Lindenwood Park Neighborhood Overview

Location

The Lindenwood Park neighborhood encompasses a large portion of southwest St. Louis. It is bounded by Arsenal Street to the North, Hampton Avenue to the East, Chippewa Street to the South and Southeast, the City limits to the Southwest, and Interstate Highway 44 (I-44) to the West and Northwest.

History

Most of the Lindenwood Park neighborhood predates the 1947 creation of its 14.08-acre namesake, Lindenwood Park. The entire area was part of vast Spanish colonial land grants in 1798 that were subsequently subdivided into various large tracts by 1850. It remained largely undeveloped or agricultural, however, until urbanization began in the 1880s along and north of Fyler Avenue east of the River Des Peres. After World War I, more widespread and rapid development took place. The Great Depression and World War II slowed the process, but nevertheless it had been largely completed by the 1950s. The most recent major residential development was the 1963 subdivision of Lindenwood Heights.

Lindenwood Park evolved into a predominantly single-family home residential community with more than two-thirds of its housing stock comprising such structures. Duplexes, four-family flats, and larger apartment structures are scattered throughout much of the area with noteworthy concentrations situated along Watson, Jamieson, and Lindenwood Court.

By and large, the local housing stock was well-built and has been well-maintained ever since. Blocks tend to be frame (usually earlier) or brick (usually later), but some are mixed. Housing size, designs, landscaping, parcel dimensions, and so on. vary widely from street to street or along the same block. The end result is a broad spectrum of urban middle-class housing types from nineteenth century "urban farmhouses" to 1920s' bungalows to 1950s' prestige show homes to art-deco apartment buildings. Maintaining and improving this housing stock, the community's greatest assets, is the core neighborhood concern. Relatively low crime and residential turnover rates help achieve these goals.

Three primary commercial or mixed commercial-residential corridors coalesced to serve local residents as well as nonresidents. They are along Hampton, Chippewa, and Watson. The Chippewa strip is almost exclusively commercial from Hampton west to Jamieson and around the River Des Peres, but significant amounts of housing and housing converted to commercial purposes dot the Hampton and, in particular, Watson corridors. There are also noteworthy commercial nodes along Arsenal, Lansdowne, and Ivanhoe. Industrial development is minimal, comprising a handful of scattered locations.

The Lindenwood Park neighborhood has been overwhelmingly white and middle-class throughout its history. As recently as 1990, its population of 10,905 was more than 99 percent white. During the 1990s, however, larger numbers of black and other nonwhite households have joined the community. There has also been a small but noteworthy influx of southeast European immigrants, as signified by the recent presence of the "Bosnian Inn" restaurant on Chippewa just west of Hampton.