Where Is Dogtown? Mapping St. Louis’s Unofficial Neighborhoods and Districts

When I first moved to St. Louis, I quickly picked up the names of places around the city: we’d go to Seamus McDaniel’s in Dogtown, or The Gramophone in The Grove. As I explored the city more and began mapping it for this project, I discovered there are several names you won’t find on an official neighborhood map.

St. Louis has 79 official neighborhoods with clearly defined boundaries, but the way people refer to areas can be more casual. For this site, I was looking for a way to build a map that respects the official neighborhood boundaries while exposing the informal names people use as well.

Someone new to St. Louis might want to know what restaurants to check out in The Grove but not know to look in Forest Park Southeast yet. They might have been told to go check out Cherokee, which crosses multiple boundaries, or The Loop, which crosses the city-county line.

Here’s a link to the full neighborhood map with restaurants, coffee shops, landmarks, museums, book and game stores, markets, parks, and write-ups. In the rest of this article, I’ll explain some of the additions and variations I made to the map.

Explore the Neighborhood Map

Defining the map#

I used the map on NextSTL to first define and color code north city, south city, and the central corridor for the map.

I also wanted to include some inner-ring suburbs, as they’re a big part of the St. Louis experience. The Great Divorce prevented St. Louis from annexing its surrounding towns since the 1800s, so places like Maplewood, University City, and Clayton which might otherwise have been absorbed into the city are completely politically separate now. Nonetheless, visiting the shops and restaurants in those areas is a common experience for city residents.

For anything that wasn’t a full neighborhood or group of neighborhoods, I overlaid a “district” boundary.

Mapped by one resident#

A few other cities have had surveys to crowdsource opinions about neighborhood boundaries, such as The University of Chicago’s Chicago Neighborhood Project, Chicago Neighborhoods, Mapped By Residents: Here’s Where Locals Think Official Boundaries Should Be and The New York Times An Extremely Detailed Map of New York City Neighborhoods.

I think because St. Louis already has legally defined boundaries, no one has ever sent out a survey for vibes (unless you count Hoodmaps). The St. Louis Neighborhood Map found on this site is just one person’s attempt to create an informal map.

As a disclaimer, anything that isn’t officially defined is a matter of opinion. I am not trying to take away from the identity of any neighborhood, but just document some of what I discovered over a few years of living in, exploring, and researching St. Louis.

I’m hoping that it might particularly be helpful for visitors and transplants who don’t know where everything is yet, particularly around things locals might take as a given. If there’s anything I missed or got wrong, I’d love to learn about it and update the map and article!

Districts#

Some of the most popular places to visit in St. Louis are business districts that run along a major street. In some cases, they’re contained entirely within a neighborhood’s boundaries, and in other cases they straddle the line or cross between multiple neighborhoods. Here are a few that I documented.

The Grove#

The Grove, famous for being St. Louis’s LGBTQ nightlife strip, is an example of a business district that is contained within a neighborhood. It runs down Manchester from Kingshighway to Vandeventer and is clearly defined by the two Grove signs on the east and west ends. The neighborhood is Forest Park Southeast.

On this site, restaurants in The Grove such as Sultan are labeled as being in the neighborhood of Forest Park Southeast and the district of The Grove.

This is a neighborhood where the identity of the district informally extends to the whole area. Most of the homes in Forest Park Southeast are not in the Grove strip and some residents might object to the framing.

Pattern: Business district within one neighborhood.

Cherokee Street#

Cherokee Street - part Hispanic community, part antique row - is a business district that runs through four neighborhoods: Gravois Park, Benton Park West, Benton Park, and Marine Villa. (To make things even more confusing, there’s a sign that says “You are in Dutchtown” along Cherokee - you’re not. Or are you?)

For each restaurant within this district, such as Taqueria Hectorito, I list the neighborhood it’s in (Benton Park West) as well as mentioning it’s in the Cherokee Street district.

Pattern: Business district crossing multiple neighborhoods.

