This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Oct. 25, 2012 - At some point in the early 2000s, I realized that our city’s Gaslight Square heyday had never been captured in book form. Articles, yes. Literally hundreds of those had appeared over the years, in St. Louis and beyond. But nobody committed the story to the longer print form, which felt like something of a surprise.
Deciding to take an interview-based approach to the project (eventually dubbed and released as “Gaslight Square: An Oral History” in 2004), I set out to talk to at least 50 residents, performers, business owners and regulars. Of my dream list, virtually everyone came through; whenever possible, we talked in person, rolling old-fashioned tape for later transcription. In fact, a distinct memory of the end days of the project is walking up to houses all over the area on crutches: I had torn my right Achilles.
The other constant memory was this question, asked virtually every time I sat down with a subject. “You’re too young to have been at the Square, so why are you doing this?” It was a legitimate question. And I never came up with that exact, set, ready answer. Though, in retrospect, I’ve always simply known that I’d missed out on the greatest musical and cultural collision that our town ever knew (and might ever know). Oh, well.
Though I twice visited a Gaslight venue owned by the late Lou Bonds in the early ‘90s, the Square had already been left for dead two decades before. That club, the Prestige Lounge, was almost like a weed that’d popped up, albeit briefly, in the most unlikely of places. And I soon found myself wandering around Olive and Boyle, for any reason. When interviewing a Gaslight comic and emcee named Danny O’Day for the Riverfront Times, we wandered down Olive. O’Day was emotionally affected the experience, feeling almost a body blow as he looked at the remaining, damaged structures.
From there, I organized a neighborhood clean-up through Metropolis St. Louis and started writing a few shorter stories for the RFT relating to the block. Around the same time, talks of a documentary film were starting; eventually Bruce Marren and Daniel Pearlmutter completed two, one-hour specials. A new musical about the Square was produced by the late Chris Jackson. “The Nervous Set” was revived by the New Line Theatre. Margie Newman produced a special for KETC, on the eventual demolition of the original Square buildings. For a few years, Gaslight nostalgia was being served, in heaping doses.
The missing ingredients to some of those projects, though, were the photos of Thelma Blumberg.
Today, and for the next few weeks, they’ll be available for viewing. And anyone with an interest in the history of St. Louis is welcome to view them.
A Saturday at Joe’s
Though I’ve known artist Bill Christman for about a decade, I’m still a bit thrown by him. Maybe it’s a respect thing: He’s created two of the more amazing spaces in town (Beatnik Bob’s in the City Museum and Joe’s Cafe, found below his home in DeBaliviere). His work can be spotted around town, in public and private settings. Most impressive is that he’s a regional artist, which is to say that St. Louis’ past clearly influences his work and collecting.
Lately, for example, he’s been showing some of his vast holdings of local signage, which he envisions as a much-larger St. Louis Sign Museum down the line. Today, his Joe’s Cafe Gallery serves as the de facto micro-home of that collection, which he’s built with fellow enthusiasts Jim May and Greg Rhomberg. Pieces are tucked into whatever show takes place around them, an effect Christman rather enjoys.
Currently, this space (renamed Joe’s Cafe Gallery from Ars Populii Gallery earlier this year) hosts a show dedicated to Gaslight Square. Paintings are featured from the late entertainer and bar owner Frank Moskus, who, with wife and musical partner Jan Mahannah, ran clubs in Gaslight and, later South City. Also featured is Moskus’ son, Joe, who’s painted several scenes of Gaslight, based on photos taken by his father. Christman notes that Frank Moskus never actually painted scenes of Gaslight, so this inter-generational work captures something altogether new.
And rounding out the show is the work of Thelma Blumberg. A photographer who lived and worked in the Square, Blumberg didn’t set out to capture the “big” concepts of what was happening there. Instead, her lens was trained on the small moments that (seemingly) made the place special. Even in the small collection hanging in Joe’s Cafe, you sense her street-smart style. Here are kids on the front lawn of a restaurant, selling dogs for $5. Here’s a semi-beatnik, sitting next to two members of the Boneshakers motorcycle club. Here’s a shot of frenetic energy on the block, as a streetcar passes through fans celebrating the 1964 Cardinals World Series clincher.
