Another location, and another related mystery.

I've been pretty lazy to post things up lately. It's part of a greater initiative I have to be lazy in general. That being said, some new developments have come up in the category of "Shit that is embedded in St. Louis City Pavement."

First off, a friend and trusted reconnaissance expert has spied another set downtown at Market and 11th. Interesting to note here is that this set is in fresh asphalt (as usual) but it is just a patch of asphalt - not the whole block. So, that's a first.

I also recently spied a single domino at Washington and Compton, but wasn't able to stop and snap a photo. I'll have to get over there to check it out, and maybe do some more recon up and down Washington, as that road was recently repaved.


Now, onto the next item of business. And I am almost a little leery to even bring this up, because I feel like it will make me look even MORE nuts/paranoid/obsessive than I already am. So up until recently, I've found only dominoes embedded like this. Well, it doesn't seem to just be limited to dominoes any longer. I've found golf balls.

Yep, I said golf balls. And they are embedded in new pavement the same way the dominoes are. And they don't seem to be random - they seem to be arranged very similarly to the dominoes. I wouldn't bring it up if I didn't have evidence of the weirdness:

These are at Russell and Grand, in fresh asphalt.

These are at Sublette and Magnolia, next to Cunetto's Pasta.

This is on Holly Hills Blvd at the northeast corner of Carondolet Park, by Grand Ave.

This is at Holly Hills and Morganford.

What the hell, man? What's next - cue balls, dice and jacks? Is it being done by the same people/person? Are their patterns interconnected?

Am I nuts?

The Hill, and CWE

Ahoy, ahoy. Over this past weekend, some friends and I rode an overnight century (the exploits of which you can read here) where we started at 10PM and ended around 7AM. Totally sweet. As we were rolling west through the CWE on Laclede Ave, I *happened* to glance down as we were passing through the deserted intersection at Euclid, and magically noticed a pair of blank dominoes, right in the middle. I didn't have time to stop and take photos then and there, as we were all super hungry, but I did come back the next day.

Laclede and Euclid

I don't often ride through this intersection, so this was a very fortuitous find.

The next day when I hopped on my wheel and rode down to snap some photos of the CWE location, I took a slightly less flatter route down Brannon when I normally would stick to Macklind. This was also very lucky, as I noticed ANOTHER set mere blocks away from two more locations on the same stretch of road. I can't believe I've never noticed them before! The interesting thing about this is that this single domino looks like it had most definitely been part of a pair - you can see the domino-sized/shaped cut-out directly adjacent to the remaining one. This is at Brannon and Parker, on the east side of the intersection:

notice that piece of straw sitting in the cut-out.

Brannon and Parker

Strange how when I go look for one, another pops up. Perhaps this is all a conspiracy by PuzzleWarehouse in Kirkwood.


On an slightly-unrelated note, a fascination I have is the remaining vestiges of our city's old street-rails and the vast streetcar network we used to have. These lines were completely gone by the mid '60s. Having spent much more time riding around the city the last few years, I've started noticing that the old rails are still there, they have just been paved over. And if you pay attention, you noticed where they are poking back out. Like when position myself to check out the domino at the Laclede/Euclid intersection, I noticed a rail that has completely surfaced - and you can follow the cracks in the pavement for the length of the block where it wants to bust through:

Much like the dominoes, these rails pop up everywhere, so you might start to see me post more of these up.

A 3rd location in Forest Park

My network of super-double-secret spies continues to grow each day. Just the other day in fact, I was alerted via my version of the Bat-Phone (a phone shaped like a domino, to which calls are made relaying information about new dominoes) by an one of my eyes-and-ears on the street, a man we'll call "P-Weezy." He turned me onto a domino embedded in the gravelly footpath in Forest Park, that he came upon while on foot, on the path.

The location is on specifically on the gravelly footpath (not the asphalt bike path - yes, they are different) and is directly across the street from the 625 South Skinker high rise apartment building at Skinker and Northwoods. It is a very easy domino to miss, considering the white domino blending in very easily to the white-gray-ish color of the footpath surface. Normally, they can stand out pretty well as a white rectangle against a black asphalt street surface.

all photos courtesy of P-Weezy.

