With Halloween season upon us once again, I started thinking about the scariest places and fearful experiences in St. Louis. I guess fear is pretty subjective, but it’s worth pondering.
When I started this blog in the early 2000s I lived in the Boulevard Heights Neighborhood on the deep south side of St. Louis. We had little kids at the time and lived a true 15 minute city life. Everything we needed was within a short drive. We were going out a lot less at night and started to nest up in our Mid-Century abode on Ruth Drive. We just didn’t get out much to other parts of the city.
I was working in Chesterfield, MO at the time and listening to County residents talk about how scary St. Louis is to them. I listened for years without probing or pushing back.
So I was well aware of the fears people have of St. Louis very early on.
And then you have the modern times where many in this country are openly discussing how “scary” or “war ravaged” our American cities are. The inescapable news flashing by on my screens shows the National Guard, ICE and others “taking over” our Capitol city of Washington D.C., Portland, Chicago…maybe we’re next. But I doubt it, not enough illegal migrants or crime they can do anything about, and we’re in a deeply red MAGA state. It would be awesome if the National Guard helped clean up tornado debris and sweep the Pruitt-Igoe site and alleys for trash and copious dumping that leads to disinvestment, crime and the like. That would be okay.
Visitor fear seems to be something the authoritarian regimes want to spend our tax dollars on these days. They say people are scared of visiting D.C. They say Portland is a warzone. Have you been to Portland, Chicago or D.C.? They are amazing places. They sometimes reflect America’s issues at a higher volume than suburbs, but they are great. I’m never scared in American cities. Why? Because I live in an American city. Arguably the most “dangerous” city in the country, depending on your statistician and marketing department.
I hear this all the time around the St. Louis region as well. People in the suburbs and exurbs speak of fear of my city. I believe they are highly exaggerated, ignorant fears. From going to a sporting event Downtown or seeing the tornado damage first hand, to going to Forest Park events…I hear their fears on the regular. Don’t get me started on the schools and neighborhoods off the beaten path…but, fear pervades in the suburban mindset. Imagine walking the Earth and having so much fear in your heart and soul.
I don’t share their fears of St. Louis, nor when I travel to other American cities.
This blog was a huge part of my personal growth in defining my own fear. There are things to fear in American society. Everyone is strapped, for instance. Fentanyl and meth make people unpredictable and desperate at levels I’ve never seen until the last 5-10 years. The police department is run by the state of Missouri in St. Louis. They do NOTHING to enforce traffic laws before or after the state took over. Drivers are out of control in St. Louis. No traffic stops, no rules, no laws, no plates, no license, no insurance, lack of sober heads…the evidence is there to have actual fear from our failed police/politicians doing the basics to punish idiots and no-dignity drivers. This does scare me.
But I’m not scared of abandonment, people on the streets, North City, state streets or anything like that. I have evolved a set of personal rules and street savvy on my own terms. I am constantly aware of my surroundings. I trust my own instincts and I mind my own business. I like to talk to strangers, but only when the conversation is brought to me and the situation passes my Spideysenses. No ear buds, full eye contact and such…
I’ve rarely had my heart rate go up when it comes to people or negative interactions exploring St. Louis on foot, scooter, bike or car.
When I first moved to St. Louis and started saying how much I liked it, I was told to fear North St. Louis, and to avoid it at all costs; same can be said for the state streets on the Southeast side. I’ve been to both many, many times over and over at day, noon and night. I have no fear.
I am at peace with my rust belt city. I have worked hard at a better understanding of abandonment. I am more in tune with historical racism, redlining fallout, Interstate butchering of cities, political infighting, regressive race relations and general apathy & hatred of a once beautiful city that is still glowing and fascinating to me.
But there is one place that truly terrifies me: The old Chain of Rocks Bridge.
Fear is an emotion that I do not want in my life, I work hard to CBT it out of my anxious brain. But spiders larger than a quarter and that fucking bridge have the better of me, and I don’t think I can kick it man.
I’ve visited this bridge many times. Early visits leaned toward fascination and wonder, but they devolved to fear of heights, a powerful river and an underlying fear of murder, 1970’s stoners and 30 degree bends over rushing muddy waters.
When my kids were little there was a Scouts eagle watching event on the Old Chain of Rocks. I knew I should go, but I wasn’t present as a dad, and I was all up in my own head. It took everything in my body to not yell at my kid to stay away from the rails at the edge of the bridge.
Walking this bridge at night would send me into a straight up panic attack. I am incapable of that. This I know.
