- [Jim Kirchherr] Holy rollers, Batman, take a look at what they've done to bring new life, not only to an old church, but to an entire neighborhood.

- So we approach them and asked them if they would give us the building.

And they said, please, please take it.

So we took it.

(train whistle) - [Jim Kirchherr] We stop in at the transportation museum to talk well, trains and street streetcars, sure.

But also the treasures stashed away in the archives.

This little garment is as St. Louis as gooey butter cake.

The story of the women's exchanges, cherry dress filled with tradition still hand made.

- I probably spend 30 to 40 hours a week and I usually make eight to 12 dresses a week.

- [Jim Kirchherr] And another very different locally crafted product.

Distilling spirits is not for those in a hurry.

It's all next on Living St. Louis (upbeat music) I'm Jim Kirchherr.

And we're going to start off by going to one of the most unusual places in St. Louis.

It's not new, but it's only recently gone public Kara Vaninger has the story about an old building that brings to mind the old saying, don't judge a book by its cover.

(organ music) - [Kara] In north city on the corner of Hogan and Market streets.

The imposing form of St. Liborius had sat empty and silent for decades until a group of St. Louisans turned it into a new kind of sanctuary, a skate park and youth center called Skate Liborius.

- Everyone needs a third space.

So you got work or school and home, and then you need a third space that's safe and productive.

And if a safe, productive one is available, people will utilize it.

But if not, then they find any other third space and find, you know bars or drugs or gang.

Whatever.

You know people need a community and environment.

- [Kara] Co-founder Dave Blum had originally showed up at St. Liborius to help with the urban farm outside.

Although the church itself has had empty for over 20 years.

Other parts of the complex were being used as a shelter called the Karen House.

- They were an amazing shelter for women and children, but managing this type of thing is not at all in their wheelhouse.

- [Kara] Dave soon realized that his extensive skill in working with old buildings and especially Heights was of more use inside the sanctuary itself.

- At the time I was a welder at the city museum, building big, weird, crazy stuff for Bob Pastly.

They were like, well, do you know anything about working on old buildings?

I was like, yeah, I know a lot about that, actually like, well, nobody wants to climb up in the tower and help us shovel out all the pigeon droppings.

I was like, where are your shovels at?

- [Kara] But the work to be done to make the building safe and habitable again, went far beyond getting rid of pigeon droppings.

- [Dave] It needed massive repairs that it never got.

If you don't get it done in a reasonable period of time, it stops being repaired.

And you have to like tear it all out and rebuild it.

So we approach them and ask them if they would give us the building.

And I said, please, please take it.

And so we took it and started working on it.

- [Kara] Bryan Bedwell, who's nonprofit K H V T was responsible for the construction of St. Louis is only free public skate park, heard about his friend Dave's efforts to save the church and made him an intriguing offer.

- He knew that I had a huge volunteer forces that help me do all the things that we were doing in the state and in the city.

And I was like, basically told them, I was like, you gonna to skate here, we'll take care of a lot of things for you.

At first it was like, oh, we'll let you put a couple of ramps in here if you clean up some bird poop.

- [Kara] But what started as a few ramps soon became a skater's wonderland.

- [Joss] I know what time to be here for the sunset.

I know what time to be here for the sunrise for like that perfect sunlight session.

And I love it.

- [Kara] When co-founder Joss Hey, moved to St. Louis from Scotland.

He discovered Skate Liborius on social media and upon arrival was smitten.

- [Joss] I reached out to Brian, one of the corners and I got in touch with him and I said, I see you need volunteers to help.

He said, okay, brought me inside.

And he took me to the biggest pile of pigeon poop you've ever seen in your life.

And he said, okay, we need this moved.

I was like, no problem.

You got a mask.

And that was that.

I was hooked and I never left.

I just wanted to be a big part of the place.

- [Kara] Devoted parishioners who dropped third ties in the collection box over 130 years ago, never could have imagined that the church they were helping to build with its soaring ceilings and awe inspiring stonework would one day be used to serve the community in a completely different way.

- [Dave] Visually it's just like a beautiful juxtaposition of awe like things.

But more than that, like skateboarding is like a very under estimated like powerful, like positive community force for young kids.

- It doesn't matter what color you are, what creed you are, You know what religion you are.

If you can't do a kick flip, you can't do a kick flip.

You can do a kick flip.

You can do a kick flip.

- [Dave] I consider it a community sport, but it's an individual pursuit.

You have to be down to fail and try again and again and again.

To achieve your goal.

- [Bryan] And so it turns out to be a really good stepping stone for life a lot of times.

For me, it wasn't anyway.

- [Kara] And the young people who flocked to Liborius aren't just there to skate.

They also have a say in the construction of the park.

- [Bryan] It's like whoever shows up is who decides what gets built, which is pretty awesome because it gives a lot of people ownership over it.

