East St Louis

I think so, Instacart, fortified exterior of your home, a glock...

Do you like sleeze? Lots of strip joints there, male and female.

Strippin for a livin

East St. Louis make St. Louis look like Beverly Hills in comparison.

Do I have a story to tell about East St. Louis!

It's pretty long, so I'll spare you the details. Suffice it to say that when I was 18 and stationed at Ft. Leonard Wood ("Fort Lost-in-the-Woods"), I took a bus to St. Louis, got a ride from an old lesbian to a forgettable lesbian bar in E. St. Louis, and ended up at a huge disco called Faces. [Does anyone remember Faces? Is it still there?] When I left there at 4AM, I was shocked at how deserted the streets were (gee, I wonder why?), and then I saw a drag queen running full tilt down the street in very high heels with her purse flying behind her. I was puzzled, but not scared...I should have been!

I walked back to the lesbian bar and got a ride back to my hotel.

Damn, when I think about the shit I did when I was young, it's a wonder I even survived.

OP, in answer to your question, No. East St. Louis is not liveable.

Faces is long gone. In true STL fashion, we called it another cliché — Faces of Death — just like we called the Galleria the gonorrhea. It had a drag cabaret in the second floor, that disco on the ground floor, and a crazy bar in the basement that played gay porn on TVs and had a darkroom in the back. I braved it once when I was a wily STL teenager. All I can remember is the porn, some standing water on the floors near the pool tables, and the glow of cigarette cherries in the darkroom. This was 1992 or so, I believe.

OP = Clark Griswold

Gary Indana would be a better choice. Similar in so many ways but with great dunes and a beach.

Thanks, R7 -- I was there in the late 70s.

How expensive is the rest of STL? Why are you thinking about moving to the worst part just to save a few bucks, OP? It's like moving the shittiest part of Tulsa. Why? I thought the whole of being in a fourth-tier city was that you don't have to live in the slums.

St Louis is one of the cheapest markets in the United States for a metro area of that size.

east at Louis is Ike Turners home town

I suppose if you knew you were about to die anyway.

East St. Louis is in Illinois, right?

Yes r15.

This small home isn't bad, the neighborhood is on the eastern edge of ESL, in the Signal Hill neighborhood which seems....ok. It's closer to Belleville IL, which looks suburban to me (greenery, country club etc). Looks to be a 10-15 min commute into St. Louis.

Yup -- that's why I was in East St. Louis. At the time, the drinking age was 18.

OP, you forgot to preface your question with, "Hubby just got a job offer in East St. Louis. Any informatia on the city? What's the gay life there like?"

[quote]Strippin for a livin

Somethin' wrong with strippin'?

[quote]Homes are cheap there. Parts of it looks okay. If you were to mind your business would it be an okay place to live? You’d be close to other cities for shopping.

You first, racist troll.

East St. Louis ought to be one of those places where they pay you to move there and s ell houses for $1.

Lots of ghetto trade if that's your thing.

I do love the optimism of these people. I'd offer 300K. Maximum.

"I'd offer 300K. Maximum."

And you'd be left with nothing but your own abundant hot air as "painted ladies" in Lafayette Square routinely fetch 600-800K, The closer you actually are to Lafayette Park the higher the cost. This particular property does not face the park.

Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son @R23.

The house at r23 is in St Louis proper and not East St Louis. OP wanted to know about properties in ESL and if they were worth it.

The general consensus appears to be no.

And that's because so many of the posters here are geographically challenged, R25, and don't realize East St. Louis is in the state of Illinois, and St. Louis is in Missouri.

They're the same idiots who think West New York is simply a part of Manhattan and East Chicago must be an island in Lake Michigan, since the names are sound alike.

