DeBaliviere in the ’50s and ’60s was known as the “DeBaliviere Strip”, partly because it was home to some strip clubs, notably the Stardust Club, whose sign advertised boldly: “Evelyn West and her $50,000 Treasure Chest.” West advertised that she was actually insured by Lloyd’s of London (according to pop culture expert Joe Edwards, her “treasure chest” was insured for lightning strikes, so she could get a $10 annual premium!).
Evelyn West’s Stardust Club gave the DeBaliviere Strip a kind of Las Vegas fame. Writing her obituary in the March 13, 2005 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, John McGuire said: “In St. Louis in the ’50s and ’60s, her name was as familiar to male adolescents and young adults as that of Stan Musial, though, of course, the two inspired different forms of adulation… In many respects, West was a kind of crossover artist. Burlesque… included music, dance, and comedy, with the stripping just one aspect.” Among other entertainers who appeared with her on stage was Rodney Dangerfield, who went on to stand-up fame with his memorable tagline, “I get no respect.”
There were as many as five strip clubs on DeBaliviere, including Little Las Vegas at 317, but no one as famed as Evelyn West. Evelyn’s husband Al Charles noted in a Globe-Democrat interview that, “in our block there were a couple of bookie places, gambling places, and Little Las Vegas… it was a live street. A beautiful street.” But St. Louis Circuit Attorney George Peach (himself later disgraced for similar behavior) charged that the Stardust was being used as a “bawdy house” and Al Charles eventually pled guilty to “receiving the earnings of a prostitute” in 1977. Joe Edwards recalls going to the Stardust in that year, attending the auction of the contents and touring the somewhat seedy back rooms of the Stardust. But McGuire’s obit mentions that retired deputy police chief James Hackett, “a St. Louis police legend, admired West’s moxie and her moves. He called her the ‘Babe Ruth of stripteasing’.”
There were many restaurants focused on fine dining and great music, including the Mural Room at 401 and Sorrento’s at 341, on opposite corners of the west side of Waterman. The Mural Room hosted classical programs; Sorrento’s jam sessions were legendary. The dining there was that of famed St. Louis restauranteur Al Baker, who bought Sorrento’s in 1959 and moved to Clayton Road in 1966. The beautiful Garavelli’s at 301 was a landmark restaurant, and a future article will cover the history of it, as well as the music venues.
Co-existing with the music and fine dining scene were the strip clubs, and there was lots of trouble and over a decade of pressure to “clean up the strip.” As early as February of 1959, “eleven persons, including two women dancers, were arrested …by special police squads in a crackdown on night clubs in the ‘DeBaliviere Strip’ area and on two West End taverns.” At the Tic Toc, Miss Sylvia Albana, “advertised as the Flame of New Orleans,” was arrested, suspected of performing an indecent dance. At the Stardust, “Consuelo Marchbank, who is advertised as ‘Miss Chelo, tiny mite of the Argentine,’ was suspected of performing indecent dances.” The raids were “directed by Captain John Doherty and carried out by 15 officers of the intelligence and morality squads.”
Then in 1962, the owner of the Tic Toc, Edward G. Brown, was shot to death on the sidewalk outside the front door at 419 DeBaliviere by a notorious gangster who owned the Ace Cab Company, Joseph Costello. Costello had been implicated in the theft of half of the $600,000 Greenlease kidnapping ransom a few years before, together with St. Louis policemen Louis Shoulders and Elmer Dolan, after the execution of the actual kidnappers Bonnie Heady and Carl Hall, who had been riding around the city drunk in an Ace Cab for days, with his bags full of money. By 1961, at the Tic Toc, Costello wanted exclusivity for his cabs at the “cabstand” in front of the Tic Toc. Brown shot back, and the wounded Costello was indicted and scheduled for trial in the killing. However, he died of a heart attack before going to trial.
Throughout the ’60s, police raids on the strip were frequent, and the neighborhood pressure on city government played a role as well. Alderman Peter Simpson in 1963 asked for the cab stand to be shut down altogether, and in 1966 proposed renaming the street to Eliot Plaza to change the image!
Globe writer John Friedman wrote about the “Street of Broken Dreams” in 1969: “The raunchy ’50s were a time when DeBaliviere was paradoxically a daytime paradise for kids. At the north end were ice skating at the Winter Garden, the streetcar shed and a firehouse. At the other end was the Jefferson Memorial with its trophies and firetrucks, and the bridge over the Wabash railroad tracks. In between were such enjoyable restaurants as the Toddle House, an archetypal diner… and the Parkmoor, home of the pedigreed hot dog.”
The diversity of the strip was reflected in the hundreds of businesses which thrived there in this period, and we’ll have much more in future issues. Our next installment will take us back to the ’20s, as we imagine DeBaliviere’s rich history. If you have memories or memorabilia, let us know: jvatcha@gmail.com.
Photo & Poster Captions
- The Stardust at 309 DeBaliviere (where the strip mall is now), in a photograph from the Globe Democrat archives, courtesy of the Mercantile Library at UMSL.
- Evelyn West Poster: Poster courtesy of Bill Christman, artist and neighbor, photographed by King Schoenfeld. The poster is displayed in his “Joe’s Cafe” on the 6000 block of Kingsbury.
- Mural Room: K.O. Koverly’s Mural Room had the prominent corner spot in the Dorr Zeller Building in the mid ’50s. The famed bakery, ice cream shop, and caterer had closed in 1951, three years after the death of Oliver Dorr. In business since 1887, Dorr and Zeller moved to DeBaliviere in 1922, hiring prominent architect Preston J. Bradshaw to design their new bakery and banquet facility. They advertised “weddings and parties on short notice,” and Edith Dorr’s obituary later recalled her role in designing the interior, especially the ornate patterns in the ceiling (“hundreds of sundae dishes, each with three scoops of ice cream”). The building has been home to many businesses since that time, including the Central West End Savings and Loan and current occupant Pulaski Bank. Photo courtesy of Missouri History Museum, the Irv Shankman Collection.