- [Kara] The DIY nature of skateboarding also applies to the work of preserving the church itself, which not only builds character, but skills for the future.

- [Dave] They understand they love the skate park, but there's no skate park without the building.

Cause see like a lot of young kids like take real ownership of what we got here.

And it's really beautiful to see, like we have these big volunteer days, dozens and dozens of people show up and pour buckets, getting mortar to up to work on the tower or doing woodworking or working on the roof and stuff.

And so through that, we've been able to train a ton of kids, like a ton of kids are now like pretty decent tuck mortars and like decent bricklayers.

- [Kara] The cavernous space is not only perfectly suited to the sport of skateboarding, but more importantly to the longterm goal of transforming the whole structure into the Liborius Urban Art Center with part of the sanctuary being developed into a gallery for local and visiting artists.

- [Nerds] Love it here at Skate Liborius great community project.

I mean great place to enhance your creativity, skateboarding, the art murals, hopefully gallery show soon.

We'll see.

- [Kara] The enormous basement will be converted into workshops that are determined by the community's interests or needs.

- [Bryan] I feel like it's an opportunity and an eye-opener for a lot of people to figure out something they enjoy to do and you know, possibly make it profitable.

Just learn a couple of things, stepping stones to get somewhere.

- [Joss] We're here for the people that maybe don't have that hobby yet that they or they do have but they can't nurture - [Dave] It's not like in our city, there's a lack of aptitude or ability.

It's the lack of opportunity.

The way we look at it is like underserved urban youth.

That's that's the congregation here now.

And like that's who, that's who needs these types of places.

- [Kara] But the art center won't be replacing the skate park.

They'll work in tandem as an outreach to those who want to discover a new skill or hobby.

- [Dave] All the people that run other art centers and community centers, they all kind of tell us the same stuff.

They all say that it's really hard to get kids to come in their door and be engaged by their programming.

We don't have that problem.

Like they'd beat the door down to come here.

- [Joss] Within this time period that north city is in with the NGA about to arrive.

I think that we're not the only ones who are looking at this area for a way to plant a seed and to watch it grow.

We are here to, to be a part of something bigger.

(upbeat music) - And now another story about something that's been around St. Louis for a long time, it's not about a building and it's certainly not about adaptive reuse.

No.

Brooke Butler's story is about something that hasn't changed for generations and that's just the way people want it.

(classic music) - [Brooke] In a culture of ever-changing fashion trends that seem to be gravitating more toward leisure and away from dressing in our Sunday best there's comfort in holding on to timeless classics.

So maybe that's why this dress has been consistently popular Created in the 1950s, The cherry dress has been a staple wardrobe choice for special occasions, particularly for the St Louis community, but also around the world.

The cherry dress is a simple cotton box pleaded frock with Peter pan piped color and cherry embellishes down the front.

In other words, it's adorable, but it's the history behind the dress and the mission it supports that really holds it together at the seams.

- [Julie] I think that the handcrafted traditional nature of the garment with its history has something that resonates with everyone today.

- [Brooke] Julie Peters is the executive director for the Woman's Exchange of St. Louis, where the cherry dress has been exclusively sold for over 60 years.

(classic music) - [Julie] So the Women's Exchange was founded in 1883 by women who realized that other women were falling on hard financial times.

And in 1883, it was not appropriate for women to have work outside of the home.

- [Brooke] The Woman's Exchange gave women the opportunity to make handmade items from their home like dresses and baked goods, and the exchange would sell the items in their gift shop.

And while soon after opening, they extended opportunities for artisans of all socioeconomic statuses.

The Woman's Exchange was originally founded to assist more well-to-do ladies of St. Louis who had fallen on hard financial times.

- [Julie] So the exchange was set up on a premise of secrecy and anonymity to allow women to sell their handmade garments, but not be known to the rest of the community because of the shame and the stigma associated with that financial hardship at the time.

- [Brooke] It's for this reason that the identity of the very first creator of the cherry dress has not been disclosed to the public.

There is record of the dress first being sold in 1954.

And there is good evidence as to why the demand for the pricey garment skyrocketed in 1963.

- [Julie] So the cherry dress was prominently featured on the cover of Palm beach magazine.

When Jackie Kennedy Onassis was leaving church with John F. Kennedy Jr. And that at that time, the dress and the cherry suit kind of shot to a more national audience.

(plucky music) - [Brooke] It was a lot of work for the seamstress at the time who was making over 400 garments a year, but she kept it up until the mid 1980s.

And although she chose to keep her identity from the public, the seamstress who took over after her was proud about associating her name with the famous frock.

Ellie Dressel of Hazelwood was the only seamstress of the cherry dress.

For 30 years, Ellie, a divorced mother was able to support her family by making the dress, just like the many women working with the exchange before and after her.

