Broadway Archives

November 17, 2010November 17, 2010

Rialto: Gone, Gone, Gone

I wrote that the roof of the Rialto Theater collapsed after a rainstorm back in June. A reader asked what was going to happen? Were they going to repair and reopen or just call in the bulldozers.

Alas, the bulldozers won

See the faint letters painted on the blacktop parking lot at the bottom of the photo. Compare this photo to one I shot from behind the theater five months earlier. There’s a lot of building gone.

Rialto Theater in June

I’m not surprised that the building was razed. When I shot interior photos of the building in February, everything behind the lobby had already been gutted to a shell.

Rialto front looks the same

The front of the building looks so much the same that I didn’t even bother to update the photo. Since what used to be the lobby is intact, I suspect that what used to be a movie theater will become regular office space.

Rialto and other theater stories

I’ve done a number of stories about Cape’s theaters. Here are some links in case you missed them.

Headed back to Florida

I’ve been in Cape for exactly a month. I have a couple of loose ends to tie up, then I’ll be packing everything up for the journey back to West Palm Beach. Once I get back there, I have to install everything onto a newer, spiffier computer. One of the two mirrored hard drives on my old machine died while I was on the trip, so Kid Matt convinced me to replace the whole machine instead of throwing money at an old box. I’m excited about a faster computer; I’m not excited about having to reinstall all the applications.

What all this means is that you may not be seeing as much stuff as usual over the next week or so. With Turkey Day coming up, I imagine you’ll be busy with family and holidays anyway. If you’re bored, go back and read some of the old stories. Folks add new comments to old posts almost every day.

I’ve given up chasing advertising, but I’m still kicking around some book options. I’ll let you know how that’s going when I know where it’s headed.

November 5, 2010February 10, 2015

Jerry Beaver: Pladium and D’Ladiums

The building at 1127 Broadway has housed drug stores, grills, soda fountains and some other businesses that have fallen through the cracks of history. For most of our generation, though, it’s been the Pladium and, more recently, D’Ladiums.

The one constant has been Jerry Beaver, who manages the place from his throne – a 1940s or 1950s barber chair- bought to celebrate Jerry’s reaching Social Security age.

Bar and poolroom started as drug store

The building was originally built by the Dormeyer family in 1929 for use as a drug store. It opened in 1930. The dark door at the right of the building used to lead to the basement, which was called The Cellar and used as a soda fountain. In later years, it became The Dungeon and The Marine Room, Jerry said.

Jerry “Big Dog” Priest opened Pladium

Jerry ” Big Dog” Priest, a noted pool player, opened the Pladium in the late 50s. Jerry (the Beaver one) worked there for about 30 years, then he went to work for the new owners. He still wears his trademark shorts, no matter what the weather is like. Serious pool is still a big draw.

House of escapades

A couple of my Central classmates (who should probably remain anonymous unless they choose to identify themselves) were chatting on Facebook about escapades at the Pladium.

I low crawled 25 yards out of the Pladium one night.
I can beat that….I was carried out of the Pladium one night.
I did get put in the penalty box for 2 weeks by Bigdog for riding a Honda 305 scrambler motorcycle into the Pladium one Saturday morning.

Decades of smoke stain ceiling

The bar is definitely a smoking area. One of the customers pointed out the difference between ceiling tiles that have been there for years vs. the ones that have been replaced fairly recently.

Memorabilia covers walls

The walls are covered with trophies, license plates and photos of customers.

Jerry rules with firm, gentle hand

Bartender Emily Banach and customer Chris Eastridge agreed that Jerry, who knows almost everyone by name (and what they drink), keeps things under control with a firm, but gentle touch. Most customers, they said, are pretty well-behaved.

Gallery of D’Ladiums’ Photos

Click on any image to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the photo to move through the gallery.

Bartender Emily Banach and customer Chris Eastridge agreed that Jerry, a Vietnam vet, takes care of any problems that come up quickly and quietly. Generally, though, most of the customers are well-behaved.

October 11, 2010April 12, 2015

Cape’s Alice’s Restaurant

Becky Hoppe Jones left a message after I ran the aerial photo of the area around the Common Pleas Courthouse:

I’d be interested in seeing a photo of the old Baptist church just up Broadway from First National Bank. You can see the white steeple in some of your aerial photos.

