People & Places >>

• Best Citizen
  Robert Powell
  To sculptor, gallery owner and art teacher Robert Powell, 58, St. Louis' "Gateway to the West" slogan is a steaming pile of toxic brain dung. "This crazy slogan -- it says 'come to St. Louis and then make your way west," he says, fuming and pacing around the hardwood first floor of his... More >>
• Best Villain
  Vince Schoemehl
  Cue the "Theme From Jaws." He's back. And if the water's safe, meetings of the St. Louis Board of Education most assuredly are not, at least if you hold an opinion that differs from the Schoemehlmeister's. Don't agree with Schoemehl? Well, you're a Nazi. He and fellow new board members, anointed... More >>
• Best Curse
  Rochell Moore
  Earlier this year, when Mayor Francis Slay backed a slate of candidates for the St. Louis Board of Education, he knew he was in for some rough sailing. But he couldn't possibly have predicted that the move would earn him a curse of biblical proportions. Yet that's precisely what got heaped upon... More >>
• Best Worthy Cause
  Great Rivers Land Trust
  The St. Louis area might not be known for grand natural resources, but less than fifteen miles upstream from the Arch, the counties of Madison, Jersey, Macoupin, Calhoun and St. Charles, stretching along the Mississippi and Illinois confluence, from Pere Marquette at the north to Alton at the... More >>
• Best Cemetery
  Calvary Cemetery
  Calvary Cemetery boasts the biggest collection of dead Roman Catholics in St. Louis, but that's not the only reason to celebrate this mid-nineteenth-century treasure on the city's north side. Unlike Bellefontaine Cemetery, Calvary's slightly older and equally ornate neighbor immediately to the... More >>
• Best Way to Mess with Out-of-Town Motorists
  Tell them: "Follow Route 66 until you get to the stoplight at Route 66. Then take a right or left onto Route 66 -- or go straight until you get to Route 66." Route 66 is everywhere in St. Louis. Literally. Trekkin' west on Farty-Far? No, you're not -- you're really on Route 66. Heading into... More >>
• Best Rehab
  The old Post-Dispatch building
  Over the course of the past four years, construction workers have peeled away the misguided 1965 "modernization" that covered the stately limestone façade of the old Post-Dispatch building (the Post jumped ship and headed seven blocks north in 1959) with a boring quasi-Bauhaus shell, and... More >>
• Best Place for a First Date
  Nik's Wine Bar & Hookah Lounge
  There's a great line in last year's screen gem Roger Dodger, when Campbell Scott's obnoxiously misanthropic Roger orders his hesitant sixteen-year-old nephew Nick to "drink that drink" at a trendy Manhattan bar, offering the rationale: "Drinking has been a social lubricant for hundreds of years.... More >>
• Best Place for a Last Date
  Pat's Bar & Grill
  There are at least as many places as ways to leave your lover. Some are more cruel than others. Excusing yourself to grab a beer at Busch Stadium and then hopping MetroLink, for instance, is a strategy that should be employed only if you truly want to make a statement and the other party really... More >>
• Best Local Boy Made Good
  Sylvester Brown, Jr.
  Putting out a newspaper by yourself is a labor we wish on no one. It took Sylvester Brown fifteen years to realize he was doing the impossible by publishing Take Five from his home. With help from his wife, Brown wrote and edited the stories. He sold the ads. He did the layout. He delivered the... More >>
• Best Local Boy Gone Bad
  J.D. Drew
  "I really hope he means what he says when he says he wants to play the game of baseball. If someone wants to play and is fiddling over $11 million, that shows he doesn't want to play very much. I'm from the old school -- that you've got to prove yourself in the big leagues and that's where you... More >>
• Best Alibi
  Bob Jamerson's letter to the editor
  Bob Jamerson, the brawny, tutu-wearing majorette who can be seen strutting through the Central West End twirling a baton, was kicked out of this year's St. Patrick's Day parade in Dogtown and escorted away in handcuffs. Amid the media tempest that ensued, police contended that they had... More >>
• Best Shortcut
  Sublette Avenue
  The best shortcuts are those that contain some drama, that on good days race you through the byways untouched but on others may cause you to hand-conk your head in frustration. Getting cross-town from north to south sucks in St. Louis. There's no Forest Park Parkway, no Highway 40, and I-170... More >>
• Best Public Restroom
  The "Closet Can" at the Chase Park Plaza
  Okay, the Chase Park Plaza's lobby bathroom isn't technically a public restroom. But, really, who's going to stop you from an unannounced pit stop in the luxurious "closet can" as long as you look like you belong there? No one, that's who. Which is why, next time you're in the Central West End,... More >>
• Best Public Works Project
  The Page Avenue extension
