slightly in the wind.  This is normal.  Fear not.
The Gateway Arch is a monument.  Monuments are made to make people remember the past and feel positive about the future.  The Arch does exactly that. 
St. Louis is the home of many exciting places to visit.  It is a city of history, culture, sports and art.  You can enjoy the St. Louis Zoo (world class and FREE); Forest Park (which is bigger than Central Park in New York City); the art museum, the Anheuser-Busch brewery and Clydesdale stables, catch a Cardinals baseball game and see what it is like to watch the game with the world’s best baseball fans.  But make sure you include a day at the Arch in that schedule.  It will lift you up.
Enjoy our nation’s monuments and keep the faith.   

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Witches in Georgia, Nuts in Texas

Some time ago a woman in Georgia won a restraining order against a man who had been stalking her for months.   She had met him when he answered her advertisement in a singles column.   In the ad she described herself as a, “wiccan” priestess—a witch!   She was then shocked that she didn’t attract an intelligent, emotionally mature male.   Instead she got a weird, obsessive stalker.   Whom did she think she was going to get? I realize that I am probably not being as tolerant as the times require, but it seems to me that any adult who calls herself a witch should not be expected to be taken seriously.   Do adults have to be told that there are no such things as witches?   Didn’t we learn that sometime between the Salem Witch Trials and the dawning of the nuclear age?   What seems to be going on here is that the mantra of tolerance which rightly began as a way to combat institutionalized prejudice has been carried to an extreme that says we can n...
Read more

Is Obama One of Our Four Best Presidents?

My default setting for a good book is a biography, add a penchant for American history and you have someone who reads a lot of Presidential biographies.   I am up to 13 so far, and plan on covering every President before I die, God willing.   Naturally, it caught my attention when President Obama said he would put his administration up with the top four Presidents.                 President Obama was clearly one of those children who were constantly told by his parents and grandparents that he was, “special.”   He was a special person; his parents were special people and everybody else, particularly people who didn’t think he was special, were wrong, jealous and possibly evil.   Such children grow up with an exaggerated sense of self.   We usually only see this syndrome in athletes or Hollywood stars, because politicians have to come up the hard way and there are lots of people to let them know ju...
Read more

Chris Christie and the Young Vampires of the Tea Party

The Tea Party has given this nation a much needed fiscal intervention, but they are like young vampires.   I can best explain this discord with an analogy of Stephanie Meyers’ excellent books advocating teenage chastity.   Meyers wrote the Twilight series of novels about vegetarian vampires who are under siege from vampires who want traditional vampire values.   Traditional vampires want to kill humans by sucking them dry (which is what Democrats feel about successful business people).    Our vegetarian vampires want to live at peace with everyone while simply being left alone to enjoy whatever vampire-like existence they choose (much like Americans in general).    But complicating things to the max are an army of young vampires.   Young vampires are undisciplined, emotional and ready to kill everything, including each other.   Enter the Tea Party.   New to the game, new to the town, and obeying only one overpowering and all con...
Read more