No Recession on St. Patrick’s Day

Thousands of Irish and pretenders celebrate St. Paddy's Day In St. Louis

As Casey Stengel might have said, “Nobody goes to the St. Patrick’s parade anymore.  It’s too crowded.” As you can see by the photo, St. Louisians came out in droves for both St. Patrick’s parade this week.

In spite of $6.50 Guinness and $8.00 shots, Irish (and those who wish they were Irish) celebrated the holiday by the thousands downtown on Saturday and in the Irish “Dogtown” neighborhood on Tuesday.  At Dogtown’s “anchor” St. James the Greater Catholic Church, there was a one hour wait for a corned beef sandwich.  One steetside stand was out of Guinness before 1:00.

Your intrepid reporter visited both parades and the hoolies (parties) going on afterwards (It’s a tough job but somebody’s got to do it.) and could find no signs of an economic downturn.  That’s not to say that many people werent  looking for a little entertainment to take their minds off their problems, but it shows that folks can and will spend money with the right motivation.

The Interstate highway that runs alongside Dogtown has been closed since December and isn’t scheduled to reopen until this December.  Several small business owners in the area, especially restaurants and bars,  reported that the huge St. Pat’s crowd may have saved their year and their business.