Moved to the Central West End
My mother wanted to live in the city, and I’d be going to school there, so we moved into the Central West End. Westminster is a private street full of grand houses, but at the time was on the wrong side of the slow moving boundary between “hip” and “dangerous” (at least as perceived by white St. Louisians). They did very well to find a smaller house on that street at that time.
I took a private bus to my private school until we moved onto this private street. Then I started walking along Forest Park along the very public Kingshighway.
Popular culture, travel to the city, and a trip to DC had already made me interested in city life, but moving to a relatively vibrant neighborhood before I could drive really cemented my urban preferences.