So as you can see, it is either a 4-1 or a 4-0 tile. It is hard to know for sure, though I could probably go there and chip away at that little piece of asphalt schmutz that is obscuring the true identity of one-half of the tile. It is worth noting that the tile sits at a "random" angle to the pathway. it isn't laying parallel to the path or perpendicular to it either. Which kind of makes me think that the orientation of these fucking things doesn't mean a whole lot, but rather it's just the location.

This path isn't quite gravel, nor is it asphalt. It's really more of a chip and seal. I may have been more loose gravel at one point, but had been oiled over or something like that. And that is a huge departure from up-until-now always being found in asphalt, and always being on actual roadways.  All I know is that if I now have to start wondering if these goddamned things are on all the bike and footpaths AS WELL AS every street in the city, then I'm going to have to get a bigger budget.

With this kind of upheaval of general conventions, what will be next, a domino sewn into the carpet in the Arch viewing deck?

Two-Fer Update

On a ride the other day, I found 2 sets.

One set, at Macklind and Bancroft, is like 3 blocks from my house AND is an intersection that I ride through damn near every day. How could I have missed it? Either way, this isn't the first set on Macklind, nor is it the first set on Bancroft. Only took me two+ years of living at this house to finally notice it. makes me wonder about almost every other intersection in the city, that I've carelessly overlooked tons more.  Check it:

The other set is a little further northeast of the last one, at a fairly large intersection of Chouteau and Compton. Not too surprising, as the Compton bridge that extends north from that intersection has recently been re-paved, so it was ripe for some dominoes:

There you have it.

Now, on another topic, I hate to do bring this up, but I think I may have also stumbled onto another set of objects being stamped into streets. Don't know what the story is yet, but I'll keep you informed once I gather enough evidence to make an initial presentation. Think golf balls.

Another in kinda-sorta North City

If you define North City to be "anything north of the great dividing line of Delmar Blvd" then yes, this is technically in North City, as it is just a few blocks north of Delmar. Hamilton and Clemens has a pair of dominoes (with colored dots, no less) in the fresh pavement that extends down Clemens. (Clemens has some once-beautiful houses by the way.)

Behold:

They were clear as day, too - should you decide to take a stroll. These dominoes have to be all over North City, I reckon. (spare me the bullshit, racist, prejudicial and deconstructive comments towards North City.) I wonder if we'll hit the 100 mark?

Stay tuned, brah.

Hampton and Bancroft, revisited

Yet another interesting development.

I have been through the intersection countless times, and have actually ALREADY found a domino embedded here. And yet, the pavement gods have seen fit to confound me further by allowing me to find another set in the very same intersection, though a different corner.

The first set, if you check the locations page at the top, is on the east side of Hampton, and south of Bancroft. Or in layman's terms, the "southeast corner." This newest set is on the southWEST corner, in front of the bank, only about a foot from the sidewalk.

This is only the second intersection that I have found to have more than one location - the first being at Arsenal and Kingshighway, where there are 3. WTF.

The fresh pavement extends into the StL Hills neighborhood as far back as I could see, so I'll have to do a little stealthy recon in the near future.

Also, stay tuned, as I may have learned about another set downtown, though I have yet to verify it - same goes for the location at Lindell and Grand. I'll keep you posted, so you should literally not move from your computer screen until further notice.

So they DO exist in North City!

I was in the car with some co-workers today, taking a short-cut/long-way (depending on how you look at it) back to the shop. My eagle-eyes spotted this set at the intersection of North Market and Parnell, in what would either be considered the St. Louis Place neighborhood, or the "JeffVanderLou" neighborhood. Either way, this is the farthest north I've yet found. Kinda tempts me to venture up there more often... But then I think twice - that place is just so saddening. Especially saddening is the near 100% decay in the St. Louis Place neighborhood - it is literally blocks and blocks of vacant, grassy lots, like an urban prairie. there isn't even rubble.

 Anyway, this one was a triple set.

I am counting this as #52.


I had been informed by a reader of a location at Grand and Lindell, however I visited that intersection and was unable to find them.I'll check it out again if I'm ever up that way, otherwise someone will have to give me proof.

Stay tuned.