The man with me in front of the Coffee Cartel in the Central West End Tuesday afternoon is NPR’s All Things Considered Senior Host Robert Siegel. He and NPR Producer Art Silverman talked to me about Beer, Brats, and Baseball: St. Louis Germans, and our efforts to get recognition for the six German streets whose names were changed during World War I. They’re gathering information for programs airing in August or September, around the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I, on the anti-German hysteria during the war.
And speaking of our campaign, 20th Ward St. Louis Alderman Craig Schmid, who represents the South Side’s Dutchtown neighborhood, will introduce a bill on Friday giving Providence Place the honorary designation of Knapstein Place. That was its name before it was changed in 1918, during the anti-German hysteria.