Few events shaped modern Hill history as sharply as the arrival of Interstate 44. The City of St. Louis calls the decision to run the highway through the neighborhood one of The Hill’s most traumatic moments. Yet the fight it sparked also helped create the organized, close-knit community that exists today.
The highway arrives
According to the Hill 2000 Neighborhood Association, the U.S. Department of Transportation began building this section of I-44 in 1971, and the route cut through about a third of The Hill. The city’s neighborhood history places the decision in the early 1970s. A 2003 Southeast Missourian feature, and NextSTL’s later neighborhood guide, say the highway separated the northern tip of The Hill from the rest of the neighborhood.
How many homes were lost?
Sources give different numbers for the homes demolished:
- The City of St. Louis says 98 homes were destroyed.
- The Hill 2000 Neighborhood Association says 109 homes were torn down.
- The Southeast Missourian (2003) and NextSTL put the loss at 100 homes.
Estimates of the people cut off also vary. The city says the highway isolated 450 residents from the heart of the neighborhood, while TIME magazine reported in 1974 that it cut off a segment of the community and isolated 150 families.
Paying for a bridge
TIME reported that state plans called for just one vehicle overpass. Under the leadership of Father Salvatore Polizzi, the associate pastor at St. Ambrose, residents raised about $50,000 of their own money to pay for an overpass, TIME reported. The neighborhood association gives the same amount and identifies the result as a car bridge on Edwards Street over the highway. KSDK later reported that Polizzi had asked the federal government for an overpass so The Hill would not be cut off.
The campaign succeeded. TIME captured the moment: “The Hill got its bridge, and the bells of St. Ambrose rang out the good news.” The city’s history describes an overpass connecting the two sides of the neighborhood as the only concession residents won.
A turning point for the neighborhood
The neighborhood association says the fight taught residents the value of acting together, and that the Hill 2000 Neighborhood Association grew out of that lesson. The Southeast Missourian credited Polizzi’s group with winning the overpass, as well as blocking a planned drive-in theater. The St. Louis Review’s 2023 obituary of Polizzi lists keeping I-44 from isolating part of The Hill among his signature efforts. Read more in our article on Hill 2000 and Monsignor Polizzi.
The bridge today
After Polizzi’s death in April 2023, KSDK reported that state lawmakers had proposed, through an amendment to a Senate bill, naming it the Msgr. Sal Polizzi Bridge, and a 2023 Missouri House amendment (to House Bill 528) proposed the same designation for the Edwards Street bridge over Interstate 44. We could not confirm whether the name was ultimately adopted. Nearby Berra Park sits just south of the highway.
For more on the neighborhood’s past, see our History of The Hill timeline.
Sources: City of St. Louis, Hill 2000 (hillstl.org), TIME, Southeast Missourian, NextSTL, KSDK, St. Louis Review, Missouri House of Representatives, St. Louis City Talk
