People & Places >>

• Best Kept Secret
  Wabash Frisco & Pacific Railroad
  Many attractions in St. Louis are incredibly popular — sometimes so popular that it's difficult to enjoy them for all of the crowds and the pushing and the rudeness and the shouting (we're looking at you, irritated parents). That's why a trip aboard one of the Wabash Frisco & Pacific... More >>
• Best Place to Meet Single Women (1 Comment)
  St. Louis Community College-Forest Park Dental Hygiene Clinic
  You know that cute girl you see twice a year at the dentist's office? The one who calls B.S. when you swear you floss every day? Yup, that's her — the hygienist with the pearly white smile. Well, once upon a time she was in training, and, along with fifteen of her perky young female... More >>
• Best Place for a First Date (Not a Restaurant)
  Beale on Broadway
  If you've been on enough first dates, you know how hard it can be to really get to know the person on the other side of the table. Sure, small talk'll yield the requisite info — job, hobbies, favorite recent movie — but you need to see how your date behaves in the wild. So after... More >>
• Best Place for a Last Date (Not a Restaurant)
  Laclede's Landing
  A week ago, you discovered his sext to the tiresome blonde you never liked but whose presence you quietly tolerated because you wanted to appear supportive of his platonic relationships with other women. Stop stewing and bring him to the ultimate locale for the inevitable breakup conversation:... More >>
• Best Local Website
  Belleville News-Democrat
  What do we like about the website of the Belleville News-Democrat? For starters, it has all the local news you'll find on the website of that other metro St. Louis daily (you know the one) — but in a much-easier-to-read layout. What's more, bnd.com beats the pants off the competition... More >>
• Best Local Blog (4 Comments)
  UrbanReviewSTL
  The crosswalk signals are inadequate downtown (except outside Busch Stadium, of course). The new Schnucks Culinaria downtown is a welcome addition, but you have to drive to the third level to park your car. Businesses in the Old Post Office block, promoted as a 24/7 district, are still closed on... More >>
• Best E-Mail Address
  Jennifer Blome
  The punch line is "Heywood." You know where it goes. More >>
• Best Bus Route (1 Comment)
  We regret due to lack of funding service to this category is suspended. (Photo.) More >>
• Best Public Restroom
  Third Degree Glass Factory
  Can we speak frankly for a moment? We all have to use the restroom from time to time. As much as we don't like to discuss what goes on in there, we still appreciate facilities that make us almost as comfortable as we are when we're at home. If your average portable toilet at a music festival is,... More >>
• Best Cemetery
  Mount Olive Cemetery
  Joseph Marconnot, a truck driver descended from an old French family in Carondelet, slipped off this mortal coil in 1924. In his will he stipulated that he be embalmed in the manner of King Tut (whose tomb had only been discovered two years earlier), dressed in a tuxedo and laid to rest in a... More >>
• Best Month to Leave St. Louis
  December
  The time of year that must not be named will be here sooner than you can figure out what adeste fideles means. Instead of fighting the local crowds and the unpredictable weather — and fighting with your family about how to put the lights on the tree — skip it and skip town. No matter... More >>
• Best Mustache
  Joel Piñeiro
  From Keith Hernandez to Al Hrabosky, the Cardinals have a star-studded history of hirsute heroes. Recently, though, only backup catcher Jason LaRue and his burly horseshoe carried on the club's proud facial-hair tradition. Sometime in June, however, a handful of superstitious Cardinals players... More >>
• Best Month to Be in St. Louis
  September
  We all know how miserable St. Louis summers can be. OK, so 2009 was a bizarre departure. Usually it's three months of temperatures that would make Lucifer think twice about vacationing here, plus the pleasure of trying to breathe underwater. But when the calendar turns to September, St. Louis... More >>
• Best Hotel (2 Comments)
  Hilton St. Louis at the Ballpark
