I remember the first time I thought St. Louis was “cool”. I was 14 years old and went to a concert at Mississippi Nights. Driving into the city was a great thrill and I decided right then and there I would live in St. Louis at some point. Many concerts at Mississippi Nights followed and then I started traveling up from Jackson to skateboard on the weekends. My friends and I would head over to T-N-T Skates which was located on Hampton at that time and map out all the spots we were going to hit. The owner of T-N-T, Jim (aka Tiger), was amused by us country bumpkins but always treated us nicely and even made an honorary team called The Jackson Connection. Then when the shop moved to Chippewa, right next to The Famous Bar, I worked there for part of a summer while living in the office area. In the back of the shop was a mini half-pipe and life was great. The other part of the summer I basically lived at my Aunt Jeanne's house which was located smack dab in the middle of South City mere blocks from Oak Hill school, which had some of the best banks in the city. I’d spend countless hours skateboarding with Dee Belmar and Baba Le all over the city. My aunt let me come and go as I pleased and at that time my dream was to move to St. Louis and live on Chippewa.
The image above is from either 2003 or 2004. I’m working from a photo of James Weber shooting pinball at CBGBs on what was probably a typical Monday night. Eric Hall would be tending the bar, playing great music on the sound system and few of us early birds would be there sitting at the empty bar drinking the night away. Then, as now and when I was 14 and even before that, St. Louis was always cool and it’s great people are starting to recognize that, move here, invest in it and help re-build it. Hopefully that enthusiasm will last longer than a couple of years cause the city needs a dedicated population that will invest in it for decades to come.
6 comments:
I ran across your blog searching (reminiscing) of my days riding for TNT. You'd be surprised to know that Baba still skates, and although I had a "career" ending injury, I take my kids to a local skatepark in Arnold Missouri and occasionally run into Baba who doesn't faulted at lending advice on mastering the Ollie and kickflip just as he did me in my early teens. Best of luck to you in all of your endeavors. - Jaye Smith
Thanks for stopping by, Jason, nice to hear from you. Thanks to social networks I have heard from Baba and it's great to see and hear about him still skating. Glad to hear you're still at it too with your kids. Baba has encouraged me to start back up but I still haven't gotten a board, maybe this summer.
Dana you probably remember me because i was a charter member of the tnt team and i remember the jackson connection and the days you are talking about in your article, I am part of the St. Louis connection, my name is Mike Taber, and those days were the best in my book... these kids today have no idea how prominent St. louis was at one time and everyone that was sponsored in this city....Jer (alva) Taber (Dogtown) Mcavin (Lsd) Pat splat (h street)And then our most succesfull team mate Berra which most people dont even know, I am incredibly proud to have been selected as one of the first team members, and our jackson/cape connection along with our awesome sweatshirts is one my favorite memories..... St Louis ... loaded with sponsored skaters and premiered the movies Ban This, and Propoganda
oak hill: Baba, Bebe,Fitzgerald,Dee,Charlie,Taber,Bailey,Jones,Needy,sometimes Macek,and the one who the no coast park is named for Petey Mathews (rip)
Team Tiger : Jer,Taber,Pyatt,Mcavin,Buffalo,cannali,cape /jackson connection... Needy,Fitzgerald, Sansone Later jeremy and jason (The twins),Burgan,Jett, I think Macek.....im sure a few more that im gonna regret not mentioning Team Tiger was always closely assciated with team onion which produced - Casey (captain and casey show) pittman, Doc,and many others
Jer was the leader of St. Louis and im sure still is today
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