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I just arrived in St. Louis yesterday. We drove from the airport to our hotel in downtown St. Louis in the night. As a result, we had to delay our "tour" of the city and Wash U until this morning.

Our first stop this morning was the area right around our hotel in downtown St. Louis. There was a decent shopping area in downtown, but there are a couple problems with it:

1. The variety of shops sucks
2. The amount of people in downtown is really small.

So what can we infer from this? The best place to shop for anything is NOT downtown St. Louis. Don't worry though, most places in the US don't have the best downtowns (Miami, Los Angeles, Atlanta). The cool thing about St. Louis is that the best shopping places are sprawled throughout the city.

Our next stop was west, to Wash U. The campus was absolutely gorgeous. It is definitely the best one I've seen so far. I've visited Penn, Harvard, Columbia, NYU, BC, BU, Cornell, GW, and Georgetown. While I find it hard to compare campuses, I would say that Wash U has a feeling I would call the most "college-like" (open fields, safe suburban feel, and a walkable campus). However, that is just my taste. Those who like "city-campuses" would definitely prefer something else such as GW or NYU.

We walked around the "South 40", the area where ALL the freshman dorms are located. We were absolutely stunned. Wash U has an extensive renovation project in full gear. New dorms seem to be propping up everywhere while the "traditional" dorms are slowly fading away. The "modern" dorms look absolutely marvelous, almost majestic. The whole area looks brand new (aside from a "traditional" dorm every now and then).

We then drove over to where the classes take place. These buildings look just as amazing as the new dorms. The architecture is just fantastic. It's quite obvious that Wash U has been spending millions upgrading all the on-campus buildings. The strategically placed fields/greenery make the campus all the more amazing.

After leaving Wash U, we drove a few miles west to the Brentwood area. This area has a mall, a Best Buy, and a Bed Bath and Beyond (among hundreds of other stores). The stores I just mentioned are the ones you'd definitely stop by if you're college shopping. This entire area is very well kept, and also looks newly renovated/brand new. It definitely feels suburban (open spaces, lots of greenery) even though it's a few miles west of downtown. It's an awesome area to go shopping, get a bite to eat, or just spend a day lounging.

The whole St. Louis area impressed me a lot. Especially since a lot of people I talked to said "St. Louis sucks" or "St. Louis is ghetto, you're going to get robbed". I would definitely disagree, especially after my mini-tour today.

Wash U and forest park (as well as the loop) are amazing areas that seem to be well-maintained with a lot of Wash U funding. The rest of St. Louis was much nicer than the sterotypical description I had engrained in my mind.

If you're interested in Wash U, definitely visit. Don't listen to what people say. I may have not experienced all of St. Louis, but I feel that it is definitely a city I could live in. I've lived in Boston and Miami before and I can attest that you'll get the big city feel as well as the comfortable, suburban feel here.

But there's only one way to find out...

By Lysse84 (Lysse84) on Thursday, August 26, 2004 - 06:03 pm: Edit

Just so you know, there is a lot of shopping in the St. Louis area, downtown not so much. The Galleria is about 3 miles off campus, Plaza Frontenac about 7 miles, and the West County mall is about 10 minutes away..Between the three malls, you have a very good variety of shops and department stores.

By Stanfordnualum (Stanfordnualum) on Wednesday, September 08, 2004 - 05:22 pm: Edit

Milemarker7, I am impressed that you know more about St. Louis/WashU in 24 hours than many who've been there for couple years!