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St. Louis is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri with a population of about 2,803,707. It is bordered by the Mississippi River on the east and is the largest metropolitan area in Missouri. The city is named after King Louis IX of France. St. Louis climate falls between the boundaries of two climatic types namely humid continental and humid subtropical. The city has four distinct seasons. Winter is the driest season while spring is typically the wettest season. The city usually experiences thunderstorms. A period of warm weather late in autumn known as an Indian summer can occur. The city is known for its multiple French and German influences as well as having a Victorian past.
Today it is widely known for its breakthrough research in the fields of medicine, biotechnology, and other sciences.
There are many museums and attractions in the city. The St. Louis Art Museum, located in the City's premier park, Forest Park, and dating from the 1904 World's Fair, houses an impressive array of modern art and ancient artifacts, with an extensive collection of master works of several centuries, including paintings by Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Pissarro, Picasso, and many others. Forest Park is bigger than New York's Central Park, and it also is home to the St. Louis Zoo, the Muny, and many other attractions. The privately owned City Museum offers a variety of interesting exhibits, including several large faux caves and a huge outdoor playground. It also serves as a meeting point for St. Louis's young arts scene.
The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, located in Grand Center, is an arts institution in a world-renowned building designed by the Pritzker Prize-winning architect, Tadao Ando. Also located in Grand Center is the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, this non-collecting museum is recognized nationally for the quality of its exhibitions and education programs. The Eugene Field House, located in downtown St. Louis, is a museum dedicated to the distinguished children's author. The Missouri History Museum presents exhibits and programs on a variety of topics including the 1904 World's Fair, and a comprehensive exhibit on Lewis and Clark's voyage exploring the Louisiana Purchase. The Fox Theatre, originally one of many movie theatres along Grand Boulevard, is now a newly restored theater featuring a Byzantine facade and Oriental decor. The Fox Theatre presents a Broadway Series in addition to concerts. The St. Louis Union Station is a popular tourist attraction with retail shops and a luxury hotel.
There are several notable churches in the city, including the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis (more commonly known as "the New Cathedral"), a large Roman Catholic cathedral designed in the Byzantine and Romanesque styles. The interior is decorated with mosaics, the largest mosaic collection in the world. In January 1999, Pope John Paul II spoke in the Cathedral Basilica as part of a two day visit to St. Louis. The Cathedral Basilica is the mother church and seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Saint Louis, the principal diocese of Missouri; Robert Carlson is the current bishop, following Raymond Burke's appointment as Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura.
The Basilica of St. Louis, King of France (1834) (more commonly known as the "Old Cathedral") is the oldest Roman Catholic cathedral west of the Mississippi River. The Old Cathedral is located adjacent to the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. Also notable is the abbey church of Saint Louis Abbey, whose distinctive architectural style garnered multiple awards at the time of its completion. Among other notable churches is St. Francis de Sales Oratory, a neo-Gothic church completed in 1908 and the largest church in the city aside from the cathedral.
The Gateway Arch, part of the Memorial, is arguably the city's best-known landmark, as well as a popular tourist site. This Memorial commemorates the acquisition and settlement by the citizens of the United States of America of all of the lands west of the Mississippi River that are part of the nation today. The Arch, and the entire 91 acres (370,000 m2) of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial park, occupy the exact location of the original French village of St. Louis (1764–1804). Unfortunately, no buildings from that era exist today.
The Hill is an historically Italian neighborhood where many of the area's best Italian restaurants can be found. The Hill was the home of Yogi Berra, Joe Garagiola, and many other noted athletes.
Forest Park offers many of St. Louis's most popular attractions: the Saint Louis Zoological Park; the Municipal Theater (also known as The Muny, the largest and oldest outdoor musical theater in the United States); the St. Louis Science Center (with its architecturally distinctive McDonnell Planetarium); the Saint Louis Art Museum; the Missouri History Museum; several lakes, and scenic open areas. Forest Park completed a multi-million dollar renovation in 2004 for the centennial of the St. Louis World's Fair. The Zoo, Art Museum, and Science Center are all world-class institutions. The Zoo-Museum Tax District provides operating funds, so admission is free to them and the History Museum.
The Saint Louis Zoological Park, one of the oldest and largest free-admission zoos in the country, is home to an Insectarium and the Prairie Village. The St. Louis Zoo is the most visited zoo in the United States, having surpassed the San Diego Zoo in popularity. It boasts many exhibits with animal-friendly habitats. The zoo is located in Forest Park, adjacent to the St. Louis Art Museum.
The St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame Museum is located near Busch Stadium in downtown St. Louis. Laclede's Landing, located on the Mississippi River front directly north of the historic Eads Bridge, is popular for its restaurants and nightclubs.
St. Louis possesses several distinct examples of 18th and 19th century architecture, such as the Soulard Market District (1779–1842), the Chatillon-de-Menil House (1848), the Bellefontaine Cemetery (1850), the Robert G. Campbell House (1852), the Old Courthouse (1845-62), the original Anheuser-Busch Brewery (1860), and two of Louis Sullivan's early skyscrapers, the Wainwright Building (1890-91) and the Union Trust Building.