  There are these visitors who come to town twice a year, reliable as the equinoxes. For the sake of both anonymity and accuracy, let's call them the Parents. We're on journalists' salaries (print journalism, at that), so we don't exactly have a giant guest room — in fact, we don't have a... More >>
• Best Bed & Breakfast
  Casa Magnolia Bed & Breakfast
  The most charming B&Bs are those that are natural extensions of the neighborhoods surrounding them — and of their owners' personalities. Check and check at Casa Magnolia Bed & Breakfast, a 1906 Shaw neighborhood home that owners Lillabet Popp and Jordi Felix have spent more than a... More >>
• Best Place to Take Out-of-Town Guests
  City Museum
  There's no shortage of splendid, tourist-ready fun to be had in St. Louis, but the hands-down best place for mind-blowing, open-jawed joy is the City Museum. The place is prime for both the kid-having and the kid-shunning, a weird and blissfully eclectic concoction of found art, archeological... More >>
• Best Kids' Thrill (1 Comment)
  Stingrays at Caribbean Cove
  The only thing more thrilling than the final note of Stingray Cove's ubiquitous television commercials and their ear-wrenching version of "Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)" is actually visiting the exhibit itself. Yes, their venom-coated barbs have been trimmed, and they're pretty docile creatures... More >>
• Best Festival
  Cinco de Mayo on Cherokee Street
  Let's talk comfort zones. You have your couch, your bed, possibly your car. Geographically speaking, festival comfort zones in St. Louis center on a few usual suspects: downtown's green plazas and wide streets, Clayton and Forest Park. But when a festival is firmly rooted and held each year in a... More >>
• Best Spring-Break Impersonation
  Wave Taco
  For a few weeks every March, study-weary students head south to debauched destinations such as Cabo, South Padre Island and Cocoa Beach in search of booze, bikinis and beaches. St. Louis may be 1,000 miles from the nearest ocean, but wander onto the right block of downtown on a sunny day and... More >>
• Best Greening Effort
  Maplewood's Reusable Green Shopping Bags
  Maplewood's civil servants seem to understand that small, simple acts just might change a big, warming planet. Just as summer got under way, St. Louis' neighboring little suburb to the southwest announced it was offering recyclable bags to shoppers at Maplewood businesses. The cost? Just a buck... More >>
• Best Public Works Project
  Citygarden
  Citygarden was funded by the nonprofit Gateway Foundation, so some may not immediately think of it as a "public works" project. But don't forget that it was St. Louis leaders who first conspired to remake the previously forlorn green space and then picked an angel investor, so to speak, to... More >>
• Best Worthy Cause
  Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition
  The Foster & Adoptive Care Coalition's primary aim is to find foster and forever homes for more than 5,000 children in metro St. Louis, but you can support this amazing organization in a host of smaller but useful ways. One of the most immediate and rewarding programs is Little Wishes, which... More >>
• Best New Building (2 Comments)
  Moonrise Hotel
  Don't judge a book by its cover. Or a building, especially if it's a hotel with a rotating moon on its roof. Behind the unassuming exterior of the Moonrise Hotel — the latest project of Loop entrepreneur Joe Edwards (cf. Blueberry Hill, the Pageant, Pin-Up Bowl) — is a visually... More >>
• Best Old Building
  The Wainwright Building
  Of all the great landmarks of St. Louis architecture (and there are many), none stands quite so high as the Wainwright Building. Designed by the great Louis Sullivan, one of the most important figures in the history of architectural design, the Wainwright Building was the first true skyscraper... More >>
• Best Place to Live (2 Comments)
  Southampton
  Most people who live in St. Louis are familiar with the better-known neighborhoods. The Loop is a hipster haven. The West End: nice outdoor cafés and a smattering of high(er)brow culture. Soulard: get your debauch on and walk home! Et cetera. All great places to live. But this year we're... More >>
• Best Volunteer (1 Comment)
  Missy Fish
  Missy Fish was 39 years old and volunteering at a health fair pushing the importance of mammograms on women when she took her own advice and got a test herself. With no prior family history of breast cancer or symptoms to speak of, she was shocked when the result came back positive. She was... More >>