So, I’ve documented my visits of the bridge well over the years. I did posts in 2011, 2015 and 2024.
But I thought it was time to revisit and try to reset my fears in honor of the “spooky season” of October.
Call me a wimp or whatever words are used now to explain male fear, but the sounds and heights and freedom of this bridge scare the shit out of me. Respect the biggest river in North America!
And then there is the gruesome 1991 rapes and murders of two teenage girls, the Kerry sisters by a group of 4 men. I watched an A&E American Justice piece (S14, E25) on the case.
There are several things about this story that are haunting and add to my terror.
Julie and Robin Kerry, along with their cousin Tom Cummins, who was visiting from Maryland, were forced onto a platform below the bridge where the women were raped by 3 of the 4 men. They were further forced to the concrete piers under the bridge and either pushed or forced to jump into the river. Robin’s body was never found, Julie’s body was found ~200 miles south of the bridge, and Tom amazingly survived.
This has always been on my mind walking this bridge. The manhole covers were OPEN to the Mississippi below in 1991. The bridge closed in 1968 and you could walk it and swing your legs off the edges or climb down to the platform or concrete piers over the rushing river on the chain of rocks below. Terrifying.
The men confessed to the rape and murders and one was on record saying that night of April 5th, 1991 “I feel like hurting somebody tonight”. This also terrifies me.
The manholes are now covered safely and welded shut. Those days are over. Can a bridge be gentrified? It is now a bike trail with a gorgeous park and bird murals. The graffiti is largely gone, but some is still visible.
But the footage from the police investigations show what it looked like back in the 1990s.
open manhole covers with metal platform beneath where you could sit and party. Or in this case, where rape and murder occurred
The “Wanna play” graffiti is haunting given the events
Also, there is a placque memorializing Julie Kerry with a poem she wrote called “Do The Right Thing” that they painted on the bridge deck. The racial context is striking as well, as the Kerry sisters and Tom Cummins are white and 3 of the 4 men were Black. The white guy didn’t rape them, but restrained them, per the American Justice story.
The American Justice piece shows where the poem was written on the deck of the bridge. This is why the Kerry sister brought cousin Tom to the bridge to show them the poem.
The personal terror is even there for me in the title of the poem. I’m old enough to have been highly affected by Spike Lee’s American film masterpiece “Do the Right Thing” which came out in 1989, probably still fresh on the mind of Julie Kerry. The film abuzz with urban struggle, humor, racial tension and gentrification still lives inside me and it’s now with me walking the Old Chain of Rocks bridge.
It is tragic that someone that young was trying to come to grips with racism and hatred Americans have for one another ended so brutally being raped by 3 Black men, and the white guy restraining them. Why do I mention race? Because it matters and it did in the case and community.
The graffiti on the bridge is something I’m glad I’ve photographed over the years, because it is fading. So much has been stripped, sun faded or painted over. The evidence and condition of the bridge back in 1991 when the rape and murders took place are gone.
Escape from New York - Old Chain of Rocks scene
Further, the bridge was used to film a scene in the 1981 film Escape from New York, which called for a post-apocalyptic scene. The piled up cars on the 30 degree bend must have been terrifying to shoot.
But, the rushing sound and sights of the river is still there. It terrifies me. My knees wobbled and I couldn’t look up to get photos lest I’d go into a vertigo state. It was no easier this time, but I did the walk again.
I can’t look up, so my trusty anxiety sherpa wife took a couple photos of the shotgun holes in the lights shot out by folks on the bridge WITH A SHOTGUN. The rusted steel girders are beautiful and emblematic of our city’s history and American decline and abandonment. But the place simply terrifies me to no end.
Attempts to overcome my personal fears are probably fleeting; but, I just bought a book written by Jeanine Cummins the sister of Tom Cummins and cousin of Robin and Julie Kerry who were raped and murdered that night. She took the angle of writing about the impacts on both the victim’s and rapist/murderer’s families.
I doubt it will help with the fear of the bridge, but it’ll close a chapter on the disgust I have in my heart for sexual assault and evil surrounding murder and the bridge itself.
So the Old Chain of Rocks is my scariest place in St. Louis. It’s an earned fear or maybe a genetic one I try to recon with.
Ignorance and hate-based fears around St. Louis from people who don’t live here or leave their neighborhood on the South Side are now easier for me to dismiss as a learned citizen. But a good story on what truly scares you is always one that perks up my ears and curiosity.
Happy Halloween and safe travels on the Old Chain of Rocks bridge.