Each piece is accompanied by the thoughts of Jack Parker, the venerable proprietor of O’Connell’s Pub, who focuses his attention on his antiques business these days. Sketching out lovely little vignettes, Parker’s words are inscribed below each Blumberg print, giving an added dose of history and meaning.
Over the years, I’d come into contact with a few of these photos, mostly in Parker’s cardboard box archives. They were amazing to see in that context, too, but in this gallery show, they’re given some added seriousness and gravity.
Christman says his gallery, in some respects, is there “to give shows to people who’d never had the opportunity for gallery exposure.” He says that except for a few, low-key public showings, neither Frank Moskus, nor Thelma Blumberg had ever been granted gallery space. Together, “they seem to work,” Christman says.
Coming into contact with Blumberg in about 1970, Christman says he was immediately struck by the quality of her skills. He remembers sitting up with her and viewing her work, right there in Gaslight, buying a handful of pictures immediately. After a decade apart, he located her, residing in an assisted-living facility in west county. As it turned out, with his last personal visit with her, he laid out the idea for this show, one that he and Parker had kicked around for nearly a decade.
“Two days later,” Christman says, “she died.”
Small town, close ties
All the cliches about St. Louis being a small town tend to prove out -- often when you least expect it.
In looking at the 15 photos displayed at Joe’s Cafe, the one that immediately popped off the wall was that of a couple, walking across the street, each holding the leash of a small dog. A decade ago, I spied that photo in Parker’s personal collection and quickly seized on the idea of that shot - and only that shot - being the right one for the book cover of “Gaslight Square: An Oral History.” Through Parker, I called Blumberg, who initially agreed to $250, for a one-time use of the photo on the cover. OKing things with my co-publisher Allison Trombley, I pulled money from the bank, and called back on the appointed day to deliver a contract and cash.
As quickly as things were agreed upon, things had changed. The fee wasn’t enough, I was told. There were possible issues involved with the Western Manuscripts Collection at UM-St. Louis, where Blumberg’s originals were stored and curated. There was talk of one of those curators preparing his own Gaslight book, with Blumberg’s shots serving as the visual linchpins. And who could argue with that decision, if so, since her pieces are completely evocative of that moment?
Still, I was confused and bummed. And that single photo’s lived in my mind for some time, the one of that young couple walking across that intersection, with the Laughing Buddha coffeehouse in the background.
When visiting Joe’s Cafe this Saturday, I felt as if I was seeing a ghost when the picture was the center image of one wall’s display. Parker, who was my first boss at O’Connell’s, inadvertently and completely flipped me out with his inscription: “Richie Tokatz was a conga player at the Dark Side, the first real jazz club on the Square, owned by Gayle Tibe. I went to high school with him in South St. Louis. These two had a very strong relationship. The cigarette machine at the Laughing Buddha had a weird voice that would say ‘The Laughing Buddha thanks you’ whenever you bought a pack.’”
The levels of “whoa” were pretty intense. Tibe, I’d long known of; Parker has photos of her from those days: a young knockout who personified hipness. A woman owning the coolest bar on the block in the early ‘60s? I mean, c’mon. If it’s possible to have a time-traveling crush, she’s always been the one for me. But I didn’t realize that she was the person in the shot, not initially. Strangely, another photo of her, much smaller, would wind up on the cover.
By virtue of writing the book, I’ve had a longstanding, online friendship with her free-spirited daughter, Kellee, who lives in the Bay Area. And who introduced me to Richard Tokatz, a Facebook friend, but someone I’ve never met in person, to my knowledge; someone that I wouldn’t have cast in a photo that, to be totally honest, almost makes me cry with each viewing. Looking at that photo on Saturday ... it was a bit much. (Oh, yeah, I’ve bought it.)
Christman, while preparing for a wedding at Joe’s Cafe next door, stopped by and riffed quickly on St. Louis history and our love affair with the past. Without prompting he sketched out a lineage from Little Bohemia to Gaslight to Soulard to Benton Park. Offhandedly, almost, he walked out back and pointed out that the original Gaslight Square sign, from the corner of Olive & Boyle, was right there, in his backyard. Another ghost, staring me right in the face on a sunny, gorgeous, autumn’s afternoon.
The artwork of Frank and Joe Moskus and the photography of Thelma Blumberg can be seen at Joe’s Cafe Gallery, every Thursday night, from 8-11 p.m., through Nov. 22.
Thomas Crone special to the Beacon