• Best Citizen
  Teodora Petrova
  On November 7, 2008, Teodora Petrova, a Bulgarian immigrant who spoke little English and had been in the country for less than two months, started a new $8-per-hour job at the MERS Goodwill in Glen Carbon, Illinois. As Petrova was sorting through donated clothes and shoes, she discovered a... More >>
• Best Gadfly (2 Comments)
  Bill Hannegan
  Few local issues have raised a stink as big as the looming bans that would prohibit lighting up in public places such as restaurants and bars. While national trends suggest that most major cities will go smoke-free in the next decade, cadres of smokers refuse to let their liberty get stubbed... More >>
• Best Geezer (2 Comments)
  Lewis Greenberg
  One of the key pages of the geezer playbook is the ability to growl "Get the hell off my lawn" convincingly enough to send interlopers scurrying. Traditionally — as in Dennis the Menace cartoons — the interlopers are small children. Lewis Greenberg, 65, is that much more badass,... More >>
• Best Pothead (2 Comments)
  Mark Pedersen
  While you're sitting on the couch stoned, munching Cheez Doodles and watching Harold and Kumar, Mark Pedersen is traveling the nation, seeking out the life stories of people who smoke chronic to treat their chronic illnesses. The St. Louisan is the founder of the Cannabis Patient Network, a... More >>
• Best Bureaucrat
  Les Sterman
  Les Sterman retired from the East-West Gateway Council of Governments this past July, after 26 years as head of the region's planning and transportation agency. During his tenure at East-West Gateway, Sterman served as a chaperone of sorts, goading elected officials in Missouri and Illinois into... More >>
• Best Lawyer (1 Comment)
  Assistant U.S. Attorney Hal Goldsmith
  Hardly did a law-and-order scandal break these past twelve months where Assistant U.S. Attorney Hal Goldsmith didn't find himself smack in the crosshairs. Exhibit A: Bobby Lee Garrett, Vincent Carr and Leo Liston, three former St. Louis police officers, will soon be sentenced for stealing cash... More >>
• Best Place to Vent
  Wolf Howl
  Sometimes life in the city/suburbs/exurbs can really get to you. The traffic. (Specifically, the red lights everywhere you want to go, in every direction.) The crowds. The people. Their children. Sometimes it all just makes you want to scream! Here's a better idea: Call up the Wild Canid... More >>
• Best Local Politician (2 Comments)
  St. Charles County Councilman Paul Wynn
  Paul Wynn does not smoke, and nary a drop of drink doth touch his lips. If Wynn has a vice, it's a three-letter word: war. The West Point grad did a tour in Saudi Arabia with the U.S. Army during the Gulf War, and when the War on Terror commenced, the self-described unabashed conservative joined... More >>
• Best Mayor (1 Comment)
  Linda Goldstein
  Early this year the mayors of five municipalities (Clayton, University City, Olivette, Creve Coeur and Overland) joined together to ask that the St. Louis County Council pass a smoking ban. And while the county council debated the matter ad nauseam and eventually punted the issue — asking... More >>
• Best Mayoral Dis
  "See N Say"
  "Leadership is not in your position but in your actions," goes half the hook to Rockwell Knuckles' vitriolic attack on St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay. "See N Say," released earlier this year on the local rapper's sophomore album, The Glow Mixtape, came with the not-too-subtle parenthetical title... More >>
• Best Local Boy Made Good
  Jon Hamm
  As Don Draper, the brilliant, troubled 1960s ad exec at the heart of AMC's critically lauded TV series Mad Men, St. Louis native Jon Hamm has achieved the rare actor's trifecta: He's an icon to men, a sex symbol to women and a flat-out brilliant performer. An alumnus of John Burroughs School... More >>
• Best Local Boy Gone Bad
  Jeff Smith
  When Jeff Smith threw his hat into the ring for the U.S. congressional seat vacated by Dick Gephardt in 2004, many considered the neophyte pol to be a naive, earnest twerp with no chance of surviving the jaws of politics, let alone giving rival Russ Carnahan a run for his money. Smith did lose... More >>
