Standing beneath the luminous Gateway Arch on the shores of the Mississippi River, I reflected on how St. Louis started life in 1764 as a trading post founded by a Frenchman, Pierre Laclede. I imagined the promise that the Arch celebrates: the opening of the West, a time when settlers stopped here — for food, guns, ammunition, livestock and wagons — before beginning the arduous journey along the Santa Fe and Oregon trails.
In its soaring simplicity, the Arch, completed in 1965, serves as a beacon from many points downtown, and further. To this day, oblique zoning regulations and sheer common decency ensure dramatic vistas by governing that no buildings along or near the riverfront stand taller than its 630 feet.
Architect Eero Saarinen designed the Arch to honor Thomas Jefferson, America’s first architect and the president who made possible the Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark expedition. Saarinen used stainless steel for the outer skin so that the Arch could withstand winds of up to 150 mph.
photos by JoAnn Greco
As tall as it is wide, the structure is at all times graceful, a litheness that largely can be credited to the steel. Cold and foreboding in the grey of morning, eerie and delicate in the afternoon mist, or glimmering with pearlescent tones of pink and blue at dusk, the manmade material at once reflects and stands aloof from its natural surroundings.
Inside, the Arch is firmly, and rather charmingly, mired in an era of go-go boots and Beatles. Visitors line up to ascend one of its two legs, then pass through turnstiles that look straight out of the New York City subway system, circa 1965.
The rickety tram ride to the top — via one of the eight tiny podlike capsules that have served that purpose since the Arch’s public opening in 1967 — is not for the claustrophobic or acrophobic. Accompanied by the grinding of gears, the egg-shaped cars offer intriguing glimpses of the structure’s innards along the way.
Reaching the top definitely gives a sense of accomplishment. And the views are fantastic. Two rows of curving, tiny windows afford glimpses of the Mississippi River on one side — with Illinois beyond that — and downtown St. Louis on the other. From here, you can see the distinctive green dome of the Old Courthouse, which, like the Arch, is part of the 92-acre Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. The historic Dred Scott case was initially tried here in 1847, and although the African-American slave was indeed granted his freedom, that decision was later rescinded by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Back in the lobby of the Arch, the Museum of Westward Expansion offers interpretive exhibits depicting the history of the Lewis and Clark expedition, Native American arts and crafts, and murals showing what life was like in St. Louis during westward expansion.
Before leaving the National Park, consider a walk to the Old Courthouse. A special exhibit, “Dred Scott: Slavery and The Struggle to Be Free,” details the fascinating story. Also nearby, is a brand new sculpture park, Citygarden, that is an attempt to enliven the one-mile Mall that connects the Arch to Union Station, the city’s former railway terminus.
Whether you stand at the Italian Renaissance-style Courthouse or amidst Citygarden with its bronze figures and red abstractions, the Arch hovers. Both mysterious and familiar, it remains the city’s greatest architectural and sculptural feat.
One good book: Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future
JoAnn Greco stops by a quirky new hotel in St. Louis here.
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