  In the early 1990s, environmentalists, urban planners, politicians and this newspaper railed against plans to stretch Page Avenue across the Missouri River. To critics, the massive public-works project -- something that was first identified as a regional transportation need in 1973 -- was a sop... More >>
• Best Drinking Fountain
  US Bank
  Is there anything worse than an object that fails to deliver on its only promise, that is a liar by its very existence? Anything more frustrating than a water tease when you're hot and thirsty, anything sadder than a lukewarm travesty that sputters forth dribble? No. In Hell, there will be many,... More >>
• Best View of Downtown
  The Gateway Arch
  Sometimes the obvious is just, well, obvious. As magnificent a landmark as the Arch may be, as imposing a piece of architecture and design, who really needs another breathtaking view of it sweeping over the skyline, glinting in the rising sun or brightly lit in the moonlight? Yeah, yeah, the... More >>
• Best Bus Route
  Garden Express
  The old No. 14, which runs from Tower Grove Park to the Central West End MetroLink station, isn't the most extensive bus route in the city, but it connects the south side with the CWE, and (via MetroLink) it brings suburbanites and outliers to the Missouri Botanical Garden, offering the illusion... More >>
• Best Place to Meet Single Men
  Gateway International Raceway
  You can read all the books on dating tips in the free world, yet no philosophy will ever be as effective as playing numbers. If the first pickup line doesn't succeed, try, try again. And again. And again. During a big-time event at Gateway International Raceway, the single woman has roughly... More >>
• Best Mayor
  T.R. Carr Hazelwood
  Ford Motor Company dropped the economic equivalent of the atomic bomb on Hazelwood this year when the carmaker announced plans to close its north county plant and remove 2,750 jobs from the fifth-largest municipality in St. Louis County. But Hazelwood Mayor T.R. Carr is no ordinary mayor. He's... More >>
• Best Local Politician
  Larry Williams
  Treasurer, City of St. Louis
  Larry Williams pokes fun at himself when he says, "Here comes Larry Williams with a pocketful of nickels." It's a reference to his responsibility for the city's parking meters, a job he has parlayed into a bonding authority to finance the construction of parking garages. Williams was the key... More >>
• Best Boondoggle
  The Lambert Airport expansion
  If only the powers that be had said upfront that the $2.6 billion W-1W runway project was a throwback to the old Depression-era Works Progress Administration, a way to use federal money for make-work projects that might have some vague general benefit. But no, that would have been too honest.... More >>
• Best Gadfly
  Tom Sullivan
  Tom Sullivan complained so long and so loud about the Metropolitan Sewer District that most people in and out of the media ignored him. But when state auditor Claire McCaskill, grand juries and the media began to pay attention to the issues Sullivan has been bleating about since 1986, the man... More >>
• Best Hotel
  Westin St. Louis
  Let's cut to the basics: When it comes to a great hotel stay, the key is the bed. Whether a hotel guest is looking for a good night's sleep or just a good time, it all comes down to the sleeping accommodations. And the Westin's "heavenly bed" mattress is getting rave reviews. According to a... More >>
• Best Bed & Breakfast
  Napoleon's Retreat Bed & Breakfast Inn
  One of the great American mysteries is why anyone -- yes, anyone -- would rather stay in a nondescript hotel room when he or she could pay a similar (if not cheaper) fare to lodge in full-service splendor at a historic bed & breakfast. The finest feature unique and varied rooms, custom cuisine... More >>
• Best Place to Meet Single Women
  Whole Foods
  First, fella, you need to learn how to cook. There is no greater aphrodisiac than a man in an apron shuffling a skillet. Cooking's not that difficult, but it does take common sense, thought, confidence, creativity and timing. Just like meeting women! The following method has worked -- once,... More >>
• Best Kids' Thrill
  The Zooline Railroad
  Granted, for sheer, blow-your-hair-back, end-over-end thrills, the City Museum is hard to beat. But there is one attraction here in Mound City that edges out Bob Cassilly's monument to dreck-cess for thrilling the kiddies: The venerable Zooline Railroad is a guaranteed warm fuzzy for every kid,... More >>
• Best Local Girl Made Good
  Dora Schriro
  A year ago, Dora Schriro appeared to be on the ropes. Ousted as director of the Missouri Department of Corrections and stymied in attempts for top posts in Idaho and Texas, Schriro returned to St. Louis in 2001 for what is surely one of the worst jobs in the jail biz: running the city's sorry... More >>
• Best Local Girl Gone Bad
  Kelly Layne Mullins
  How does a gal who handles collections for one of the stuffiest law firms in town end up with dozens of dildos, a 2002 Infiniti I35, DVD players, Rolexes and enough cash to shower more than one beau with gifts? The old-fashioned way, of course: She embezzles it. Forty-six-year-old Kelly Layne... More >>
