| St. Louis Five Year Consolidated Plan Strategy | |
| Neighborhood Description - Kingsway East | |
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KINGSWAY EAST (55)
Location
History This area exists within an historic section known as Arlington, which takes its name from John W. Burd’s Arlington Grove subdivision of 1868. A memorable disaster in the history of the Arlington area occurred in October 1916, when the Christian Brothers College building was destroyed by a fire, one of the worst in the City’s history, taking ten lives. Industrial activity in the area owes its development to the construction of the Terminal Railroad belt line about 1900. The convenience of rail access, combined with plenty of adjacent vacant land, resulted in the establishment of many industrial plants in the area. Characteristics Housing in Kingsway East is a mix of brick bungalows, small frame cottages, and multi-unit brick apartment buildings. Most of the one- and two-story brick residences were built between 1900 and 1920. The small frame homes scattered throughout the neighborhood are remainders from the area’s days as a farming community. Approximately 85 percent of the area is residential, with the majority of the businesses concentrated on Dr. Martin Luther King Boulevard between Marcus and Kingshighway and on Natural Bridge. The neighborhood is home to a diverse class structure of predominantly African Americans ranging from Section 8 housing residents to professionals of all types.
The Maffitt Place Improvement Association, the Kingsway Housing Corporation, and the United Bridgeway Merchants Association are all active in the Kingsway East. neighborhood. The primary recreational facilities in the neighborhood are Handy Park and its Recreational Center both named for W. C. Handy, known as "father of the blues" because of his composition, "The St. Louis Blues." The Emergency Children’s Home (ECHO), provides needed social, emotional, and residential services to many area youth. The neighborhood’s businesses are being recruited into the Neighborhood Stabilization Team’s commercial façade program in hopes of improving the aesthetics and general commercial appeal of the business districts. Some block units have managed to begin new housing developments in the wake of these demolitions of abandoned structures. Funds are needed, however, to assist remaining occupants of the neighborhood to make necessary renovations of their homes; for example, on Hammock Place. One recently organized association is called the Neighborhood Team. Planning And Development As mentioned previously, development and rehabilitation funds could be crucially important to the preservation of the neighborhood’s continued stability since any further decline in housing stock through abandonment and demolition can only serve to increase the rate of abandonment still further. |
The Kingsway East neighborhood is defined by Natural Bridge Avenue on the North, Martin Luther King Boulevard on the South, Marcus Avenue on the East and Kingshighway Boulevard on the West. The neighborhood is bordered by The Greater Ville, Penrose, Kingsway West, and Fountain Park neighborhoods on the near northside.
Institutions And Organizations