With the passing of urbanist blogger and photographer Steve Patterson, I wanted to share some memories and love for a friend who was a personal hero, mentor and constant source of inspiration.
Steve was from Oklahoma, but moved to St. Louis in the 1990s. He started UrbanReviewSTL in 2004, a blog focused on city living, urban planning, pedestrian/cyclist issues and much more.
He loved St. Louis deeply as his new home. He was also very critical, brave and unapologetic in his focused concern about people, planners and places that were wrong for St. Louis if we ever want to be a civilized city.
Steve was an early advocate for better city planning that serves people over cars. He looked at spaces from a motorist, cyclist and pedestrian perspective. He was keenly sensitive to disabled planning or the lack thereof in St. Louis.
Steve suffered a stroke in 2008 that nearly killed him. He recovered with bravery and gumption, eventually continuing his writing and St. Louis analyses from an electric chair.
Cancer eventually took Steve.
Wow, where to start? I’ve got tears in my eyes because, well, I loved Steve as a writer and urbanist and a casual friend.
I remember reading his work online and thinking he was fascinating. He had a Honda Metropolitan scooter, a cool bike and was writing about things I’d never read about at that time.
Steve influenced me implicitly. I have owned numerous scooters, taken thousands of pictures of STL, explored every street and neighborhood and park…all the while with Steve’s teachings and perspectives in my head as a I dreamed and tried to document my own perspective of this adopted home city. I thought I was so cool tooling around STL with a Nikon around my neck. My love of city exploration and hobbyist urbanism is directly due to Steve. I idolized him online and I am lucky enough to have met him and forged a casual friendship over the years.
I wanted to try and document some memories and conversations with Steve to shed some tears of joy and recall some of his beauty as a person and writer.
I remember reading UrbanReviewSTL religiously in the 2000’s and thinking Steve was such a badass. He was critical and sometimes biting in his articles and analyses.
I was a bit intimidated by him as a person at that time prior to meeting.
His writing always had an undercurrent of empathy in it, though. That’s how I read it anyhow. He could also be very direct and unapologetic in his criticisms.
He was right about the 22nd Street interchange, he was right about Loughborough Commons, he was right about several local scoundrels who are now in jail.
I trusted him like no other “urbanist” I’ve met pursuing this hobby.
He was a brilliant writer and critically thinking urbanist.
He shared his perspective with us and challenged you to think differently. He eventually shared his perspectives from a motorized chair.
I wanted to meet Steve in person as I am highly skeptical of online personas.
Over a decade ago, we hired a realtor to buy what would become our “family home” in St. Louis. The realtor at that time lived in the city and had good sensibilities. I asked if she had heard of Steve, and she said “of course, he’s actually a really sweet guy”.
I will always remember this as it was the impetus to build up the courage to reach out to him. I was kind of scared of him. I looked up to him. I was worried he’d berate my own writing, or call me a wannabe or a peon.
I first met Steve at a planning charrette in Forest Park Southeast. I was friends with Alex Ihnen of NextSTL at the time and had started a blog and was trying to do my own thing in the shadow of these two as my inspirations.
I went up to Steve and introduced myself. We exchanged contact info. Steve and his then partner, now husband invited Shannon and I to their apartment Downtown. The stink test was complete. I am very guarded when it comes to meeting my “heroes”. He was as genuine, kind and intelligently interested in helping others as some led me to believe prior to meeting.
Steve was interesting to me from afar and even more so in person. We are quite different people in many ways, but his influence will be with me for the rest of my time on Earth.
Steve was gay, an atheist, a vegetarian, a cycling/pedestrian advocate, an urbanist, a scooter rider, a photographer. I am none of these, sans a scooter rider, but we clicked like brothers.
At that time, I was involved with neighborhood stuff and in touch with the alderperson(s) to help get stuff done. My kids were entering McKinley Middle School and they would be walking to school. Crossing South Jefferson is a dangerous endeavor.
I asked Steve what I should do to advocate for better crossing safety and how to train my kids to be intelligent/defensive pedestrians.
Steve’s interest was piqued in the sweetest of ways. He jumped in and wanted to help.
We met at my place in Fox Park and traversed Jefferson Avenue from I-44 to Gravois. I just shut up and listened to him dream of what could be and what were realistic changes under our current state of city department dysfunction and remedial abilities/citizen partnership.
Long story short, I was inspired to think not just about my kid’s safety at Jefferson and Russell, but to think of the sidewalks, street trees, lane width, bump outs, you name it. He changed my perspective.
We got the city to install timed crossing signals and new crosswalk paint. It was a small win. My three kids walked to school for a combined total of nine years without major incident.
Years later, after Steve got cancer, we met in September, 2020. I summarized our conversation here.
There was a strong memory from that conversation that I was reluctant to share back in the day; but, it was my fondest memory and gift that Steve gave to me that day. Now that he’s passed, I feel I can share it.
Through the stroke and the intense treatment for cancer, Steve was left with a condition I think he said was pseudobulbar affect. He warned me and said, “I may start crying at any time.”
“The primary sign of pseudobulbar affect (PBA) is frequent, involuntary and uncontrollable outbursts of crying or laughing that are exaggerated or not connected to your emotional state. Laughter often turns to tears. Your mood will appear normal between episodes, which can occur at any time.”
And, yes, this did happen throughout our visit. In hindsight, I found it to be the most humble, genuine and beautiful physiological response to a stroke and cancer. He cried and wept out of nowhere and it was not awkward at all. It was beautiful humanity. It made me respect Steve even more. I rode my bike home with tears of joy and contentment welling up in my eyes.
Later, I got a hold of Steve when I was starting a new project of visiting every Metrolink stop in the city of St. Louis. Steve met me at the Laclede’s Landing stop and we rode the downtown stops as he critiqued the design, condition and logistics from a chair. It was enlightening and fun.
We sat and talked about the Great Rivers Greenway park on the riverfront and what “could be” but likely never will.
We talked about doing a podcast and some videos to help explain the stations and how to improve and maintain them. I never got around to that and now wish I had.
Steve was an encouraging, caring person. He tried to help me/us see things in a different way.
I owe it to him to follow through on the Metrolink posts and the podcast. He wanted to start a YouTube channel to discuss and film these places with me.
I have a ~20 minute recording of our conversation that day. It is so good to hear his voice and perspective. Dude was real and empathetic and smart.
A beautiful person who I’ll miss but never forget.
His contribution to St. Louis activism, measured and direct criticism are a model for anyone wanting to get involved and learn more.
There is a stack of books that he recommended to me on my shelf.
It’s weird how life works now, I got an email from Steve on November 30th at an account I haven’t checked regularly in many years. I know he was struggling with his cancer treatment plan and am just happy he reached out one last time with an update and a final ask.
I kept encouraging him to archive UrbanReviewSTL and keep it hosted for others to discover after he passes. I tried to help, but my skills are limited and we could never get it in a simple format using the tools I know how to use. I offered to pay for it as long as I could.
His final sentence was “I want Jason deem to host my blog.”
Well, I will try to make it so. Jason, I know we are not connected yet, but I believe we have met once over the years. I’ll try to track you down, but if you read this, please reach me:
stlouiscitytalk@gmail.com
We can share stories about Steve and see what we can do.
Love you Steve, thanks for all you taught us.
update: Jason is in contact with Steve’s husband and is on it. I love this community spirit. Thanks Jason.
