(gentle music) - [Jim] It is the season when pumpkins have their time and place.

Turns out they also have their place when their time has passed.

In the old YMCA is a new kind of business called 21c.

It's a hotel, an art museum, a community gathering place.

It's a statement.

- Downtown needs to become one of those neighborhoods that people wanna go hang out again.

- [Jim] They found each other and formed the kind of improv group they'd never seen before - And I was like, "We should make a team."

- We are Some Black People.

(audience cheering) - [Jim] And we look back on the closest thing St. Louis ever got to a royal wedding, the marriage of the widowed secretary to the man who happened to be the vice president of the United States.

It's all next on "Living St.

Louis."

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) - I'm Veronica Mohesky.

This is the time of year when the pumpkin takes center stage.

It can be a food and it can be a decoration during two fall holidays, but as Brooke Butler found out, pumpkins still have some usefulness when we're done with them.

(mischievous music) - Halloween has long passed, and chances are, your pumpkins are past their prime.

Sure, you could stretch the use of these festive gourds into Thanksgiving, but if you're anything like me, you might be more of a canned pumpkin pie maker.

So why not just squish the squash in the dumpster?

Each year over 1.9 billion pounds of pumpkins are disposed of in the landfill.

That's nearly 80% of the total amount of pumpkins grown in the US, and it's an issue as it contributes to pollution and methane gas emissions.

Luckily, there are other options.

One of those options for saving your trash can and porch from a mushy mess are these yellow dumpsters.

These specifically are located in the Tower Grove South neighborhood, but there are many others like it all over the St. Louis area.

They allow anyone to drop off their pumpkins at no cost so they can be properly composted.

- There's a lot of pumpkins that get sold in October and so I collect them in my neighborhood and bring them here to make sure they get recycled, basically.

- [Brooke] Kathy Dolson was dropping off her neighborhood's jack-o'-lanterns, but she also happens to work for one of the organizations offering these free drop off sites: earthday365.

And like many efforts in our city, there are a lot of partnerships involved, including North Newstead Association, Total Organics Recycling, St. Louis Compost, and efforts continue to increase each year.

- When we first did it, we cut it off after a week after Halloween, but then we realized people were keeping their pumpkins, especially the ones that aren't carved, until Thanksgiving.

So now we go right through Thanksgiving and go a week after Thanksgiving we collect 'em for, so.

- [Brooke] Pumpkins must be free of paint, glitter, candles.

- Stickers, take those off too.

(laughs) That's it.

- [Brooke] Of course, transporting rotting pumpkins is messy business and might not be possible for everyone.

And you can save the trip if you have yard waste pickup at your home.

But if you don't and you want to avoid your jack-o'-lantern haunting the landfill, you can give your gourd a second life.

(gentle music) - There's a new business in downtown St. Louis that is trying to be something different.

As Kara Vaningerr found out, to simply call it a hotel would just be scratching the surface.

- [Kara] In a building that was once home to the downtown YMCA, 21c Museum and Hotel operates from a deep belief in building up St. Louis and its residents.

From hosting community conversations to investing in local businesses, it couldn't have chosen a more symbolic place to establish itself as a champion for the city.

- We're the only hotel, I would say in St. Louis, that has a focus on making community and social impact as a part of its core, you know, business strategy using the infrastructure and the talent of a property to make a difference in a community that we're sat in.

- [Kara] Some of the most memorable features of the former Y were incorporated into the total overhaul that resulted in a 173-room hotel, including two-story suites built on the old racketball courts, the Locust Street Athletic Club, which features the original pool built in 1926, and an expansive contemporary art museum that takes up an entire floor of the building, including the old basketball gym with running track.

- The entire idea of the adaptive reuse and being able to keep this building going and in all of its beauty and glory, right?

It'll be a crime and a shame, I would say, if this was demolished, or it was just another empty lot, right?

We got enough of those in St. Louis.

- [Kara] The entire property makes an effort to focus on St. Louis vendors, from hotel furnishings to food and coffee for the restaurant and cafe.

- This project is a statement in a downtown market where you know, there may be hesitation to go in and make an investment of this magnitude.

Looking at it as a long play and hoping it does serve as a catalyst, we get excited when we hear other developments that are happening in the area.

Then we can create density, we can create traffic.

Downtown needs to become one of those neighborhoods that people wanna go hang out again.

- [Kara] But for businesses, like 21c, that are taking a significant risk by investing in a part of the city that still can feel pretty deserted on non-game days, it's important that St. Louisans are also doing their part to create a welcoming, busy vibe in a long-neglected downtown.

- When I was a police officer, the part that I hated the most was that when people would say everything that's wrong about an area, but you're doing nothing to make a change in that community.

- [Kara] Chris Randall, 21c's Director of community impact, is coming from a place of experience.