• Best Lawyer
  John Simon
  Ask local first-year law students why they're paying mountains of money for the privilege of enduring three grueling years of ultra-competitive coursework and humiliation via the Socratic method, and the most frequent answer (after "I didn't have anything better to do") will be: "I want to make... More >>
• Best New Law
  Tougher penalties for nursing homes
  In the past few years, newspapers across the state have carried reports of nursing-home abuses: residents found covered in ants or maggots; bed-ridden residents with severe bedsores and gangrene; fractured hips left untreated; and heat-related deaths in nursing homes after the temperature inside... More >>
• Best New Building
  Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis
  New buildings in St. Louis, a town teeming with hundreds of classy old fixer-uppers, are, on the surface, a mixed blessing. Yes, new American architecture is in one of its occasional peaks right now, and great buildings can lift a city's reputation in some snobby fancy circles, but... More >>
• Best Bureaucrat
  Tom Jones
  In the summer of 2001, when St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay tapped him to take over the city-operated St. Louis Agency on Training and Employment (SLATE), Tom Jones found a woeful mess. Some of SLATE's records had been left in boxes on the floor and the agency had about $7 million of federal... More >>
• Best Festival
  Artica
  The second annual Artica festival, which took place the weekend of September 20 within the vast industrial wasteland of the north riverfront -- Tailgate Central during Rams season -- was a resounding success. The brainchild of Nita Turnage and Hap Phillips, Artica invited St. Louis artists to... More >>
• Best Place to Male-Bond
  Blues games
  The Blues are deadlocked 1-1 with the Blackhawks in the second period, and the action is vicious, but the three beers in your bladder are leading you away from the game, to a men's room on the Savvis Center concourse. You enter the bathroom to find eight long lines of dudes, one for each urinal.... More >>
• Best Place to Take Out-of-Town Guests
  City Museum
  In a downtown that has been woefully underimagined for the past half-century, one burning ember has fueled the fire of growth around Washington Avenue. It didn't arrive as a hollow mayoral magic bullet, but via sweat, imagination and ever-evolving vision. But we all know that: City Museum owner... More >>
• Best Cheap Thrill
  Mississippi River exploration
  Just on the east side of the Arch, but before you hit East St. Louis, there's this huge river called "The Mississippi" that apparently cities to the north and south of us celebrate. Some of these crazy burgs have even been known to construct parks along its banks -- in the city itself! --... More >>
• Best Hidden Neighborhood
  South Soulard
  It's the prettiest hidden part of Soulard, a neighborhood that will break your stone-cold heart because it's so beautiful and seemingly so doomed. What chance does it have, really, this six- or seven-square-block oasis in the southern shadows of Anheuser-Busch? Its main intersection, Ninth and... More >>
• Best City Park for Public Sex
  Sister Marie Charles Park
  There are just not many places to get a decent look at the river that made St. Louis possible. One good spot is the parking lot and stretch of green grass just south of Bellerive Park (see "Best Picnic Spot" in Sports & Recreation), around the 6000 block of South Broadway, just inside the city... More >>
• Best Place to People-Watch
  St. Louis County Courthouse
  The St. Louis County Courthouse in Clayton is a five-floor building packed with drama, tedium and a few moments of delight. The price of admission is a trip through the first-floor metal detector, and the first stop is divorceland. The soon-to-be-unmarried wait on benches that line the long... More >>
• Best Month to Be in St. Louis
  October
  Nestled in the space between the choking heat of summer and the bitter cold of winter is the month of October. But the tenth month that means "eighth month" in Latin isn't fabulous in St. Louis just because the temperature rarely rises above 70 or below 40. For little ones, October means a trip... More >>
• Best Month to Leave St. Louis
  August
  What's so bad about summertime in St. Louis? Sure, the heat hits you like a wet wool rug every time you set foot outside and you nearly keel over from heat prostration while waiting for your car's crappy air conditioner to crank up. But what are you, some kind of weenie? You live in St. Louis,... More >>
• Best Reason to Stay in St. Louis for the Summer
  See previous item. More >>
• Best-Kept Secret
  St. Louis
  St. Louis is a really nice place to live, all things considered -- enter sappy string section -- and, when it comes down to it, its problems -- an insular, insecure disposition and whatnot -- could perhaps be best remedied with one extra-large shrink who can analyze us collectively, give us a... More >>