The Delmar Loop, often referred to by St. Louis residents simply as The Loop, is an entertainment, cultural and restaurant district in

University City, Missouri University City (colloquially, U. City) is an inner-ring suburb of the city of St. Louis in St. Louis County, in the U.S. state of Missouri. The population was measured at 35,065 by the 2020 census. The city is one of the older suburbs in the ...

and the adjoining western edge of

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

near

Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...

and Forest Park. Many of its attractions are located in the streetcar suburb of University City, but the area is expanding eastward into the Skinker DeBaliviere neighborhood of the City of St. Louis. In 2007, the American Planning Association named the Delmar Loop "One of the 10 Great Streets in America."

Origin and overview

The area gets its name from a

streetcar A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport a ...

turnaround, or " loop", formerly located in the area.

Delmar Boulevard Delmar Boulevard is a major east-west street in St. Louis, Missouri. Route description Delmar Boulevard starts at North 14th Street in Downtown St. Louis, as a westward extension of Convention Plaza. It passes through the neighborhoods of Dow ...

was originally known as Morgan Street. According to Norbury L. Wayman in his ''circa'' 1980 series ''History of St. Louis Neighborhoods'', the name Delmar was coined when two early landowners living on opposite sides of the road, one from Delaware and one from Maryland, combined the names of their home states. The town of

Delmar, Delaware Delmar is a town in Sussex County, Delaware, United States, on the Maryland border along the Transpeninsular Line. Its motto is "The Little Town Too Big for One State." The population was 1,597 at the 2010 census, an increase of 13.5% over t ...

, on the border between the two states, derived its name in similar fashion. The Delmar Loop station, a stop on the MetroLink Red Line, is located at the eastern end of the area. The western demarcation of the Loop is generally considered to be the U. City Lions, sculptures of a male lion and a female lion on pedestals flanking Delmar immediately west of the University City City Hall. West of the lions, Delmar becomes largely residential. The eastern boundary of the Loop traditionally was the St. Louis City border, punctuated by The Delmar Lounge at the corner of Delmar and Eastgate, but the area began expanding into the city proper around 2000. This expansion has largely been due to the redevelopment efforts of Joe and Linda Edwards, owners of Blueberry Hill, The Pageant, and Pin-Up Bowl, and the Tivoli Theater, the Moonrise Hotel, and Eclipse Restaurant. The St. Louis Regional Arts Commission completed its new headquarters on Delmar in 2003, creating performance and office spaces for theater groups. The Pageant, located across Delmar from the Arts Commission, has become one of St. Louis's main venues for mid-size popular musical performances, featuring rap, rock, and country artists, including St. Louisans

Chuck Berry Charles Edward Anderson Berry (October 18, 1926 – March 18, 2017) was an American singer, songwriter and guitarist who pioneered rock and roll. Nicknamed the " Father of Rock and Roll", he refined and developed rhythm and blues into th ...

and Nelly. The Loop attracts an eclectic clientele and wide variety of street life, due in part to its proximity to

Washington University Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...

and dating back to the late 1960s when Streetside Records and

head shops A head shop is a retail outlet specializing in paraphernalia used for consumption of cannabis and tobacco and items related to cannabis culture and related countercultures. They emerged from the hippie counterculture in the late 1960s, and ...

dominated the retail landscape.

Attractions and institutions

Major Loop institutions include: *

The Pageant The Pageant (also called The Pageant Concert Nightclub) is a popular American nightclub in St. Louis, Missouri. Built as a dedicated nightclub, The Pageant first opened its doors on October 19, 2000. It was named for a "long-gone Pageant movie ...

music venue *''

Riverfront Times The ''Riverfront Times'' (''RFT'') is a free progressive weekly newspaper in St. Louis, in the U.S. state of Missouri, that consists of local politics, music, arts, and dining news in the print edition, and daily updates to blogs and photo gall ...

'' newspaper * Tivoli Theater *

University City City Hall The City Hall of University City, Missouri, the seat of municipal government for University City, Missouri, was built in 1903 as the Woman's Magazine Building, the headquarters of a magazine publishing company, and became a city hall in 1930. The ...

* University City Public Library * Blueberry Hill pub and restaurant *

Fitz's Fitz's Bottling Company is a regional soda brand in the St. Louis area. The flagship brand is its root beer popularized by its microbrewery and restaurant in University City, Missouri, on the historic Delmar Loop. History Fitz's was originally ...

