I went to visit my cousin in Chicago last week and as part of the visit we took a trip up to Milwaukee and down to St. Louis to catch some baseball games, as well as a game at Wrigley to see the Tribe and a stop at US Cellular. Here are my pictures from from the trip:

 

Milwaukee

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And now to the reason for the trip: Nationals vs. Brewers at Miller Park. This was my first experience seeing baseball in a dome...and I wasn't a fan. The park was nice, but I was not blown away by it. They have a good tailgating scene in the parking lot, but my main complaint was how the stadium was decently far from downtown and not surrounded by anything.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

St. Louis

 

 

 

 

 

One of the most beautiful churches I've ever seen, the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis

 

 

 

 

The Old Courthouse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The elevators to the top were the most interesting part of the Arch

 

 

And kind of a scary ride up

 

 

Beautiful East St. Louis

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And now for the Show Me Series: Royals vs. Cardinals

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The money shot

 

 

STL Union Station

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Art Museum

 

 

Toasted ravioli...so good

 

 

 

 

 

 

Springfield, IL

 

Quick stop in Springfield to visit the grave of Mr. Lincoln

 

 

 

 

Haha!

 

 

 

 

Chicago

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Second City

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Friendly Confines. Nice to see the Tribe finally get a win in person this year

 

 

 

 

Old school

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sad L ride home after the Cavs loss...

 

 

Obama's house

 

 

Pre-game breaded steak sandwich before the Sox game

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nice set.  I've got relatives who live just south of Chicago so I'm there at least once a year, but I've never gone north to Milwaukee.  I really want to get up there and check it out! 

^ I really liked Milwaukee. I wish I had gotten to spend more than just a few hours there. They have a great lakefront and it makes me depressed about the state of ours (don't even get me started on comparing Cleveland's to Chicago's...makes me sick). From my brief experience, I also found the stereotypes about drinking and cheese to be...quite accurate. They seemed to have quite a bit more vibrant and intact neighborhoods not far from downtown.

 

EDIT: Also, it was pretty incredible how much better the roads are in Chicago and Milwaukee, despite their winter weather being the same, if not worse, than Cleveland's.

Nice shot of inside of the arch pod. I wanted to get a picture like that but the people behind me didn't want to wait to board :)

^ I really liked Milwaukee. I wish I had gotten to spend more than just a few hours there. They have a great lakefront and it makes me depressed about the state of ours (don't even get me started on comparing Cleveland's to Chicago's...makes me sick). From my brief experience, I also found the stereotypes about drinking and cheese to be...quite accurate. They seemed to have quite a bit more vibrant and intact neighborhoods not far from downtown.

 

I moved to Cleveland, in the late 90s, from Milwaukee (5 years there).... Cleveland has many advantages - but the one glaring difference between the two cities' downtowns is how fantastic and reachable Milwaukee's lakefront is versus how totally user unfriendly/just plain awful Cleveland's is. In MKE, there are several miles of public access, trails, etc... above/below/in downtown.. - directly accessible via a slow-speed lakefront boulevard, in parts, with expensive condo highrises towering over a bluff above the lakefront, immediately adjacent to/in downtown. The Milwaukee Art Museum (Calatrava-designed - with moveable parts that look like a giant sail) sits right there on the lake,  Plus, there are lakefront festival grounds that draw millions of visitors each Summer (including about 1MM during the annual Summerfest - which is like every upcoming event at Blossom, Nautica, House of Blues and all other local music venues rolled into one 10 or so day period, all in one place. Incredible.) 

 

The funky neighborhoods directly to the north (you have picture of wonderful Brady Street) blend almost directly into downtown - with Coventry/Lakewood/Gordon Square type retail/restaurant vibes - and housing options from mansion to studio apartments and lots of nice little houses, in between.

 

The downtown/lakefront is the thing I miss most about Milwaukee.

 

St Louis is pretty great, too...

