History
Gaslight Square was the name given to the entertainment district built in the mid-1950s. The district was known for its gas lit street lamps and ornate Victorian style architecture, reflective of the 1800s and the riverboat era around the turn of the century. Gaslight Square quickly became a thriving entertainment district that could be compared somewhat to the Delmar Loop area of St. Louis today. The Square occupies the area surrounding Olive and Boyle Streets in the Central West End. The district was popular for music, poetry, comedy, formal and informal dining, and dancing. It was the home to many clubs and restaurants, and entertainment venues.
Brothers Dick and Paul Mutrux are considered by many to be the pioneers of Gaslight Square, being proprietors of one of the first saloons in the area, the Gaslight. Another saloon, the Golden Eagle, soon opened, and proprietor Jay Landesman relocated his extremely popular cabaret theatre, the Crystal Palace, to the area as well. Early business owners in Gaslight Square raided recently demolished property in downtown St. Louis to salvage unique items such as church pews, chandeliers, recycled stained glass, and marble bathtubs. These resourceful decorations gave Gaslight Square a youthful, eclectic feel that attracted young beatniks and wealthy customers alike. At its height, Gaslight Square was home to approximately fifty businesses, including taverns, cabarets, restaurants, sidewalk cafes, and antique shops. These businesses provided an array of unique entertainment that combined elements of the past and present. The Opera House had a façade covered in croquet balls and was a venue for Dixieland jazz. The Roaring Twenties was a speakeasy themed bar that included a stage show, mock raids, and staged gangster fights. The Natchez Queen was decorated to resemble a riverboat with live ragtime music inside. By 1962, property values had tripled in Gaslight Square.
The district was greatly affected by dramatic change in culture and music of the late 1950s and 60s when the bohemian and later hippie generation began questioning traditional majority values in art, literature, and political self-expression. the district attracted many poets and writers, such as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg who would stop in St. Louis to experience Gaslight Square.
Many entertainers such as The Smothers Brothers, Lenny Bruce, Miles Davis, Barbra Streisand, Jackie Mason, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Woody Allen, Jerry Stiller, Dick Gregory and Jack E. Leonard gained exposure at the start of their careers in the clubs of Gaslight Square.
Traditional jazz clubs in Gaslight Square included Peacock Alley, Opera House, Bustles and Bows, and Tiger's Den. Modern jazz clubs included The Dark Side, The Other Side, and Jogie's Hip Intertainment. Rosalie Lovett's Left Bank featured barrelhouse bluesman James Crutchfield.
By the late 1960s Gaslight Square had lost its luster, falling victim to the rapid growth of suburbs, urban decay, and "white flight" of that era.
Read more about this topic: Gaslight Square, St. Louis
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“No matter how vital experience might be while you lived it, no sooner was it ended and dead than it became as lifeless as the piles of dry dust in a school history book.”
—Ellen Glasgow (1874–1945)
“All things are moral. That soul, which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its inspiration; out there in history we can see its fatal strength.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“History ... is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
But what experience and history teach is this—that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)