Restaurant and Bottling Company Some companies, such as

Answers.com Answers.com, formerly known as WikiAnswers, is an Internet-based knowledge exchange. The Answers.com domain name was purchased by entrepreneurs Bill Gross and Henrik Jones at idealab in 1996. The domain name was acquired by NetShepard and sub ...

and Integrity have their headquarters in the Delmar Loop. Other establishments on the Loop include the 560 Music Center (owned by

), COCA Center for Creative Arts, Craft Alliance Center of Art + Design, Moonrise Hotel, Subterranean Books, and Vintage Vinyl record store. The Loop is also home to many local restaurants including Al-Tarboush deli, Peacock Loop Diner, Blueprint Coffee, Cicero's Italian Restaurant (closed in 2017), Corner 17 Chinese Restaurant, Gokul Indian Restaurant, Gyro House, Meshuggah Cafe, Mission Taco, Three Kings Public House, Seoul Taco Korean Tacos, Piccione Pastry, Ranoush Mediterranean Cuisine, Snarf's Sandwiches, T-N-T Wieners, and four Thai restaurants owned by Pat's Thai Restaurants.

St. Louis Walk of Fame

The Loop is the home of the

St. Louis Walk of Fame The St. Louis Walk of Fame honors notable people from St. Louis, Missouri, who made contributions to the culture of the United States. All inductees were either born in the Greater St. Louis area or spent their formative or creative years ther ...

, a series of brass plaques embedded in the sidewalk along Delmar Boulevard commemorating famous St. Louisans, including musicians

Miles Davis Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of musi ...

and

Tina Turner Tina Turner (born Anna Mae Bullock; November 26, 1939) is an American-born Swiss retired singer and actress. Widely referred to as the " Queen of Rock 'n' Roll", she rose to prominence as the lead singer of the Ike & Tina Turner Revue before ...

, actor

John Goodman John Stephen Goodman (born June 20, 1952) is an American actor. He gained national fame for his role as the family patriarch Dan Conner in the American Broadcasting Company, ABC comedy series ''Roseanne'' (1988–1997; 2018), for which he rec ...

, bridge-builder James Eads and sexologists

Masters and Johnson The Masters and Johnson research team, composed of William H. Masters and Virginia E. Johnson, pioneered research into the nature of human sexual response and the diagnosis and treatment of sexual disorders and dysfunctions from 1957 until the 1 ...

Trolley

The

Loop Trolley The Loop Trolley is a , 10-station heritage streetcar line in and near the Delmar Loop area of greater St. Louis, Missouri. It opened for service in 2018, then shut down in 2019 after revenue fell far short of projections. Service resumed in 202 ...

is a 2.2-mile fixed-track heritage trolley line in the Loop, that links the area with MetroLink and Forest Park attractions, a project that received a $24.9 million grant from the Federal Transit Administration. The trolley officially began service on November 16, 2018, in the city of St. Louis and one week later on its University City section in the Loop. The trolley was shut down in December 2019 amid financial problems, but reopened in August 2022.

History

During the 1950s, the Loop was the meeting place for U. City's teenagers. The Varsity Theater and the Tivoli showed first-run movies. Ed's

Billiards Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as . There are three major subdivisions ...

which was located between the two theaters was always full of teenagers. There were restaurants up and down the Loop area. Enright Avenue, which was part of the streetcar turnaround, had a drug store and three restaurants plus a record store. There was another drug store on the corner of Delmar and Kingsland. Both drugstores had

soda fountain A soda fountain is a device that dispenses carbonated soft drinks, called fountain drinks. They can be found in restaurants, concession stands and other locations such as convenience stores. The device combines flavored syrup or syrup concentra ...

s. Delmar at Skinker wasn't considered part of the Loop but had a Garaveli's Restaurant and a well known nightclub Davy "Nose" Bold's across from it. The video for the song " Air Force Ones", by rapper Nelly was filmed in the Delmar Loop. Nelly's hit " Country Grammar (Hot Shit)", references the Loop extensively. File:Pin-Up Bowl, Delmar Loop, Missouri.jpg, Pin-Up Bowl is a

bowling alley A bowling alley (also known as a bowling center, bowling lounge, bowling arena, or historically bowling club) is a facility where the sport of bowling is played. It can be a dedicated facility or part of another, such as a clubhouse or dwelling ...

located in the east section of the Loop. File:Moonrise-hotel-joe-edwards.jpg, The Moonrise Hotel File:The-pageant-joe-edwards.jpg, The Pageant Music Venue File:2007-03-12 1600x2400 ucity city hall.jpg,

File:Subterranean delmar.jpg, Subterranean Books File:Delmar Loop - Parkview Gardens Historic District.jpg, Northeast block of Delmar and Kingsland File:Loop Trolley's westbound City Limit stop, Dec. 2018.jpg, The Lofts of

References

External links

Delmar Loop home page

A blog/critique of certain aspects of the Loop, with photos

Loop Trolley home page
{{STL Streets Culture of Greater St. Louis Culture of St. Louis Economy of St. Louis Entertainment districts in the United States Neighborhoods in St. Louis Restaurant districts and streets in the United States Streets in St. Louis Transportation in St. Louis County, Missouri Shopping districts and streets in the United States Tourist attractions in St. Louis Tourist attractions in St. Louis County, Missouri