I went to church there until the early to mid-70’s. Then our congregation sold it to another congregation. It was left empty awhile later and then around 2000 was renovated and opened with an antique store in the sanctuary. The classroom space in the back of the building had been remodeled into living quarters.

As I recall there was a small room up a flight of stairs from the back of the sanctuary that would have been in the base of the bell tower. You can see the arched window in your first shot. Not sure I’d want to live there, though.

Made me think of Alice’s Restaurant

When I photographed the church last fall, I saw the realty sign on the front and immediately thought of Arlo’s Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant:

“Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was two years ago on Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the restaurant, but Alice doesn’t live in the restaurant, she lives in the church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray and Fasha the dog.”

Boyd Hobbs painted steeple in 1967

The Missourian cutline that ran under one of my photos read, “Boyd Hobbs, a Cape Girardeau painter, is silhouetted against the sky as he applies a fresh coat of paint to the steeple of the General Baptist Church at 200 Broadway.”

How did he tie the rope?

The cutline continued, “The Rev. Elvis O. Wilson, pastor, said he believes both the church and steeple were built in 1893. The steeple was last painted seven years ago.” The question that DIDN’T get answered was, “How did he get the rope loop that he’s hanging from tied to the steeple?

Steeple due for more paint

Looks like Mr. Hobbs better pull out his rope again. The steeple’s beginning to show some rust.

Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on - two years ago on
Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the
restaurant, but Alice doesn't live in the restaurant, she lives in the
church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray and
Fasha the dog.

September 29, 2010

Broadway Landmarks & Cracked Sidewalks

I don’t know if these women were leaving the DayZy Beauty Salon or Jordan Office Equipment and Supply. I suspect the former. The 1979 City Directory said the beauty salon was at 718 Broadway and owned by Mrs. Dorothy Willman.

“Women,” not “ladies”

I called them “women” because Missourian style was that females of a certain age were “women,” because that was a verifiable fact. “We don’t KNOW if they are ladies,” it was drilled into me.

Cracked sidewalks

These photos were in a sleeve slugged “Cracked Sidewalks 3/27/67.” There were some other photos in it, too. Wife Lila was in The Missourian’s print shop, where The Capaha Arrow was on the press, and I had a couple of shots of Jim Stone from a trip to the Ohio University campus. The variety of the photos makes me think the date was when the film was processed, not when it was taken.

I don’t know if I shot the sidewalks on assignment or on the off-chance that I could turn the photos into a story. There was a difference. At some point Editor John Blue or someone in the business office must have discovered that they weren’t paying me much salary ($50 a week to start and probably around $70 a week by the time I left), but I was making about half that much again in freelance photos. That probably put me in the salary range of real, experienced reporters.

Sliding pay scale

The solution: they changed my pay schedule. I got $5 for every ASSIGNED photo, but only $3 if the photo was self-generated.

That’s where I learned to think in terms of picture stories and multiple photos. A photo that contained all of the elements of the story in one picture was only worth $3 to $5. If I could find a way to tell the story in pieces, then it was more money in my pocket.

I understand how Frony became One-Shot

Oh, yeah, there was another catch. I had to pay for my own film, paper, chemicals and darkroom equipment.

I can understand why Frony became One-Shot Frony.

Still, I was living at home and didn’t have many expenses outside gas, photo supplies and dates. Lila will testify that I certainly didn’t spend a lot of money on THOSE.

I used to drive the accounting department nuts because I’d go weeks without depositing my pay checks. Eventually, someone would come up and ask me to cash them so they could balance their books.

Trust me, that was the ONLY time in my life that happened.

Armstrong Tires and Chris Cross Cafe

I could have used this photo with two stories. The Armstrong Tire ad would have fit nicely with the one dealing with the early days of the automobile in Cape.

It also shows a corner of the mystery building that was being demolished at the corner of Broadway and Sprigg in my Sept. 9 piece. Readers identified it as the Chris Cross Cafe. I don’t know that I was ever in the Broadway Radio-TV Shop.

Chamber, Boy Scouts & Salvation Army

This cracked sidewalk photo in the 200 Block of Broadway picks up several landmark establishments: The Chamber of Commerce, the Boy Scouts of America and the Salvation Army. That’s my ’59 Buick LaSabre station wagon facing the river.