"While the sun shines Tower Grove Park is fine"
(of course after dark that is a completely different
story). Yes, there are a few streets in the Tower Grove
South neighborhood that are pretty bad, and the ghetto
starts about two blocks east of the park. That stretch
of Arsenal between Grand and the brewery ranks up
there with Cherokee and the state streets in terms of
sketchiness. Yes, those neighborhoods used to be much better.
However, not all of the neighborhoods surrounding the park
are as bad as they were just of few years ago. The
overall crime rate in both Tower Grove South and Shaw
neighborhoods has decreased by 30% in the last five years and
the crime rate in the Southwest Gardens (between
Southwest and Arsenal, starting at Shaw and going west to
Hampton)hasn't changed in nearly a decade (I had three cops who
were my neighbors when I lived over there. I think
there are even more on The Hill.). Now, the
neighborhoods to the east of the park and the area between
Morganford and Kingshighway south of the park is getting
real bad. It is still ok to play corkball at Tower
Grove Park. My strangest TGP corkball experience was
early morning cork (4:45-6:45am) in the middle of
winter on the lighted tennis courts after having been
out most of the night drinking. I think I hit like
.100 that morning, but I had fun...