On the Riverfront two sculptural groups have been designated a National Lewis and Clark site by the National Park Service. This includes a twice life-sized grouping of Lewis and Clark on the St. Louis Riverfront which commemorated the final celebration of the bicentennial of the expedition. These sculptures were done by Harry Weber.
The Lemp Mansion, home of the ill-fated Lemp family, brewers of Falstaff Beer and others, is considered one of the most haunted places in the nation. It is open to the public as a restaurant, murder-mystery dinner theater, and bed and breakfast.
St. Louis is home to the world-renowned Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra which was founded in 1880 and is the second oldest orchestra in the nation. The orchestra has received six Grammy Awards and fifty-six nominations. The Historic Powell Symphony Hall on North Grand Boulevard has been the permanent home of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra since 1968. Leonard Slatkin, largely credited with building the orchestra's international prominence during his 17-year tenure as Music Director, is Conductor Laureate. The current Music Director of the orchestra is David Robertson.
The Opera Theatre of Saint Louis is an annual summer festival of opera performed in English, originally co-founded by Richard Gaddes in 1976. Union Avenue Opera, formed in the early 1990s, is a smaller company that performs opera in their original languages. A $74 million rennovation of the Kiel Opera House was approved in June 2009. Other classical music groups of note include the Arianna String Quartet, the quartet-in-residence at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, the Saint Louis Chamber Chorus, and the Young Catholic Musicians, a group for young choir and band members made up of kids from over 60 parishes all over Saint Louis.
St. Louis has long been associated with great ragtime, jazz and blues music. Early rock and roll singer/guitarist Chuck Berry is a native St. Louisan and continues to perform there several times a year. Soul music artists Ike Turner and Tina Turner and jazz innovator Miles Davis began their careers in nearby East St. Louis, Illinois. St. Louis has also been a popular stop along the infamous Chitlin' circuit. It is because of this musical tradition that the city's National Hockey League team, added in the 1967 NHL expansion, was named the St. Louis Blues.
Popular music and entertainment in St. Louis peaked in the 1950s and 60s due to the popularity of Gaslight Square, a thriving local nightclub district that attracted nationally known musicians and performers. This area was all but extinct by the early 1970s and today is the site of a new housing development.
St. Louis is also the home to successful modern musical artists, including Living Things, Sheryl Crow, Barbara Carr, Gravity Kills, Story of the Year, Modern Day Zero, Stir, Strawfoot, Greenwheel, Ludo, 7 Shot Screamers, MU330 and The Urge. In the 1990s, the metro area produced several prominent alt-country artists, including Uncle Tupelo — a Belleville, Illinois trio often considered the originators of the style, whose members went on to found Wilco and Son Volt in 1994 — and The Bottle Rockets. As of 2007 the alt-country scene has celebrated a resurgence, producing a burgeoning St. Louis Twang Scene, consisting of bands, burlesque dancers and roller derby queens. Rap and hip-hop artists include Nelly, The Saint Lunatics, Ali, Murphy Lee, Chingy, Huey, J-Kwon, Jibbs, and others.
The theater district of St. Louis is in midtown, which is undergoing a major redevelopment and building boom. This district of the city is known as Grand Center, St. Louis. The phrase can refer to the district itself (which is located within Midtown), or to the not-for-profit agency, Grand Center, Inc. (GCI), which possesses certain quasi-governmental powers and administers arts and urban-renewal programs in the area. The district includes the Fox Theatre, one of the largest live Broadway theaters in the United States, the Powell Symphony Hall, home of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, the Saint Louis University Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Religious Art, The Sun Theater (under redevelopment), The St Louis Black Repertory Theater Company, the Contemporary Art Museum Saint Louis, the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, the Sheldon Concert Hall, the Grandel Theatre and many others.
The Muny (short for "The Municipal Opera Association of St. Louis") is located in Forest Park. Seating capacity for every performance is over 13,000 people with 1500 free seats. The Muny has completed its eighty-ninth annual season for the summer of 2007 with the production of Les Misérables. The theater is influential with Actors' Equity Association.
St. Louis is home to over 81 theatre and dance companies and one of the largest theatrical production companies in the U.S.A. known as The Fox Associates. Fox Associates, L.L.C., was formed in 1981 to purchase, renovate and operate the 4,500-seat Fox Theatre in St. Louis, Missouri. The Fox, which had once been at the center of the St. Louis "movie" theater district, had been closed since 1978 and was in need of both a major restoration and new entertainment programming to elevate it once again to its rightful position as the major venue for entertainment in St. Louis. The restoration was completed and in 1982 the Fox reopened as a major entertainment venue for Broadway productions, country stars and rock, pop and jazz artists. It has since become one of the highest grossing theatres in the country. Today, The Fox Associates group has helped produce some of Broadway's biggest hit musicals and has been influential in St. Louis' theater productions. Other theaters in St. Louis include The Pageant, The Repertory and The Roberts Orpheum Theater.
The Saint Louis Zoological Park is a zoo in Forest Park in St. Louis, Missouri. It is recognized as a leading zoo in animal management, research, conservation, and education. Admission is free, although there are fees for some attractions. One special feature is the Zooline Railroad, a small passenger train that encircles the zoo, stopping at the more popular attractions.
