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History matters
(by Robert R. Archibald, president of the Missouri History Museum - March 25, 2008)
In a conversation about local theater, a friend of mine mentioned an Actors’ Studio production at the Gaslight Theater. Because I’ve been here a mere twenty years — the blink of an eye or a single heartbeat to native St. Louisans — “Gaslight” does not strike quite the same chord in me that resonates in the minds and memories of many born-and-bred residents. But I understand the effect.
Our world is full of mnemonic devices; conversely, our memory banks are filled with pieces of a world that is gone. Have you driven by the strip mall on DeBaliviere and thought of Garavelli’s? Can you find the spot on Laclede occupied by the Sam Wah Laundry, saved temporarily from the wrecking ball by a grassroots campaign? Do you remember what was in the spaces now housing the lovely little movie theaters in the Chase?
These memories connect us to a time long gone — or maybe not gone so long. These connections are crucial to the continuance of the place we call the Central West End, indispensable too to the larger community we know as St. Louis. Memories conjure up stories, which are the essence of the past and encompass the best hopes for the future. We know each other by the stories we tell; we know our past from the stories we have heard and remembered. We go into the future with the tales that are meaningful to our lives, our places, our pasts.
My theater-going friend didn’t have the chance to participate in the culture that was Gaslight Square. But she went to high school just a few blocks away, and many an after-school route took her by Boyle and Olive and the shuttered clubs, shops and cafés. She admits that even now she occasionally drives off her regular route to pass through that fabled area. “Memories of something I never knew,” she muses.
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