Newsletter 115: The Gateway Arch and the City of St. Louis

I’ve decided to start putting some of the best newsletter essays here on Medium, so more people can read them. You’re still better off just subscribing. This one’s from July 2018, about visiting the Gateway Arch. Go Blues!

I am still not entirely convinced the Gateway Arch isn’t the tallest building in the world. I’m not sure there was a building in Mattoon taller than 100 feet — actually, there wasn’t — so the Arch, 630 feet into the sky, was just about as close to the stars as anything a little boy could imagine. That was how you always knew you were getting nearer to St. Louis and the baseball game coming in on I-70 West, when you could see the Arch appear in the distance, usually around Collinsville. My sister and I used to compete from the backseat to see who could spot it earlier. I couldn’t imagine anything higher in the sky.

It is truly amazing that the Gateway Arch exists. A massive public works project from the National Parks system that cost nearly $80 million in today’s money, it was built as a “suitable and permanent public memorial to the men who made possible the western territorial expansion of the United States.” The whole project took…