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Commentary Detail
Commentary by: Bob Archibald
Aired October 01, 2009
WMP (56 kbps)Crown Candy Kitchen up on the north side has been one of my favorite stopping places ever since I was first introduced it some twenty-five years ago. Like many St. Louisans, I revel in its ambience – the high-backed booths, the vintage Coca Cola signs, the tin ceiling, the garish juke box, the soda fountain, and certainly not least, the incrediable ice cream concoctions and homemade chocolates.
Crown Candy’s location was not auspicious; decades of deterioration surrounded the popular ice cream and candy shop. The Village of North St. Louis was once a thriving neighborhood. Annexed to the City of St. Louis in 1841, it fell upon the hard times that were all too common a hundred years later. Depopulation was rampant, and nineteenth-century buildings were crumbling and vacant.
But some neighborhoods refuse to die. Thanks to the determined efforts of people hanging on in Old North St. Louis, Crown Candy Kitchen is in the midst of an edifying restoration and renewal. The enthusiasm of this re-emerging neighborhood is palpable. It’s been a slow process, not yet complete but moving with deliberation and good judgment.
Anyone who sees the before and after photos in the office of the Old North St. Louis Restoration Group can never again look at the decaying shell of an old building and declare it hopelessly ruined. Hope not only springs eternal – it produces abundantly.
(The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of St. Louis Public Radio.)