Delmar Loop#

The Delmar Loop, a major tourist attraction in St. Louis and one of the “10 Great Streets in America” according to The American Planning Association, is a business district that crosses over the city-county line. The west side is in University City, which is part of St. Louis County, and the east side is in Skinker DeBaliviere and West End, city neighborhoods.

Although the city-county line is a major division for the St. Louis region due to St. Louis’s independent city status with frozen borders, we can see that commerce easily crosses the border, connecting the two regions.

Pattern: Business district crossing city-county lines.

South Grand#

South Grand, known as St. Louis’s international dining strip, is a business district that straddles the line between Tower Grove South and Tower Grove East on S. Grand Boulevard. Which side of the street a restaurant is on determines which neighborhood it appears in.

Pattern: Business district straddling the line of two neighborhoods.

Grouped Neighborhoods#

In some instances, groups of neighborhoods are informally referred to by a single name with fuzzy boundaries.

Dogtown#

Dogtown is the neighborhood I named this article for, as it’s the most obvious example of an informal neighborhood being formed of a grouped set of neighborhoods. There are a few community and merchant organizations all using the Dogtown name, so I’ve used the Dogtown United claim of Clayton-Tamm, Franz Park, Hi-Pointe, Cheltenham, and the eastern portion of Ellendale.

For mapping purposes, I’ve created one region that encompasses the four official neighborhoods, with a dashed boundary line between each one. I’ll note that I left off the small region of Ellendale since it was harder to determine where to split the neighborhood further, which might change if someone complains or I get around to fixing it.

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Source: Dogtown United: “The Dogtown area is located south of Forest Park and includes four neighborhoods of St. Louis: Clayton-Tamm, Franz Park, Hi-Pointe, Cheltenham, Ellendale (eastern portion)”.

Source: How Dogtown may have gotten its name: “If you know someone who lives in Clayton-Tamm, Franz Park, Hi-Pointe, Cheltenham or even part of Ellendale, they technically live in Dogtown, which has long been known as the Irish part of St. Louis.”

Downtown#

I’ve combined Downtown and Downtown West into a unified Downtown identity. Union Station (and the Aquarium), Energizer Park, and City Museum are all technically in Downtown West, but people just say they’re going Downtown to see a soccer game or go to the aquarium.

The urban fabric is continuous across both sides of Downtown, so I wanted to group them both together to make it easier to find related things to do.

Midtown#

Midtown is a theatre, arts and innovation district in the city. It is one of the areas of the city that is currently experiencing growth. For the map, I’ve combined Midtown and Covenant Blu-Grand Center into one Midtown identity. Although the Grand Center neighborhood is where most of the theatre district is located, the whole area is often informally referred to as Midtown, being between Central West End and Downtown.

The Cortex Innovation District is sometimes referred to as being in Midtown, but much of it is located in Central West End. I assume this is because it’s on the opposite side of the neighborhood as Euclid Avenue, the main business district in CWE. I’ve included it on the map for Midtown even though it’s outside of the boundaries.

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Source: Built St. Louis: “This section of Grand Avenue might be considered the main drag of Midtown, its central core. It is certainly the portion which has retained the strongest sense of an urban environment; it also contains one of the city’s crowning jewels, the magnificently restored Fox Theater.”

Source: Fox Theatre (St. Louis) on Wikipedia: “Also known as “The Fabulous Fox”, it is situated in the arts district of the Grand Center area in Midtown St. Louis, one block north of Saint Louis University.”

Carondelet#

Carondelet and Patch form the southern tip of St. Louis city. Although a large portion of the restaurants and bars are actually located in Patch, the whole area is often informally called Carondelet. Stacked Burger Bar refers to their Carondelet location despite it being in Patch, for example, and Sauce Magazine groups everything under Carondelet/S. Broadway.

The whole area used to be called Carondelet and was its own independent city separate from St. Louis until 1870. A century later in 1971 it was split into the two neighborhoods of Carondelet and Patch. This history has resulted in a lot of shared identity between the two neighborhoods.

The last 50 years have surely made the two areas distinct to the residents that live there, but for the purposes of my map I am grouping them together for all the restaurants, breweries, and bars.

