Prologue
Gaslight Square isn't a square at all. Ifs a two-block strip, with some side-street spill-over, of jazzy saloons, restaurants and night clubs, on Olive Boulevard in a St. Louis, Missouri, slum.
In the summer, at night, Gaslight Square swings. There's a carnival atmosphere under the gas-fueled street lamps as huge crowds of all types of people, from teeny hoppers to insurance men, jostle each other up and down the Square.
There's something for everyone on Gaslight Square. From the old time melodramas at Crystal Palace, to the frenetic rock at The In Crowd and Whiskey A-Go-Go. From a 20c slab of pizza at Rosa Villa, to a $9.00 steak at Three Fountains. There are belly dancers, blaring dixieland bands, tinkling cocktail pianos, discotheques, singers, go-go girls, comics.
Sometimes the cops have to come to Gaslight Square, to break up a brawl or finger a dope pusher. Once in a while somebody gets murdered there.
But mostly, everybody has a good time. Night after night the thumping drums and wailing trumpets propel their siren voices through the open doors of the clubs, to blend in a way-out symphony that electrifies the humid air.
In the summer, Gaslight Square swings.