Stand at Grand and Washington and turn slowly: a symphony hall, a movie-palace-turned-Broadway-stage, a perfect little concert hall, two art museums, a jazz club, university galleries and theatres stacked into a few incandescent blocks. This is Grand Center, St. Louis’s arts and entertainment district — one of the densest cultural neighborhoods between the coasts.
The district’s anchors read like a city’s dream roster: Powell Hall (SLSO), the Fabulous Fox, The Sheldon, the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Jazz St. Louis, and Saint Louis University’s museums and theatres, with the Kranzberg Arts Foundation’s constellation of stages — the Grandel, the Kranzberg Arts Center, the Marcelle — filling the side streets. On a big night, ten thousand people pour out of simultaneous performances into the same glowing blocks.
Plan a Grand Center night: dinner on Washington, a performance, a nightcap among the marquees.
Grand Center centers on Grand Boulevard and Washington Avenue in Midtown. Explore at grandcenter.org.
