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St. Louis -The Hill - We've got a newly-renovated one bedroom unit in University City that has a great layout for roommates who need their privacy but also need a one-bedroom sized rent. In this apartment, we've put a door on the living room, so it can be used as a second bedroom. Studio apartments, lofts, and efficiency apartments also available. View More Listings -->
The Hill Information
The Hill is a mostly Italian-American neighborhood within St. Louis,
Missouri, located on high ground south of the River des Peres and Interstate 44.
The traditional boundaries of the area are Shaw Boulevard on the north, Columbia
and Southwest Avenues on the south, South Kings highway Boulevard on the east,
and Hampton Avenue on the west.
Its name is due to its proximity to the highest point of the city, formerly
named Saint Louis Hill, which is a few blocks south, at the intersection of
Arsenal Street and Sublette Avenue. The intersection borders Sublette Park, the
former site of the Social Evil Hospital built there in 1873.
Italians immigrated and settled in the area starting in the late 19th century,
attracted by jobs in nearby plants established to exploit deposits of clay
discovered by immigrants in the 1830s.
With the growth of Italian immigrants came the growth in the influence of the
Roman Catholic Church. By the time a new structure was built for what became
known as St. Ambrose in 1926, the church had already been a force in the area
for over twenty years. The structure is modeled after San Ambrogio Church in
Milan, in an Lombard-Romanesque style of brick and terra cotta. It became the
parish church for the area in 1955, after thirty years of focusing on those of
Italian heritage.
That heritage remains evident today. As of May 2003, about three-quarters of the
residents are Italian-Americans, helped perhaps by the practice of rarely
listing homes on the open market. The neighborhood is home to a large number of
locally renowned Italian restaurants, bakeries, grocery stores, and two bocce
gardens. Some businesses on the Hill are Amighetti's Bakery, J. Viviano and Sons
grocery, and Pizzeria della Piazza.
Baseball greats Yogi Berra and Joe Garagiola grew up on the Hill; their boyhood
homes are across the street from each other on Elizabeth Avenue. Four of the
five St. Louisans on the US soccer team that defeated England in the 1950 FIFA
World Cup came from here, a story that is told in The Game of Their Lives, a
book and 2005 docudrama. The movie's title was "The Game of Their Lives" in
theaters and has been renamed "The Miracle Match" for the now-available DVD.