 

But so is CLE

Yeah, Milwaukee's a gem.

It looks like Comiskey Park has been renovated since I was there in...2000.  Back then there was a row of hi-rise public housing blocks which were kept out of view by a ridiculously high center scoreboard and advertising combo. 

 

 

It looks like Comiskey Park has been renovated since I was there in...2000.  Back then there was a row of hi-rise public housing blocks which were kept out of view by a ridiculously high center scoreboard and advertising combo. 

 

 

 

Most of them were torn down in the decade between 2000 and 2010, that area is now pretty desolate - lots of empty fields.  Makes the stadium seem isolated in stark contrast to Wrigley (however there is a stadium bar and the concessions at "The Cell" are a lot better than at Wrigley.

Cellular Field is anti-urban. There have been improvements since it was first built, but it still looks like it was designed to sit in a parking lot in the suburbs. There used to be a bar on 35th, across from the old Comiskey, where Cellular now stands. McCuddy's opened in 1910, the year the stadium opened. Babe Ruth drank there. As did lots of other ballplayers and a million fans. It was one of only a few buildings remaining on 35th (others razed for parking), one of the last vestiges of an urban neighborhood there. It would've been great -- from a marketing sense and a design sense -- to incorporate the actual bar into the new stadium: "Babe Ruth drank here!!" Not only did they fail to do that, they razed the bar three years before Cellular opened, and then reneged on promises to build a new adjacent McCuddy's. They paved over history as they replaced one of the best places in the country to see a ball game with one of the worst.

I never knew that story about McCuddy's, that's too bad. It was interesting going to the Cell the day after going to Wrigley as the two experiences could not have been more different in every way. I actually didn't dislike the actual ballpark as much as I thought I would, it's a perfectly fine place to watch a game, it's just nothing special. My big beef with the Cell though is that they technically don't allow upper deck ticket holders to enter the lower concourse area at all. You're relegated just to the upper deck area. Granted, it didn't look like it was being fully enforced the night I was there, but it still seems ridiculous. 

 

Also, I didn't originally post this picture, but you can see the location of old Comiskey's home plate amid a sea of parking:

 

 

And here's a view of the stadium from the entrance of the L station:

 

 

 

^ I really liked Milwaukee. I wish I had gotten to spend more than just a few hours there. They have a great lakefront and it makes me depressed about the state of ours (don't even get me started on comparing Cleveland's to Chicago's...makes me sick). From my brief experience, I also found the stereotypes about drinking and cheese to be...quite accurate. They seemed to have quite a bit more vibrant and intact neighborhoods not far from downtown.

 

EDIT: Also, it was pretty incredible how much better the roads are in Chicago and Milwaukee, despite their winter weather being the same, if not worse, than Cleveland's.

 

I was actually going to say this (the roads).  From my experience, Cleveland has the worst roads of any major city in the country.  For a state that puts absolutely no money into its other forms of transportation, Ohio has horrible roads (wasn't a joy in Cincinnati, either).  It is really interesting, too, when you visit cities like you did (Milwaukee, St. Louis) you realize just how far behind Ohio cities are in their turnarounds.

 

Great set!

The parking pic and the shot from the Red Line station were nice additions to a great thread.

 

I was actually going to say this (the roads).  From my experience, Cleveland has the worst roads of any major city in the country.  For a state that puts absolutely no money into its other forms of transportation, Ohio has horrible roads (wasn't a joy in Cincinnati, either).  It is really interesting, too, when you visit cities like you did (Milwaukee, St. Louis) you realize just how far behind Ohio cities are in their turnarounds.

 

Great set!

 

I can't disagree with the "worst roads of any major city in the country" designation, at least from my personal experience. The only places where I've seen worse road conditions are Jackson, MS and Belize.

Did you go down to the riverfront in StL? I went to the arch in 2012 and walked down to the Mississippi River for a second, and all I could think of was how terrible it was compared to Cincinnati's.