After serving as a United States Marine and then as a St. Louis police officer, Randall went on to use the leadership skills he had learned to make a positive impact on his community.

From empowering veterans at The Mission Continues to becoming executive director of Gentlemen of Vision, a youth mentorship organization, Chris knows firsthand that for any kind of change to happen, people have to show up.

- We want more business downtown, come and eat downtown.

If you want more safety, let's brings more people, you know?

Where people are is where the money is, and so you have to infuse yourself into the area.

- [Kara] The art museum at 21c makes the property an attraction for locals as well as for the guests at the hotel.

Incredible installations can be found throughout the 10-story building from a massive water-filled sphere in the lobby to bespoke wallpaper that turns a staircase into an enchanted garden and the wood-paneled billiards room that showcases the work of two local artists every six months.

The museum is free and open to the public 24 hours a day making art accessible to all on both a practical and emotional level.

- You know, at 21c we believe that contemporary art has the ability to bring together communities, but then also to present new and different ideas from around the globe or from a completely different culture or perspective that are sometimes a little bit challenging.

- 'Cause like we encourage people to walk around, just kind of go throughout our spaces and follow the art and just kind of go to where your eyes and your heart take you and experience it in your own way.

- That's just the spirit that's in 21c is to make sure that people are inside of our spaces and are feeling welcome.

Not only are you welcome, but you're a part of the mission here.

- [Kara] That mission goes beyond trying to build up downtown.

It strives to connect St. Louisans around important issues.

Once a month, 21c partners with Behavioral Health Response to host The Journey, a free series of mental health discussions that give people a safe place to share and learn helpful ways of navigating various challenges.

- So we're just taking that entire concept of being accessible and really going into partnership with organizations that are making that difference in St. Louis and saying, "Hey, let's be intentional and let's create opportunities that's gonna make St. Louis better."

- Hello, everybody.

I'm Sara Bannoura.

I am the head of research and storytelling for Food City.

- 21c's monthly Coffee Talks are also open to the public and focus on tough problems facing St. Louis.

October, 2024's event featured Food City, a local organization that works to make sure everyone in the region has equitable access to nutritious, affordable food.

- The thing that you're fighting is a long history of unhealthy eating and how it plays out in our culture, you know, from a Black perspective.

- We, as St. Louisans, we're all in one big relationship.

We even, you know, the rest of the world has, like what, that six degrees of separation, but St. Louis, there's like what, two, three?

One of the things that kills relationships, we just allow for all of that angry stuff or all of that miscommunication to kind of lie beneath the surface.

It becomes cancerous.

So the only way to get to that cancerous tissue is by talking.

- They're set up to lose.

- There's no grocery stores.

- Yeah.

No grocery stores.

Like, you know?

- It's easier to open a a liquor store in the city than it is to open a grocery store.

- Exactly.

- That is a fact.

- And so we wanna be a place where people are having healthy dialogue and talking through issues and being able to reach that out into the greater community.

If you haven't realized by now, it's way more than just heads and beds here at 21c St. Louis.

(bright music) - In just about every city, you can find an improvisational theater company and St. Louis is no exception.

But The Improv Shop has given St. Louis something of a bonus.

- And you guys have always been jealous of me, always, since you were born.

You came out crying about it.

(audience laughing) I was in like a learning era.

I was taking a lot of different classes and I also used public transportation.

So I was taking a philosophy class at STL Community College and I was on the bus on the way there and I passed by this building and on the side of the building there's a painted sign that says "classes."

So I just looked it up on my phone and it looked really weird and uncomfortable and I was like, "I need that in my life."

So I signed up.

(gentle music) (audience cheering) I was just trying to find something and I didn't really expect it to be this, but it eventually it became something that I wanted to do.

It just, like every time I would come to class, I was taking classes on Sunday nights, I would just leave and be like, "I can't wait to do that again."

But it wasn't like a big picture thing, it was just like, "I like that, I want to go again."

And then probably around level two or three when I started coming to shows, I was like, "I'm into this.

Like I really want to do this."

- The Improv Shop is a long-form training center and theater.

We've been in existence since 2009 and we produce long-form improv shows every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night as well as running classes where we teach people how to do long-form improvisation.

- There was one other Black woman in my class, Brittany, and I think that was really helpful for me.

I knew that there was someone there that I could 100% percent relate to and I felt safe with, but she stopped signing up for classes and then it was just me and other white people.

- You have to stand- - In Chicago when I was taking classes, this was like 2003, 2004, predominantly white people.

And that's something that we've been keenly aware of here for the longest time and trying to figure out ways to get the thing to be more diverse.

(audience laughing and cheering) The more diverse group of people you have on stage, the more diverse the thoughts and the experiences of those people is going to weave a more engaging and interesting fabric as opposed to a bunch of people from the same suburban neighborhood who have the same high school experience and the same college experience, right?

