Delmar Loop

File:Pin-Up Bowl, Delmar Loop, Missouri.jpg

Pin-Up Bowl is a bowling alley located in the east section of the Loop.

The Delmar Loop is an entertainment, cultural and restaurant district in University City, Missouri and the adjoining western edge of St. Louis, Missouri. Many of its attractions are located in the streetcar suburb of University City, but the area is expanding eastward into the Skinker-Debaliviere Neighborhood of the City of St. Louis proper. In 2007, the American Planning Association named the Delmar Loop "One of the 10 Great Streets in America."

Origin

The area gets its name from a streetcar turnaround, or "loop", formerly located in the area.

Delmar Boulevard was originally known as Morgan Street. According to Norbury L. Wayman in his circa 1980 series History of St. Louis Neighborhoods, the name Delmar was coined when two early landowners living on opposite sides of the road, one from Delaware and one from Maryland, combined the names of their home states. The town of Delmar, Delaware, on the border between the two states, derived its name in similar fashion.

MetroLink light rail transit station is at the east side of the area. There are plans to build a 2.2-mile (3.5 km) trolley line from The Loop to the Missouri History Museum in Forest Park.

Attractions and Institutions

File:Tivoli delmar.jpg

The Tivoli Theatre is a three screen art house theater on the Delmar Loop

Major Loop institutions include:

• Blueberry Hill pub and restaurant
• Fitz's Restaurant and Bottling Company
• The Pageant music venue
• Integrity Web Consulting
• Riverfront Times newspaper
• Tivoli Theater
• University City City Hall
• University City Public Library

Other establishments on the Loop include the 560 Music Center (owned by Washington University in St. Louis), COCA Center for Creative Arts, Craft Alliance art education center, Moonrise Hotel, Subterranean Books, and Vintage Vinyl record store.

The Loop is also home to many local restaurants including Al-Tarboush deli, Blueprint Coffee, Cicero's Italian Restaurant, Corner 17 Chinese Restaurant, The Good Pie Pizza, Gokul Indian Restaurant, Gyro House, Market Pub House, Meshuggah Cafe, Mission Taco, Three Kings Public House, Seoul Taco Korean Tacos, Piccione Pastry, Ranoush Mediterranean Cuisine, Snarf's Sandwiches, and four Thai restaurants owned by Pat's Thai Restaurants.

St. Louis Walk of Fame

Main article: St. Louis Walk of Fame

Chuck Berry's star in the St. Louis Walk of Fame

The Loop is the home of the St. Louis Walk of Fame, a series of brass plaques embedded in the sidewalk along Delmar Boulevard commemorating famous St. Louisans, including musicians Chuck Berry, Miles Davis and Tina Turner, actor John Goodman, bridge-builder James Eads and sexologists Masters and Johnson.

Trolley

Main article: Delmar Loop Trolley

File:Streetcar 1352 (ex-Milan 1811) on display in St. Louis in 2011.jpg

A streetcar on display in the Loop

The Delmar Loop Trolley has plans in place for a 2.2-mile heritage fixed-track trolley line to come to the Delmar Loop which will link up to MetroLink and Forest Park attractions, a project that received a $24.9 million grant from the Federal Transit Administration.

The western demarcation of the Loop is generally considered to be the U. City Lions, sculptures of a male lion and a male tiger on pedestals flanking Delmar immediately west of the University City City Hall. West of the lions, Delmar becomes largely residential. The eastern boundary of the Loop traditionally was the St. Louis City border, punctuated by The Delmar Lounge at the corner of Delmar and Eastgate, but the area began expanding into the city proper around 2000. This expansion has largely been due to the redevelopment efforts of Joe and Linda Edwards, owners of Blueberry Hill, The Pageant, and Pin-Up Bowl, and the Tivoli Theater, the Moonrise Hotel, and Eclipse Restaurant. The Saint Louis Regional Arts Commission completed its new headquarters on Delmar in 2003, creating performance and office spaces for theater groups. The Pageant, located across Delmar from the Arts Commission, has become one of St. Louis's main venues for mid-size popular musical performances, featuring rap, rock, and country artists, including Saint Louisans Chuck Berry and Nelly.

The Loop attracts an eclectic clientele and wide variety of street life, due in part to its proximity to Washington University and dating back to the late 1960s when Streetside Records and head shops dominated the retail landscape. Although the Loop is the natural "college town" area for nearby Washington University, few of the retail establishments and restaurants are primarily supported by college students.

History

During the 1950s, the Loop was the meeting place for U. City's teenagers. The Varsity Theater and the Tivoli showed first-run movies. Joe's Billiards which was located between the two theaters was always full of teenagers. There were restaurants up and down the Loop area. Enright Avenue, which was part of the streetcar turnaround, had a drug store and three restaurants plus a record store. There was another drug store on the corner of Delmar and Kingsland. Both drugstores had soda fountains. Delmar at Skinker wasn't considered part of the Loop but had a Garaveli's Restaurant and a well known nightclub Davy "Nose" Bold's across from it.

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  University City City Hall

• Subterranean delmar.jpg

  Subterranean Books

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  Northeast block of Delmar and Kingland

See also

• Streetcars in St. Louis

External links

• Delmar Loop home page
• A blog/critique of certain aspects of the Loop, with photos
• Loop Trolley home page