ST. LOUIS – On the heels of a dismal front-page report about downtown St. Louis in the Wall Street Journal, FOX 2 has obtained new photos showing blatant trespassing and disregard for safety at the iconic Railway Exchange Building, also known as the former Famous Barr Department store.

The photos show young people hanging out on top of the condemned building. Downtown workers say it’s become a near-daily occurrence.

The City of St. Louis installed metal plates and doors, but those have been breached, allowing access to the building’s interior and ultimately, the roof.

One regular downtown visitor, Michelle Bryant, says she sees it happen every couple of weeks.

“Just watching them come from around that corner and go right in through that door… I see some people coming in and out of that door—several people. It’ll be a group of people, then it will be another group of people,” she said.

She remembers when the now-condemned building was St. Louis’ favorite department store.

The former Famous Barr-turned-Macy’s closed in 2013.

There’s also news that maybe things aren’t as hopeless as they seem: foot traffic in downtown St. Louis is going up, not down.

We’ve seen hints of that in recent weeks, with a steady stream of crowds for sporting events.

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The Wall Street Journal report pointed to a University of Toronto study showing St. Louis had the steepest drop in downtown foot traffic of the top 66 cities in North America from the start of the pandemic up to last summer.

However, the study has just been updated through February of this year. It now shows St. Louis ranking 26^th in downtown foot traffic recovery, with a 16% jump.

St. Louis still ranks behind competing cities like Pittsburgh (6^th) and Detroit (17^th) but well ahead of Indianapolis (35^th) and Kansas City (41^st). Granted, St. Louis may be starting with a much lower level of foot traffic than most cities.

So, even as the number of broken windows continues to multiply on the iconic building that fills an entire city block, downtown advocates see great things ahead.

“That property is so important to us,” Kurt Weigle, chief downtown officer for Greater St. Louis, Inc., which promotes economic growth in St. Louis, said. “It’s in the middle of downtown. It’s gorgeous, architecturally. As important as those things though, is that it has so many emotions attached to it from St. Louisans going back generations. It is such a cultural icon for the city. We’ve got to make it work. When we do, it’s going to kick off a lot of other positive things downtown.”

As of Monday afternoon, the City of St. Louis’s Building Division had repaired the breached door that was allowing inside access to the building.

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