St. Louis Through the Ages and the Author Who Brings its History to Life

Date

This story has been a longtime coming. I had the pleasure of finally chatting with colleague and friend, NiNi Harris. We met via Locality Studio’s newsletter work for the Carondelet Historical Society. Throughout the years, I’ve gotten to know more and more about St. Louis history and about NiNi herself. I am excited to introduce Locality’s followers to NiNi, a historian and author with a passion for STL.

Our afternoon started with a quick tour of NiNi’s beautiful and unique home on the border of Dutchtown and Carondelet. It’s the house NiNi grew up in, with her uncle & maternal grandmother living in the second floor flat when she was young. I was struck by the murals and paintings filling the first few rooms. NiNi laughed and explained that her father let them paint the walls when she was a child, but her sister had the artistic talent, with most of NiNi’s strokes hidden by the massive city-focused paintings by her sister.

I asked about her cat, as a fellow cat mom, and NiNi said it was a stray that she kept feeding. Then she let it inside. I smiled, “And what’s it’s name?”

“Basket!” NiNi said. “Always loves laying in baskets!”

We headed to Have a Cow on Lafayette, both excited to see the plethora of unique buildings in the area. She showed me her new venture, Cornerstone Journeys where she continues her love of leading local walking tours in St. Louis.

NiNi ordered her favorite lavender lemonade, I got a latte, and we sat on their gorgeous patio.

“In my mind, history and chocolate go together,” NiNi said, as we discussed her childhood and early loves of history. On Sunday mornings, her grandmother would attend 6:00 a.m. mass at St. Cecilia Church, then walk home to start baking in the second floor kitchen. The grandkids sat around the table, eager for a bowl or beater covered with extra batter and icing. While they enjoyed, her grandmother told them stories.

From growing up in Soulard in the 1880s and 1890s, to her father working at Tony Faust’s Oyster Bar, to her own grandfather taking refuge in a river from their homestead’s prairie fire in Kansas, NiNi’s grandmother had plenty of material to entertain the kids. Throughout the stories, her grandmother discussed economic troubles, immigrant-packed neighborhoods in St. Louis, architectural features on their community’s homes, and more. “Family and neighborhood instilled in me a love of storytelling,” NiNi said.

NiNi went to grade school at the diverse Woodward St. Louis Public Grade School, where the mix of children and their stories inspired her as she was required to write weekly compositions. She headed to St. Elizabeth’s for high school, then Saint Louis University for a degree in history. She said, “It’s not surprising, that as I began writing professionally, I chose researching and writing the history of the remarkable people who built and maintained our great City of St. Louis.”

NiNi began writing tidbits for local newspapers and magazines, often focusing on City neighborhoods. She wrote her first major article for the St. Louis Post Dispatch about people moving back to the city in the 1970s. NiNi continued to freelance, observing and learning about what works and doesn’t work in neighborhoods.

NiNi published her first book in 1981 about the history of University City. Dedicated to research, NiNi took three buses to get there. “I had to live and breathe University City in every way.” She eventually moved there for the duration of her writing process.

A multitude of NiNi’s books are available through her website. Here are the one’s currently available:

Black St. Louis (2023): Chronicling Black history since the founding of St. Louis through the to the new millennium.

Oldest St. Louis: Historically documenting St. Louis’s oldest hardware store, oldest public statue, oldest library book (1474) and oldest spice shop.

Downtown St. Louis: Tracing the evolution of our city’s fabulous downtown – from the days of the French fur traders to the renovation of the Arch grounds

This Used To Be St. Louis : Through out the more than 250 years, it’s a layered history of St. Louis, sites, buildings, roads, and how they have been used and reused in new and fascinating ways. For example, the junkyard that is now a plaza, the townhouse that became an orthodox church and again is a home, the car factory that became condos, etc. This book chronicles the incarnation and transformation of St. Louis’s factories, warehouses, churches, and homes through the decades.

A Most Unsettled State: First person accounts of St. Louis during the Civil War – from the volunteer nurse, the Secessionists sympathizers, to German volunteers for the Union.

St. Louis Parks: By NiNi Harris & Esley Hamilton

Holly Hills: A history of the Holly Hills neighborhood, Carondelet Park, Bellerive Boulevard

Historic Photos of the Gateway Arch

Unyielding Spirit (2007): A history of the Polish People of St. Louis.

Bohemian Hill: (2004): A history of the Czech people of St. Louis.

NiNi’s newest book is coming out this fall, St. Louis Hills: A Walk through History.

As we neared the end of our nice afternoon, I asked NiNi what her favorite neighborhood in St. Louis was, which I knew was not going to be easy for her to answer.

“Whatever neighborhood I’m in, walking and studying, in the City of St. Louis. They’re all so different, enchanting, and beautiful,” NiNi replied. She told me about her husband, Roman, a fellow urban planner like me, born to immigrant parents in a Polish neighborhood of Cleveland. “He taught me how to look at neighborhoods and how they evolve.”

And NiNi’s favorite local spots (in addition to Have a Cow, of course!):

LeGrand’s, Marx Hardware, and Ted Drewes on South Grand.

PLEASE check out NiNi’s work at her website, and contact her there or through me with any questions or needs!

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