(sewing machine noises) - I'm Cathy O'Neil and I make the cherry dresses for the women's exchange.

- [Brooke] Cathy O'Neil began sewing for the woman's exchange when her children were young to supplement her family's income.

She took a step back until 2016.

After all three children went away to college and she returned in a much larger capacity.

- [Cathy] It happened that at that time, Ellie, she needed a little bit of help keeping her orders up.

So they asked if I'd be willing to try it.

So I did sadly that summer Ellie passed away unexpectedly.

So I took over what she had been doing for over 30 years.

So I feel like I've walked into big shoes.

- [Brooke] Big shoes to fill and big orders to fill as the cherry dress remains just as in demand as 60 years ago.

- [Cathy] I would say I probably spend 30 to 40 hours a week and I usually make eight to 12 dresses a week.

It picks up at certain times of the year, it's with the holidays approaching and people wanting to do family photos and Christmas cards and events.

But honestly the demand almost goes year round for them.

And I think the pandemic actually helped because it forced the shop to make more of an online presence.

So now we're shipping not only cherry dresses, but other consigned items around the country.

- [Brooke] As the cherry dress has made its appearance around the country, on children of social icons and community members alike.

The exchange inevitably ran into some copycat artisans trying to pass knockoff, cherry outfits as the real deal.

That's what led them to receive a federal trademark for the garment in 2016, this was necessary not only to maintain the St Louis authenticity, but also to ensure that the proceeds can go towards supporting the artisans like the women participating in the immigrant training program, who spend an hour making each individual cherry embellishment.

- [Julie] We give up to a 70% of our retail sales to our artisans, and we're able to give them that money when they give us the garment.

I think that the idea of it being a very classic, easy garment to pick for your little one makes it an easy choice.

But I also think that there's a lot of people who just enjoy supporting the mission.

- [Brooke] The style and price might not be for everyone, but there are many layers as to what does make this garment so desirable.

It might be supporting the mission of the woman's exchange.

It might be the handcrafted high quality fabric or for some, it might just be about continuing a long lived St. Louis tradition.

- [Cathy] A lot of people that buy them, are buying them for grandchildren, but they had them on their children, or maybe they even wore them as children.

I think there's something very classic about dressing, little girls like little girls.

So I do think there's always going to be a market for them.

- For our next story, We're going to stay on the theme of St. Louis history, but this one's going to put us on a slightly different track.

(train whistle) What better place to talk about trains and streetcars than the National Museum of Transportation in St. Louis county?

And that's where we met up with former museum director, Molly Butterworth, who is the author of Trains and Trolleys Railroads and Street Cars in St. Louis.

This follows her previous book on the history of St. Louis's automobile industry.

After that came out, the publishers said.

- [Molly] Okay, there's another great story on wheels.

We need to explore in St. Louis that would be railroading and streetcar wheels.

So how about that?

- And you knew where to find that.

- I knew exactly where the treasure trove, both two dimensional and three dimensional that history was.

- The museum started out in the 1940s as really just a collection of stuff that train buffs were saving from the scrap heap, but the location itself, which was originally leased from the union Pacific railroad contained an important piece of railroad history that wasn't going anywhere.

- Actually another, almost identical, but slightly longer tunnel.

Just east of us here at the museum of transportation.

These are national engineering landmarks.

They are the first two man-made railroad tunnels built west of the Mississippi river, the engineer for these tunnels James P. Kirkwood.

- [Jim] So the idea then for St. Louis was to build a railroad heading west.

- [Molly] Exactly departing from downtown St. Louis, heading west with the eventual goal of reaching the Pacific ocean.

- In the history of railroading coming out of St. Louis and Missouri and the west.

This is important.

- It really is important.

This tunnel and it's, you know, twin just a little bit east of us really are a Testament to the fact St. Louis was the leader here in the Midwest when it came to railroading, they were doing things nobody else had yet done like build tunnels - [Jim] At least on this side of the river.

- [Molly] Exactly.

- [Jim] But you've probably heard this version of the story that St. Louis business interests were so tied to the river and river boats that they resisted building a railroad bridge here.

And the rest is well Chicago history, but Molly Butterworth presents a slightly different version in her book.

The local business that was going to be really hurt by the railroad bridge was the very busy and very profitable Wiggins ferry operations that moved people and goods and even train cars themselves from one side of the river to the other.

- [Molly] Please forgive me any descendants of the Wiggins family.

I point my finger directly at the Wiggins ferry company, thanks to their political and economical pull here in St. Louis, they were able to delay just discussions about having a railroad bridge built over the Mississippi river, going from Illinois into downtown St. Louis that of course led to delays in the construction of such bridge.

Those exact delays led to Chicago jumping ahead of us and becoming the real Midwestern railroad hub because we waited too long to cross the river.

We were visiting here on a day the museum was closed, but they were training drivers who would give visitors street car rides.