And that's where you get to get into more interesting and potentially difficult content when you have people from different backgrounds because you have people that can speak from those experience places.

- I can't do it by myself.

- I have to press the button?

- I came to a show one night by myself and one of our other teammates, Charles, was playing.

And I had been coming to shows for a while and been waiting to see like an all-Black team or an all, like, all people of color on one team and hadn't seen it.

But I had seen like five or six or seven people of color.

So I watched Charles perform on a team and I was like, "That's the funniest person I've ever seen probably in my life."

And something that Charles actually recently said about me is I have a lot of audacity and so I went and I found Aaron and I was like, "We should make a team of all Black people.

You, me, Charles and whoever else."

(chuckles) And then it just kind of went from there slowly.

I think it excited everyone that kind of we talked to about it.

So it just took on a life of its own and then it kind of was out of my hands at that point.

And like other Black people in the community were like, "Yes, we have to do that."

And sort of made it happen from there, which was really like validating and exciting.

Thank y'all so much.

We are Some Black People.

- Yeah.

(audience cheering) - Spent my whole adult life doing this (laughs) at this point, I guess because it's been like nine years kind of.

I think like 2015, around the time, is when I started.

I was the only person of color in any of my classes.

Conversations started happening about like diversity or like the lack thereof within our community.

And so I got together with some folks and started working on like the scholarship, you know, we're just trying to get people in the building and we had some like town halls where we would come together and you know, discuss, you know, how we could make this space a safer and more inviting space or kinder space.

And like I've told them at this point I'm just reaping the benefits of, (laughs) because I, like Jessica, I like wanted to be on an all-Black team, but there were just so few of us around that it was not, you know, totally feasible.

And so when I got the message to join up, it was like, "Yeah, of course."

(dramatic music) - Why are you always following me?

- Why are you always walking in front of me?

(audience laughing) - I like to use the analogy of like running in a pool and then getting out of the pool and running, it's like a lot easier.

Not because of anyone in the space particularly, but just because of like the culture in America.

Sometimes as a Black person you edit yourself or you modify yourself in ways when you're in a fully like white community when you're alone.

I feel like there was just certain things that I wasn't bringing to the table, especially in my improv.

Like there are certain cultural things, you know?

So when you're with people that share the same culture as you, it's a lot more freeing to just do whatever.

You can say whatever, you can be your full self.

It just felt so safe.

- It's very easy to be like my whole self the whole time, which I couldn't say before.

It would be supported, but it wouldn't always be understood.

- It's like a lightning rod, right?

Some Black people can go on stage and then they can have more BIPOC people come in to see some Black people do a show and realize, "Oh, this isn't just for white people, this is also for anybody that wants to participate."

So it is that lightning rod, it's that lighthouse that shines a light on the art form for people that maybe shied away because the space, for the longest time, and the art form for the longest time, has been such a white space.

So to be able to start bending that and breaking that to allow for more people to come in, it's a huge deal.

- Finally, 75 years ago, there was a small wedding in St. Louis that was very, very big news.

Jim Kirchherr looks back on the 1949 marriage of a widowed St. Louis secretary to the vice president of the United States.

(stirring music) (typewriter clacking) - [Announcer] All the world loves a lover and that old saying holds true for America, where Vice President Alben Barkley and the former Mrs. Carleton S. Hadley were joined in matrimony in St. Louis.

The groom was the first vice president of the nation ever to be married while in office.

- [Jim] Alben Barkley, age 71, longtime senator from Kentucky, he'd been sworn in earlier in the year as Harry Truman's vice president.

Jane Hadley, age 38.

She called this a "Cinderella" story.

She was a widowed St. Louis secretary with two teenage daughters.

The older daughter Anne had just graduated from University City High School and was about to start college.

She now lives in Charlotte, North Carolina.

- I don't think I was surprised at how much attention it got.

I mean, he was the vice president, but, I guess, surprised that it was all happening to Mother, to our family.

(laughs) - [Jim] Her father, Carlton Hadley, had been general counsel for the Wabash Railroad and died a few years before and was taken out of private school and her mother went to work as a secretary.

So how did a St. Louis secretary meet the vice president of the United States?

Well, it was through her friend Clark Clifford, a former WashU law school classmate of her husband.

The St. Louisan was now Harry Truman's White House counsel.

And when Jane came to visit in Washington, Clifford invited her to a party on the presidential yacht.

Truman wasn't there, but the vice president was.

And when introduced, the man they called the Veep, barely left her side the entire evening.

- I think you could say he was a fast worker.

He saw her every day that she was in Washington visiting and then started flying out to St. Louis and he was smitten and it didn't take long for her to feel the same.

- [Jim] And the press fell in love with the story.

The coverage, the gossip started immediately.

When the vice president starts showing up in public with a much younger woman at his side, it makes the front page.

