A new angle on the Arch
Park upgrades make visiting easier. Travel,
ST. LOUIS – After helping spearhead a $380 million project to retool one of the world’s most iconic monuments, Eric Moraczewski would like to make one thing clear.
“We didn’t touch the Arch,” says Moraczewski, executive director of the Gateway Park Foundation, describing the makeover of the 91-acre Gateway Arch National Park, which borders downtown St. Louis and the Mississippi River. “What we did is improve the environment around it.”
The grand opening is scheduled for July 3.
“The Gateway Arch is a monument that is known around the world,” Moraczewski says. “We weren’t here to touch our great historical architectural feat.”
They touched nearly everything else, and visitors can see the results.
The Gateway Arch National Park, which partly overlays the footprint of the original French settlement from the mid 1700s, was known as the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial from its establishment in 1935 until the name was changed this year.
The 630-foot stainless steel-clad Arch, which was designed by architect Eero Saarinen in the 1940s and completed in 1965, dominates the national park site. But it is hardly the park’s only attraction. The multimilliondollar upgrades and improvements include a new entrance into the Arch, an expanded museum and sweeping landscape changes.
An expansive green space now stretches from the Arch to the Old Courthouse, another St. Louis landmark. The courthouse was built in 1839 and – like the Arch today – dominated the city skyline. It rose to legal fame as the beginning point for the Dred Scott case, which was eventually decided by the Supreme Court and helped propel the county into the Civil War.
The Arch and courthouse always were part of the memorial park complex. But until the recent renovations they were separated by Interstate 44 and its roaring traffic.
The highway and traffic now flow beneath a greenway land bridge that park officials have dubbed “Park Over the Highway.” Traffic noise is absent and the greenway shimmers like a well-manicured lawn.
“It’s really a new connection to the city,” Moraczewski says. “We had multiple lanes of traffic people had to cross and what we had a lot of times was people hiring taxis just to get to the Arch grounds.”
There are other outside improvements. About 2,400 trees have been
added along with additional walking and biking paths. A multistory parking garage that once marked the north end of the park’s riverfront property is now a rolling, 7½-acre park crisscrossed with walking and biking paths.
One of the highlights is the new entrance into the Arch, a light-gathering disk with a westward facing crescent entryway. Entrance had been via stairways at the structure’s legs, which now serve as exit points.
The other showpiece of the expansion is the updated Arch museum, which has been increased by nearly a third and now totals nearly 150,000 square feet. It traces the history of St. Louis from its beginning as a French fur trading outpost to today, and includes individual galleries on significant eras.
“We’re telling the story of why St. Louis is here and why it was important and why it was a jumping off point for so many settlers west of here, so people can understand why this historic (Gateway Arch) monument is sitting where it is,” Moraczewski says.
Visitors are greeted by a high-definition video experience where you might face a changing herd of buffalo, a river boat paddle-wheeling up the Missouri River or a wagon train rumbling across the plains.
The original French trading post was located near the current national park riverfront property, but likely never had more than 1,200 permanent residents, says Gateway Arch National Park historian Bob Moore. A few original artifacts have been recovered, including some pieces of pottery that were uncovered during work for recent improvements. These include a small bowl and a jar, both of which are on display. The bowl has been traced to having come from England; the jar from France.
“It shows what a crossroads St. Louis was at that time,” Moore says.
New exhibits include an actual-size replica of a French Colonial house, a dugout canoe, a stagecoach, interactive exhibits, a Corps of Discovery display and a time line of Corps co-commander Capt. William Clark’s career and work in St. Louis following the return of the Corps of Discovery to St. Louis in 1806.
“I think coming to the Gateway Arch has, for years, always been on many people’s bucket list,” Moraczewski says. “Now the new museum and the new park experience is just a second bucket list item for them in St. Louis.”