The MetroLink station in Central West End serves WashU’s medical campus. Soulard offers older brick residential blocks south of downtown, with a public market and a bus connection toward Civic Center. The daily tradeoffs include the whole commute, grocery opening days and where you would go for library or park space.
Housing: brick flats and a Kingshighway apartment example
Soulard’s historic housing descriptions include four-family flats, alley houses, narrow flounder houses and larger Second Empire townhouses. Buildings close to the sidewalk and homes behind streetfront buildings form part of its residential pattern. A Soulard address can therefore involve a different entrance and building arrangement from the house seen at the front of the lot.
In Central West End, Parc Frontenac at 40 North Kingshighway provides a specific apartment example: studios, one-bedroom and two-bedroom plans in one building. The operator warns that individual apartments can differ from representative plans in dimensions and finishes.
The medical-campus commute and the downtown transfer
WashU Medicine identifies Central West End MetroLink station as a stop within the medical campus. Metro lists the rail entrance at 420 South Euclid and the bus facility at 4510 Children’s Place. Both are south of the North Euclid shopping streets. Metro lists no transit parking spaces at this facility, so it is not a Park-Ride option.
From the brewery end of Soulard, Route 73 Carondelet lists Anheuser Busch Visitors Center and Civic Center Transit Center as timepoints on the same route. Reaching Central West End by this route adds a transfer at Civic Center to a westbound train. The brewery timepoint is in a different part of Soulard from the market at 730 Carroll Street; include the approach from the actual home.
For an evening return, the Metro station notice checked October 19 describes tunnel work after 6 p.m. Monday–Saturday. During those periods, Blue Line trains operate between Forest Park and Shrewsbury. Trips through downtown use the Red Line, with a transfer at Forest Park for the Blue Line corridor.
Market days versus a daily supermarket
Soulard Market at 730 Carroll Street trades regularly Wednesday–Saturday. Vendor participation is greatest on Saturdays and lower midweek. For someone who shops after work or on Sundays, the market’s weekly pattern leaves trips that need another grocery option.
Central West End’s Whole Foods at 4577 West Pine Boulevard lists 8 a.m.–9 p.m. every day. It is south of Lindell, while the bookstore and library sit farther north along Euclid. The apartment-to-store walk and the apartment-to-station walk may therefore head toward different parts of the neighborhood.
Library access differs on Sundays and weekday evenings
For Soulard, Barr Library at 1701 South Jefferson is west of the neighborhood. Its late opening is Monday, noon–8 p.m.; Tuesday–Thursday hours are 10 a.m.–6 p.m., Friday–Saturday 10 a.m.–5 p.m., and Sunday is closed. It has computers, printing, Wi-Fi and a Creative Experience space.
In Central West End, Schlafly Library at 225 North Euclid opens 9 a.m.–8 p.m. Monday–Thursday, 9 a.m.–5 p.m. Friday–Saturday and 1–5 p.m. Sunday. Its meeting rooms, computers and printing make it useful beyond borrowing books. Left Bank Books at 399 North Euclid adds a separate bookshop stop along the same corridor.
Photo: Paul Sableman / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0. April 11, 2014. Commons supplied a resized image; converted to WebP for publication. Display layouts may crop the image.
A neighborhood playground or a larger park outing
Soulard’s Pontiac Square is a 1.5-acre city park among the residential blocks, with a playground and multi-purpose field. It serves a different kind of outing from Forest Park’s much larger landscape west of Central West End.
For a Forest Park walk or bicycle trip, the visitor center at 5595 Grand Drive sits on the paved Dual Recreational Pathway. The north patio has a bicycle tire pump and repair tools, with drinking water nearby. Free main-floor day lockers are available; the separate lower-level locker rooms are temporarily closed for renovation.
Open the Soulard profile or Central West End profile for each area’s sources and dated photos. The St. Louis city page adds citywide housing figures and local-service information.