(street car whistle) Other people were working here as well.

And we headed to an important part of this place that most folks don't see, the archives.

Filled with all kinds of stuff.

They're here for a very different kind of visitor.

- Both primary sources, as well as great secondary sources that are period accurate.

So it really is a gift for researchers, including history researchers like me.

- [Jim] You want to know the price of a locomotive in 1852?

Archivist Teresa Mila Tello can find that for you.

- In 1852, the Totten locomotive company manufactured a locomotive called the Pacific number three for $7,600.

- [Jim] And then there was the time some folks in Colorado who were restoring an old street car that was built in St. Louis wanted to paint it the right colors.

They asked if maybe she could help.

And boy, could she in all the stacks of stuff here, she found something called a pank book for that very street car.

- You could have knocked me over with a feather that I found their order.

This is the actual all of how the decoration would look the detailed information about placement.

- But it's not just history of machines, but social history as well.

A look back to a time of industrialization, robber barons, and bitter labor management strife.

Like an 1886 railroad strike.

- And the railroad received a series of threatening letters and postcards.

You will play with firearms.

Oh, you rat, you got it.

Did you wait and see, you know, you can start doing a little bit more background research and bring more of that human element into it and make it more relatable to, you know, what's happening to people today.

(clanging metal) - (Jim) This stuff has been found, donated often saved from the trash by rail enthusiasts and volunteers for decades.

In the 1950s, our children's show host came here and met the people in charge Doc and Mary Roberts.

They were living in a train car and showed off the very first piece of the collection, the little street car that started it all.

I had to come see this, because this is sort of the, the, the charter member of the, of the, of the museum.

- You are exactly right.

This is the bell fountain mule drawn streetcar.

- [Jim] Mule drawn?

- [Molly] Mule drawn, not electric, mule drawn that ran from the early 1870s until about 1895 from downtown St. Louis up to Bell Fountain but during the World War II scrap drives, it was looked at in terms of being donated for scrap.

Fortunately, the south St. Louis railway enthusiasts knew of it and of its possible demise.

So they acquired it and did so before the museum of transportation was even founded.

So it was stored in one of the members basement garages.

- It was a big undertaking for Molly Butterworth to tell such a wide ranging story, not just a story about the equipment, but the business, the economy, the neighborhoods, the people, all of it tied together by an intricate web of rails.

(train horn) (upbeat music) Finally, you know, how much we like doing stories about St. Louis and St. Louisans and we're not alone.

Our friends at stl.org are doing stories about interesting creative, innovative people as part of their spotlight series.

And they're sharing some of those stories with us.

They're not just about what people do, but about how, and especially why they do it.

(soft music) - [David Weglarz] It's very easy to be distracted by the minutiae, the, the noise of day-to-day stuff.

And then that's one of the things I love about coming here in the morning is I can ignore all that stuff because the rest of the business world isn't really up and grinding yet.

It's just me making mousse.

It's awesome.

I love it.

I always wanted to be my own boss and make something.

I had no idea what that was all those years until I kind of found craft distilling.

I want to do that.

I continually pinch myself because starting from a little pot still off in Turkey burner, propane tank in my garage, moving into a road, beautiful, old the gourmet Hardy's building with some handmade pot stills and just a bunch of stubbornness.

I've made some, some really good spirits.

I always chalk up a lot of our success to the righteousness, following your dreams.

I'm doing something that I love and I've put in so much more time, passion and energy into it than I would if I was just working in an office, collecting my paycheck and working for the weekend.

And so being able to put my passion and energy into something, I feel like that's the secret ingredient, focus on the art and the rewards come.

The spirits are something.

This is one of the things I love most about spirits is not just enjoying them and drinking them.

It's how they permeate our life.

And they're part of our culture and your own life story.

At the best times in your life, at the worst times in your life, you know, you just got fired from your job.

Your best friend comes over.

Let's go grab a drink and talk about it.

You just got engaged to the woman of your dreams.

Let's have a glass and celebrate, right.

I got this great whiskey, all these things.

There's a quality spirit, right behind them.

(blues music) All spirits are a spectrum of different flavors, right?

I like to think of the barrels as little time capsules of who I was then and who I am now and appreciate the churning of the years and the relentless nature of time.

The best things in life aren't hurried.

They come when they're ready and they take their own sweet time.

My kids growing up spirits develop their own personalities on their own time, you know, and I'm here to steward them along as best I can.

And I firmly believe that the best is still ahead of us.

- And that's living St. Louis.

Thanks for joining us.

I'm Jim Kirchherr and we'll see you next time.

- Living St. Louis is made possible by the support of the Betsy and Thomas Patterson foundation, the Mary Ranken Jordan and Ettie A. Jordan charitable trust, and by the members of 9 PBS.

(upbeat music)