After all, he was a 71-year-old widowed father and grandfather, and she was 38.

The press dubbed her "the attractive widow."

- People talked about the fact that he was considerably older than she, but it didn't seem to matter.

When you were with them, the way they looked at each other, you could tell that they were thoroughly enjoying each other and he was absolutely charming and so was she.

(laughs) - [Jim] Every time they showed up together, it was news.

Even when they didn't show up together, it was news.

And there was always the big question; was a vice presidential wedding in the works.

If there was, they weren't telling.

Even daughter Anne, who was in California visiting relatives that summer, did not realize how serious things were getting.

- Nobody said a word to my sister and me and I went on back to St. Louis after the visit to California and all of a sudden my mother told me that Air Force Two was coming to pick us up and we all went to Paducah, his home.

And I think I went along as a chaperone.

(chuckles) - In late October, Alben Barkley and Jane Hadley, who had known each other for just a few months, decided to get married.

Jane Hadley was living in an apartment here on Pershing when she decided that they would invite the press over to make their big announcement.

I think she still didn't realize how big this thing really was because they had to push all of the furniture aside to accommodate the crush of reporters and photographers to hear the announcement that everybody was expecting.

Yes, they were engaged and they'd set the date.

November 18th, 1949 here in St. Louis.

Even before the press conference broke up, the news was on national radio.

- She had no idea.

She knew it was already news, but she didn't know it was gonna be that big of a thing.

- [Jim] It wasn't a royal wedding, but pretty close.

This footage, shot by a newsreel cameraman, shows people showing up early outside the Methodist church.

An amateur photographer put himself in the middle of the crush and captured the arrival of the vice president and just a glimpse of the bride-to-be.

And while it was something of a madhouse outside with thousands of people, inside was a small wedding in the chapel.

- I remember that it was just the family and a few very, very close friends.

And I remember looking at them standing up at the altar and thinking, "That's the vice president."

(laughs) And yet he was such a warm, outgoing person.

I wasn't in awe.

It was just very, the whole thing was just like any family wedding would be and you forgot about the people outside.

Then, when the doors opened, that was another story.

(crowd clamoring) Wow.

(laughs) I mean, you couldn't see anything but a sea of people and reporters and newsreel cameras in those days and people coming up and asking questions then.

And it totally different from what had been inside and sort of the beginning taste maybe of what life was gonna be like.

(motor rumbles) (gentle music) - [Jim] Alben Barkley was a kind of politician who loved pressing the flesh and sparring with the press.

That was his life; now it was hers.

- She went from living a rather quiet life in St. Louis, especially after Daddy died, to being the second lady of the land with everybody in Washington gathering 'round to entertain her, to meet her.

And that is the person whose life changed.

It really did.

And of course she was, if I can brag on my own mother, she was a perfectly charming woman who could do all of that.

Made it look like it was easy.

I don't think it always was.

- [Jim] Although Jane said she had no desire to be first lady, her husband ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1952 and lost to Adlai Stevenson.

In 1954, Barkley was elected to his old job, senator from Kentucky, and two years later while giving a speech, he had a heart attack and died with Jane by his side.

She later wrote a book called "I Married the Veep," and it was dedicated to her two daughters whom she said "shared her goldfish bowl, sometimes with dismay, but always with dignity and good humor."

- But I still was able to live a normal college life, but I sure didn't in Washington.

I had a great time, very exciting things going on, and my mother was the bell of the ball, to say the least.

- [Jim] Anne Hadley Behrend, by the way, still feels a strong connection to the city she grew up in.

She is still a St. Louis Cardinals fan and fondly remembers her childhood here, rollerskating, going to the Muny, and Forest Park.

- St. Louis was, it really was, a lovely, lovely place to live.

- [Jim] But one day her mother met a man on a boat, a vice president on a presidential yacht, and everything changed.

Jane Hadley, widowed mother of two, who became the second lady of the United States, died in 1964, just short of her 52nd birthday, bringing to an end one unlikely and pretty amazing life story.

- [Anne] That, it was quite something.

- [Jim] To understand why the country might have been so wrapped up in this love story, consider what was happening.

- [Announcer] President Truman's dramatic announcement that Russia has the atom secret caused state departments all over the world- - And then there was this.

- [Announcer] Vice President Alben Barkley and the former Mrs. Carleton S. Hadley were joined in matrimony in St. Louis.

In a time of turmoil, such happy endings are a delight.

(lofty music) (warm music) - And that's "Living St.

Louis."

Questions, comments, and suggestions are always welcome at NinePBS.org/LSL.

I'm Veronica Mohesky.

Thanks for joining us.

(warm music continues) (warm music continues) (warm music continues) "Living St. Louis" is funded in part by the Betsy & Thomas Patterson Foundation and the members of Nine PBS.