• Best Local Girl Made Good (1 Comment)
  Raechel Holtgrave
  Raechel (yes, that's Raechel — as in Rachel plus Raquel) Holtgrave graduated from the University of Missouri in May with majors in math and actuarial science. But instead of landing a job with an insurance firm or some other corporation, Holtgrave will spend the next year serving as... More >>
• Best Local Girl Gone Bad
  Judy Pickens
  The crime is so heart-wrenching, it's difficult to comprehend. In the fall of 2004 a St. Louis mother of two takes her extremely sick children to the hospital with a mysterious illness. The doctors try everything but nothing seems to work. The mother's four-year-old boy dies at the hospital... More >>
• Best Villain
  Christopher Coleman
  Prosecutors have led us to believe they'll go for the jugular in the case against Christopher Coleman. But Illinois has a moratorium on the death penalty. So as it stands, the best prosecutors can hope for is to put away Coleman and let the ghosts of his wife and two young sons haunt him for as... More >>
• Best PR Snafu
  Congressman William "Lacy" Clay's Divorce
  She said she found out her husband was divorcing her by reading it in the newspaper. He said his filing was no surprise. Surely the truth lies somewhere in between. But who cares? William "Lacy" Clay married Ivie Clay, the flack for the St. Louis Development Corp., seventeen years ago. They had... More >>
• Best Thing to Happen to St. Louis This Year
  2009 Major League Baseball All-Star Game
  Such a rhapsody of self-celebration it was, such a mighty toot from our own horn. For an entire head-swelling week, we managed to push aside all semblance of that pesky inferiority complex to play hostess-with-the-mostest of the midsummer classic. And there we posed on a cool(-ish), (mostly)... More >>
• Best Place to People-Watch
  Busch Stadium
  Face it. The "Best Fans in Baseball" trope aside, Busch Stadium is not reserved for real baseball fans. True adherents of the national pastime can be found at home following the game on TV, radio or the Internets. Why's that? Because there are just too damn many distractions at Busch —... More >>
• Best Cheap Thrill
  Temporary Weightlessness
  The country road ahead: fairly straight and tree-lined, the wildlife area in your rear-view mirror. You know what lies ahead, but the kids in back don't. Nudge the gas a little more toward the floor — 55, 60, 65, don't want the tires to actually leave the ground. The road falls away and... More >>
• Best Mile of St. Louis (1 Comment)
  South Grand Boulevard from Shaw Boulevard to Utah Place
  If you decided one day you wanted to see the very best of St. Louis and all that entails, you would need only to take a short jaunt along Grand Boulevard from Shaw Boulevard south to Utah Place. Those nineteen short blocks embody everything that makes our city a magnificent place to live. You'll... More >>
• Best View of Downtown
  Sightseeing Riverboat Cruise
  We all have our own favorite spot from which to admire downtown. Could be your roof, or a certain point on the highway, or out the window on a flight home. As much as we Arch-gaze, however, it's easy to lose sight of our city's storied history (and let's be honest, how much of said history... More >>
• Best View of Someplace Other than Downtown
  Riverview Park
  This charming site atop the bluffs north of Alton provides sweeping views of the Mississippi River rolling slowly along some 100 feet below. On clear days, you can even see the Gateway Arch off in the distance to the south. Better, though, is to arrive just before dusk to catch the sun... More >>
• Best View of the Mississippi
  Cliff Cave County Park
  "The Mississippi River is laden with the burdens of a nation," writes homegrown author Eddy L. Harris. It carries not just grain and coal barges, Harris suggests, but also "sins and salvation, dreams and adventure and destiny." It's your river. Respect it. Gaze upon it from the bluff at Cliff... More >>
• Best Place to Meet Single Men (4 Comments)
  Central West End Dog Park
  Every summer at the Sonoma-Marin Fair in Petaluma, California, a panel of qualified judges anoints one very special canine the World's Ugliest Dog. This year's winner was Pabst, a boxer mix with a wicked underbite. Despite his unfortunate title, when you look at Pabst's victory photos, you feel... More >>