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Source: Patch, St. Louis on Wikipedia: “The Patch neighborhood forms the southern tip of the Carondelet neighborhood”.

Source: St. Louis City Talk: “First of all I always thought this area was Carondelet. Live and learn…this is Patch, the neighborhood with the coolest name of all 79.”

Source: St. Louis Patina: “An eclectic area of South City, the official City of St. Louis neighborhood name for this area is Patch. However, many people I talk to simply consider this Carondelet, if the very southern tip of it.”

Greater Dutchtown?#

Dutchtown is a neighborhood South City. I have yet included the concept of “Greater Dutchtown” on the map, but a few neighborhood organizations such as DutchtownSTL.org and Dutchtown South Community Corporation include the four neighborhoods of Gravois Park, Mount Pleasant, Marine Villa, and Dutchtown itself within their purview.

While walking along Cherokee Street, I noticed a sign that said “You are in Dutchtown” while in the Marine Villa neighborhood, so it seems whoever places the signs as well either agreed with Dutchtown informally reaching beyond its official bounds, or just made a mistake.

Personally, I haven’t explored these neighborhoods too much yet, so it’s easy for me to group them all together, but people who live there have stronger opinions. Since I had pushback, I just left all the neighborhoods on the map independent, but wanted to include it in this article for completeness.

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Source: DutchtownSTL.org: “The boundaries of what’s generally referred to as “Dutchtown” are quite fuzzy. The City of St. Louis defines some very specific boundaries. But signs around the neighborhood will tell you that “You Are In Dutchtown” when you are, in fact, in Gravois Park, Mount Pleasant, or Marine Villa. Here at DutchtownSTL, we approximate Dutchtown to be everything in between Cherokee Street or Chippewa Street to the north, Bates Street to the south, the Mississippi River to the east, and the Missouri Pacific railroad tracks to the west.”

Source: Dutchtown South Community Corporation: “Dutchtown South Community Corporation supports four vibrant neighborhoods in South St. Louis City: Dutchtown, Gravois Park, Marine Villa, Mt. Pleasant.”

Other Neighborhoods#

Many other popular neighborhoods in the city are known by their official name. The Hill, Soulard, Lafayette Square, Shaw, and Central West End are all official names. Some are shortened slightly, as people often call “Bevo Mill” simply “Bevo”.

Other Districts#

There are some additional business districts I didn’t make pages for yet like:

• Southtown located along Kingshighway near North Hampton
• Macklind Business District in Southampton
• Wash Ave in Downtown
• Midtown Alley along Locust St. in Midtown
• Laclede’s Landing in Downtown
• Morganford in Tower Grove South

Counties#

I included University City, Clayton, Maplewood, Richmond Heights, Affton, Kirkwood, and a few other towns on the map. I still have a lot of work to do to complete all the write-ups and exploration of areas, but I think the culture of the whole St. Louis region extends across the city-county line in both directions and I wanted to be able to capture that.

If you’re going on a St. Louis-style pizza tour, you should go way north to Pirrone’s and way west to Faraci’s, for example, both of which aren’t located in the city.

Conclusion#

tl;dr:

• places like The Grove, Cherokee, and Delmar Loop aren’t neighborhoods, and I wanted to find a way to display them on the map so someone could search by those names
• places like Dogtown are not officially defined, but rather a group of neighborhoods under one colloquial name

People feel very strongly about the local identity of their neighborhoods, which is one of the awesome things about being in a city, and why I wanted to make this site. It has been a fun project for me as a transplant to map St. Louis and keep exploring and taking pictures and trying new food, and I hope it’s useful or interesting to others as well. I’m always open to hearing your thoughts.

If you liked this article, you also might like St. Louis’s Most Walkable Neighborhoods, a set of twenty walkable areas in St. Louis across the city and inner-ring suburbs, also with maps and major points of interest.

Once again, you can check out the neighborhood map to find restaurants, coffee shops, landmarks, museums, book and game stores, markets, and more right here:

Explore the Neighborhood Map