Academy/Sherman Park is a neighborhood in North

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 ...

, just outside

Central West End The Central West End is a neighborhood in St. Louis, Missouri, stretching from Midtown's western edge to Union Boulevard and bordering on Forest Park with its outstanding array of free cultural institutions. It includes the Cathedral Basilica of ...

. The official boundaries of the area are Dr. Martin Luther King Drive on the north,

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 ...

on the south, North Kingshighway Boulevard on the east, and Union Boulevard on the west. As of 2020, there were 2,355 people residing in this neighborhood, which contained 1,276 housing units. The racial makeup of the neighborhood was 4.97% White, 87.26% Black, 1.10% Asian, 1.15% from some other race, and 5.27% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2.29% of the population.

Sally Benson Sally Benson ('' née'' Sara Smith; September 3, 1897 – July 19, 1972) was an American writer of short stories and screenwriter. She is best known for her humorous tales of modern youth collected in '' Junior Miss'' and her semi-autobiographica ...

grew up in the Academy neighborhood. She described her childhood in her novels that inspired the film ''

Meet Me in St. Louis ''Meet Me in St. Louis'' is a 1944 American Christmas film, Christmas musical film made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Divided into a series of seasonal vignettes, starting with Summer 1903, it relates the story of a year in the life of the Smith famil ...

''. The Benson house at 5135 Kensington Avenue no longer exists. After being sold, it fell into disrepair, eventually became uninhabitable, and was demolished in 1994.

Tennessee Williams Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the thr ...

attended

Soldan High School Soldan International Studies High School (also known as Soldan High School) is a public magnet high school in the Academy neighborhood of St. Louis, Missouri that is part of the St. Louis Public Schools. Soldan was known for its wealthy and pre ...

in the neighborhood and used it as a setting for his play ''

The Glass Menagerie ''The Glass Menagerie'' is a memory play by Tennessee Williams that premiered in 1944 and catapulted Williams from obscurity to fame. The play has strong autobiographical elements, featuring characters based on its author, his Histrionic persona ...

''.

References

External links

Academy
neighborhood website Neighborhoods in St. Louis {{StLouis-geo-stub