Faces was a LEGENDARY bar back in the day - everybody went "across the river" to it because the St Louis bars all closed at 2 am or so and Faces stayed open until 6 am. It was HUGE, with a giant dance floor on the first level, a great upstairs cabaret, and of course a downstairs that we don't talk about....it was always popular and hit its peak probably in the late 80s through the mid 90s. Great sound and light systems, fabulous drag shows, and special events like New Years Eve are beyond description. It breaks my heart to think of it now - a bygone era. But it was BIG FUN while it lasted!!!

Maybe MGM will produce a sequel called "Meet Me in East St. Louis"

Or Falcon could produce, "Meat Me And Louis".

It must've had something going for it once, since it inspired this classic:

I’m a Kentucky whore

Trouble always finds you in these communities. Hard pass.

Are you from Richmond, r31?

R27 I miss those huge clubs. You could go and run all around and have a ball. Especially perfect when the weather was shitty outside. Make friends with the bartenders and coke dealers and you've got yourself all kinds of fun. I'm so glad I had my wild days and nights.

- Not Molly Dodd

*

One common story I hear about East Saint Louis (and to a lesser extent Gary Indiana) are these cops that stop you, ask you “WTF are you doing?”, and then either chaperone you out of town or tell you to go through all of the traffic lights.

ESL has not been habitable for decades. It makes sense that OP is a racist troll.

That happened to me on the South Side of Chicago, r36! I was a student at UChicago and we took the el home after a night of dancing on the North Side. The cops yelled at us, but drove us back to Hyde Park.

I lived in the St. Louis area for 10 years. Mom and I got lost driving around ESL. Black people called us White-Os.

I spent a few all nighters drinking at Pops in Sauget.

For a time in the mid-90's, there was a really fun club in a former ESL Holiday Inn "Holidome" called City Center Complex that was a lot of fun.

Not East St. Louis, but Central West End or Central West End Adjacent maybe...

1769sf 2-bedroom historic building for $195,000, on a long tree-lined block of similar small scale apartment buildings of similar period and type. Seems a great value to me. The interior is not exactly rich in period details, but it's pleasant and a good floor plan. It seems there is one tier of condos/co-ops at this price level and then they leap quite significantly.

There's an enormous stock of historic houses of some character, but I'm always surprised that the prices are as high as they are. Bargains, obviously, compared to anything comparable in a desirable East Coast city, but who are all the people who can afford $2M grand houses in St. Louis? A mystery to me - or maybe why those who can don't live in a better city. There's the Central West End and pockets of fantastic housing, but even I (who will travel for architectural value) have to draw a line at St. Louis.

You're better off living somewhere else. Maybe you can find something in your price range in or near a small town? But willingly choosing to buy a house in ESL in 2024 is just not a good idea. Who needs the hassle? It's not like you will be strolling to cafes,, museums and cute shops. You'll have to drive to those to get out of ESL anyway. So no, OP. Keep trying.

If you think ESL is bad for the St. Louis area, wait until you check out Pine Lawn.

Pine Lawn is Park Avenue compared to Wellston, R44.

In East St Louis all seems to breathe freedom and peace and to make one forget the world and its sad turmoils.

^^^to R46, then at 3am, you get robbed, raped, tortured, and eventually murdered by the local junkie Vampires because you rehabbed their favorite junkie house.

Don’t threaten me with a good time.

Someone get r47 a sense of humor transplant, STAT!

So where are you two whores from?

East

And then there was Kinloch.

The idea of a near abandoned town seems really cool to me

Until you go for a walk and the wild dogs eat you up.

I guess there will always be places that can't be gentrified.

[quote]who are all the people who can afford $2M grand houses in St. Louis? A mystery to me - or maybe why those who can don't live in a better city.

Doctors, lawyers, or other professional types who have ties to the local area and make decent money. My late cousin was a cardiologist in the city for many years, he had a really nice place there until he moved out to the west suburbs at the end of his life.

I honestly find that whole area of Illinois interesting. There’s a lot of history there

If you value your possessions and your life, i would advise against the move op.

It's lovely, I had a mother who lived there once.

I say stay the night there in a motel first and if you survive you can think about a more permanent living arrangement

at night