Did you go down to the riverfront in StL? I went to the arch in 2012 and walked down to the Mississippi River for a second, and all I could think of was how terrible it was compared to Cincinnati's.

 

I didn't, but it's currently under construction. Here's a view from the Arch:

 

 

I haven't looked up any plans for what they're doing, but hopefully it will improve the waterfront.

 

EDIT: I just did a Google image search to see what it used to look like...yikes, yeah, that looked awful

Great set. Milwaukee and Chicago are always enjoyable. St. Louis has some incredible neighborhoods, but downtown is weak compared to many other Midwestern cities. Ballpark Village is a joke--a small strip of development surrounded by three sides of surface lots encompassing the entire block.

Great set. Milwaukee and Chicago are always enjoyable. St. Louis has some incredible neighborhoods, but downtown is weak compared to many other Midwestern cities. Ballpark Village is a joke--a small strip of development surrounded by three sides of surface lots encompassing the entire block.

 

I actually thought St. Louis had a pretty good downtown. I had always heard that it was lackluster, but  I thought it was better than the downtowns of any of the Ohio cities. I do agree about Ballpark Village. It's better than the empty lots that were there before, but it's the same type of mass produced, inauthentic Cordish development that you see in Baltimore, Philly, KC, Louisville, etc. And their neighborhoods are gorgeous. The housing stock alone makes you feel that you are in an East Coast city--so much brick. I especially loved the stretch on Lindell across from Forest Park, just beautiful.

 

Another thing I noticed in all three of these cities (and really, in most cities I travel to) is how few overhead utility wires they have throughout the city. Almost all major thoroughfares all had buried power lines and had consistent street lamp designs. It seems like a trivial thing, but the feel of a neighborhood can drastically improve without overhead wires. This is something that always bothers me about Cleveland.

I agree with Ink.  Downtown St. Louis is one of the worst of the major Midwest city downtowns.  Too many parking garages, strange useless public spaces, little retail/restaurants (even Laclede's Landing is worse than it used to be), blocky uninteresting lowrise buildings, that Ballpark Village strip mall thing, it's just all bad.  It has some stunning buildings and I do love Washington Avenue (their "Warehouse District") but otherwise, Cincinnati and Cleveland's downtowns blow it out of the water.  Hell, at least downtown Columbus has the Arena District.

I was in St. Louis recently on a three day weekend.

 

We stayed downtown.  I thought it was pretty unimpressive for a large downtown.  It seemed a bit dead.  Ballpark Village could be cool at some point if they fill in the lots around it, which I believe is their plan.  My buddy and I went running on a Friday morning down to the arch around rush hour - 7:30 am, and I was completely surprised by the lack of traffic.  I think the light rail runs underground in downtown, so maybe that took a lot of the commuters out of the stretch.

 

I did go shopping at a store on Washington Avenue, I think it was called Cantalina or something similar.  It was a really nice urban grocery store with decent traffic, but, at the same time, I don't know how many of those buildings are filled up with apartments.

 

It was funny because three of those friends all came to Cincinnati 4 weeks later, and all three said, man, Cincinnati seems a lot bigger and busier than St. Louis.  They also thought the riverfront was much nicer in Cincinnati than St. Louis.

 

That said, we were only downtown in St. Louis and I understand there are some very vibrant neighborhoods in the Lou.

St. Louis has had a downtown subway now for almost 20 years but hasn't seen much of a revival because their downtown is on the edge of the metro.  There is hardly anything on the Illinois side (where the 15 year-old light rail line has managed to attract virtually zero investment).  Any growth happening in the city is happening in and around Forest Park and then west toward Clayton.  The Clayton light rail branch is much nicer than the rest of the system, despite it being 8-10 miles from the downtown. 

 

The big difference between St. Louis and Cincinnati is that its midtown areas are on a much larger scale, to the detriment of the downtown.