There are men comparing the tightness of their pants before breaking out into popular dance moves from the ‘90s while holding a Busch bottle and a cigarette in the same hand. There are shots “poured” from lighted, bartop dispensers containing liquor that isn’t necessarily what’s advertised on the machine. We hear the Pet Shop Boys’ West End Girls twice in our 90-minutes, reminding us that we’re living “In West End town, a dead end world.”
This is the 34 Club on a Friday night, a scene with a limited lifespan.
In time, not that much time, really, the 34 Club will pass on to the great tavern graveyard in the sky. The plot on which it sits, 32–40 N. Euclid, will, in the new year, be turned into a $31 million, mixed-use development by the Koman Group. This’ll be the latest in a series of ambitious new buildings on-and-around Euclid. Along with the 34 Club, a neighboring cleaners, the Tip Top, will be uprooted; in their case, by the end of November. The timeline for the 34 Club seems a bit variable, though a blowout New Year’s Eve party may very well be the room’s final hurrah.
There are striking similarities between the bar’s aesthetic and its patrons: there’s new and old, gay and straight, rich and poor. It’s not a stretch to say that the bar reflects a slice of the CWE’s long-lived diversity.
Modern amenities like a digital jukebox and tablet cash register sit alongside vintage ones, like images of the Rat Pack (who local lore claims to have once visited the bar) and weathered restroom facilities, outside of which an oil painting of The World’s Most Interesting Man follows you with his eyes. The back bar is lined with sheets of holed particle board you’d find in a work room or garage. When you look—really look—at the room you see the countless small bits of renovation, overhaul, change.
The wall says they offer TJ’s Pizza—a known staple for dive bars—and there are chips attached to columns of clips, which hang alongside above a Cardinals foam finger and under signs that read “Warning: Smoking Allowed Here.” Where there aren’t tables or booths there are chest-high stacks of unboxed beer bottles that could be used as bar tables in a pinch.
It’s dark and it’s red and frequented by doormen from the Central Corridor’s highrises, medical students needing a night away from their studies, and others who’ve been coming here so long they do chores as if they’re the staff. Maybe they empty those ashtrays and bus glasses in exchange for a beer, sort of like the man in tattered jeans, tennis shoes, and a cap who opened the storage closet and pointed the remote at something inside until an image flickered on the TV above him.
As one regular patron put it, “This place’s days are numbered. But I don’t think it’s a week or a month or even five months.” Turns out it’s two months: on December 31st the 34 Club will ring in the new year while ringing out the last 74.
For years, the CWE enjoyed a trio of these places: the 34, itself; Rosie’s, just around the corner on Laclede and still thriving; and the currently-shuttered Jimmy & Andy’s (aka J & A’s), just a hop-skip away on Newstead. The neighborhood rumor mill’s got that one coming back, though slowly. And there’s light talk of the 34 finding a new home, somewhere, in the neighborhood.
Drinking isn’t about getting drunk. It’s about sitting among strangers, embracing the ambiance, and nursing a beverage until it’s time for another. It’s about sitting in a place that’s been there for decades and isn’t ashamed to show its age, its character, or its faults. Drinking is about discovery, about ruminations, and admiring establishments before they’re gone.
34 Club
34 N. Euclid
CWE
314-367-6674
34 Club photo from October 31, 2014
