St. Louis Field Notes

St. Louis is a little city with a lot of regional culture. This page is a little index for me to document what I’ve discovered after living here for a while.

Food#

The Food Map is my number one way of exploring the city. I also put together a (subjective) list of the Best Food in St. Louis and all the spots I haven’t written about yet.

Regional food#

See Regional Foods of St. Louis for toasted ravioli, gooey butter cake, slingers and of course, St. Louis-style Pizza.

The City-County Split#

Not long after moving to St. Louis, I realized people don’t say “city and suburbs” around here, they say “city and county”. See The Great Divorce to learn about the St. Louis city and county divide, and my thought experiment about what the crime stats in St. Louis might look like with a united region.

Cardinal counties#

As a further note, people will also refer to “West County”, “South County”, and “North County” as if they are proper nouns, but it’s just a colloquial way to refer to areas within St. Louis County.

There is no “East County”, as that would be St. Louis City. However, the area east of the Mississippi River is also part of the Greater St. Louis region, and commonly referred to as “Metro East”. This includes East St. Louis, Belleville, O’Fallon, and a few others.

Brick and architecture#

One thing to get used to in St. Louis is how red everything is. St. Louis was once the largest brick producer in the world, due to innovations in brickmaking combined with the abundance of clay in the region, and that legacy really shows all throughout the city. The site Built St. Louis is an incredible resource for everything architecture and history related.

Many homes throughout the city are early 20th century brick-built homes, and entire historic neighborhoods are preserved in this style, such as Shaw and Lafayette Square.

Free Attractions#

St. Louis actually has an impressive amount of free amenities, especially relative to other mid-sized cities.

The St. Louis Zoo is the most apparent example of this: a world-class zoo that holds its own against any other free or paid zoo. The Art Museum, Missouri History Museum, and Science Center are all free any day of the week, not just once a month on a Tuesday. It’s cool that there are so many things to do and they’re not price prohibitive.

Parks#

One of the biggest draws of St. Louis is all the green space. Forest Park is one of the largest city parks in America, and contains everything from the zoo and museums to outdoor amphitheaters and golf courses. Tower Grove Park is more of a local neighborhood park that hosts a farmer’s market and community events.

The Delmar Divide#

Delmar Boulevard is an East-West street that cuts through the middle of St. Louis city. It represents a dividing line known as The Delmar Divide. Everything north of Delmar is known as “North City”.

The Interactive St. Louis Vacancy Map demonstrates one of the stark divides that happens right along the line.

Language#

Street name pronunciations#

Although many of the streets in St. Louis have French sounding names, there are St. Louis-specific pronunciations for them that are not incredibly obvious.

There is a specific regional dialect of French known as Missouri French (or Paw-Paw French) that these pronunciations have been derived from.

• Carondelet - kuh-RON-duh-let
• Chouteau - SHOW-doe
• Creve Coeur - kreev-core
• Des Peres - duh-PAIR
• Florissant - FLOR-uh-sent
• Gravois - GRAV-oy
• Laclede - luh-CLEED
• Meramec - MER-uh-mack
• Soulard - SOO-lard
• Debaliviere - duh-BAHL-a-ver

Regional dialect#

• “Muskacholi” - An endearing pronunciation for Mostaccioli used in St. Louis.
• Warsh - Similar to the above, sometimes you’ll hear “warsh” instead of “wash” among an older generation.
• Catty Corner - This is not entirely specific to the STL region, but people say “catty corner” here, whereas in the north it’s “kitty corner”. This data is substantiated in the Harvard dialect study.

St. Louis-isms#

• The Lou - A popular nickname for St. Louis.
• Hoosier - In the rest of the U.S., Hoosier refers to someone from Indiana, but in St. Louis it’s more of a general insult along the lines of “white trash” or “redneck”.
• Highway Farty - Highway 40 is part of Interstate 64, and many people still call it “Highway Farty” affectionately.
• Jeffco - Jefferson County, the immediate county to the west of St. Louis County.

Local Customs#

Where did you go to high school?#

Frequently cited to be a common icebreaker for St. Louisans, the phrase “Where did you go to high school?” is used to suss out what socioeconomic circle a person belongs to, or perhaps to find shared aquaintances. I have yet to have anyone ask me this question, but I’m not a local.

Halloween#

In St. Louis, kids have to tell a joke to get treats on Halloween, which is one of my favorite locals customs.

Golf carts#

People drive golf carts all around the St. Louis area. According to The Hill neighborhood, golf carts are allowed on Missouri streets, which explains why it’s so common here.

Expired temp plates#

It’s common to see cars driving around with expired license plates or temp plates. The Missouri DMV is run by privately owned offices, and requires significantly more steps than many other states (emissions testing, car safety testing, personal property confirmation, etc.).

Since Missouri requires personal property taxes to be paid every year on cars registered in the state, car ownership is a lot more expensive here, which may help explain why there are so many expired temp plates in the wild. It’s also not heavily enforced.