April 2021
I have wanted to see the Gateway Arch in Saint Louis ever since I stood in the Saarinan house at Cranbrook. The arch was designed by Eero Saarinan, son of the great architect Elliel Saarinan, and a rather phenomenal architect in his own right.
The Arch sits along the west bank of the Mississippi River and takes its name from “Gateway to the West” celebrating the westward expansion of the United States in the 19th century.
I could wax poetic about the architecture and the construction of the Arch, something I have been doing all day to anyone that would listen, but there are books and books and movies and movies about those subjects. Here are a few fun facts.
On a clear day you can see up to 30 miles across the Mississippi to the Great Plains. We weren’t so lucky, it was a very rainy day when we visited.
Looking out from the top of the arch
The project required the demolition of 40 blocks of waterfront property which St. Louis city engineer W. C. Bernard called “an enforced slum-clearance program” As a lover of historic architecture I would call the destruction of dozens of warehouses and cast-iron buildings extremely sad if not criminal.
The two legs of the Arch were built separately. If off by as little as 1/64th of an inch they would not join at the top. As someone who spent her adult life in manufacturing building ornamentation, I shudder at having to be that accurate.
In the middle of the movie that one can see at the Arch there is a casual mention of the fact that it was determined prior to project start that thirteen workers would die during its construction. No one did, and yes I am aware that that is the role of an insurance company, but it is a ghoulish discussion nonetheless. The fascinating thing about watching the film is you will notice that despite being 630 feet in the air, no construction worker was tied off and most were not wearing steel-toed shoes.
Looking down upon the old courthouse from the top of the Gateway Arch
The arch is a catenary arch and it is as tall as it is wide.
The elevator was designed by Dick Bowser, an engineering school dropout whose family was in the elevator business. It was not as easy as one would think as the arch curves. Bowser was only given two weeks to come up with a design. His solution was a tram that was part elevator and part ferris wheel.
A model of the tram car
Presidents are not allowed to go up the arch. The only President that did so was Dwight D. Eisenhower after he retired.
