The Umbrella Shop is not yet open for business on South Grand, and there’s certainly no sign suggesting otherwise. Yet when the doors are open to the street, people just keep stopping by.
You can’t blame them for that. The doors at 3127 South Grand Boulevard have been locked since protests over Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson spread to south city nine years ago — and plenty of people are wondering what might be happening beneath that familiar pawn shop sign.
“We have had so many people poking their head in,” says Troy Howard. “They’re just so excited to see the space activated.”
Before it was a pawn shop, vandalized and then shut down for good, before it was a Kroger grocery store in the 1950s, this was, yes, an umbrella shop. That was in 1908. And now as Howard and his collaborators prepare the storefront for its latest iteration, they’re taking the old name back, but applying it to a distinctly different concept: a community event space and studio that will combine visual arts, live music and even circus arts.
The collaborators each bring their own areas of expertise. Lindy Wormwood, who performs as Zephyrina the Ethereal, wants to bring a tightrope to the space and host workshops and classes in aerial arts and bottle walking. David Bell, who goes all the way back to Commons Lane Elementary with Howard, followed by McCluer North High School, is a musician and promoter who knows everyone in the St. Louis scene.
At its center, though, is Howard, who grew up in Ferguson and recently moved back to St. Louis from Portland. He worked for Twitter in its early days, which he credits with giving him the financial means to purchase this building and not have to worry about a profit-driven model for its mortgage. He’s able to continue to work remotely in what he describes as “international community development for the tech industry.” This is his side project.
It’s quite a project. At a recent weekend “sneak peek” at the space for various friends and people in the arts community, a host of local artists displayed their work both on the walls and on top of the old display cases that once held pawned items. Giant amps and colored lights speak to the sprawling backroom’s promise as a BYOB club. Howard even dreams of closing the street behind the shop to traffic and extending the community space out the back, with berths for food trucks. (You can read more about their plans, including the plans for a second community space in Dutchtown, at cicadaalley.com.)
Howard plans to let artists sell their work without the shop taking a percentage. “I don’t believe artists should be exploited,” he says. “The galleries that take a cut are not a community effort.” He’s also open to non-traditional artists — one of whom, he explains, he met because the guy saw the doors were open and just came on in.
“He said, ‘You’re an art gallery, can I give you these?’” Howard recalls, and the man — whom he now knows as Tuna — displayed the paintings he’s made on old pieces of granite. “I told him, ‘These are amazing! Do you have more of these?’” They’re now for sale.
Howard’s story is interrupted by a father and his young son, drawn by those open doors. “Hi, come on in,” Wormwood tells them.
“See what I mean?” Howard asks. “We’re getting to meet the community. People do this all day long.”
As Howard shows father and son the various pieces of art now on display, Wormwood vouches for the big plans he’s just described. She explains that they met hanging out on the Loop when they were just kids.
“I’ve known him since I was 13,” she says. “I’m 38 now. I’ve watched him dream a lot of crazy dreams — and then actually go through with it. I’ve seen him pull ideas like this to fruition. I have total faith this is happening.” As if to prove the truth of her words, the father and son duo end up purchasing a piece of art.
Howard explains that it’s only because he’s left Portland for St. Louis that he can pursue this dream. “A building there costs three times what it costs here,” he says.
This building wasn’t in great shape. Walking in was like walking into a crime scene, Howard says, with the vandalism from 2014 simply closed off and gone untouched until a new owner was ready to deal with it. Beyond the mess, they found all the detritus of the pawn shop, which included an ungodly number of clarinets. (Apparently many are pawned, but few reclaimed.) He’s since had to shore up the back wall simply to keep the building from collapsing.
He sees symmetry in Ferguson-related protests shutting down the building and now the money he made from Twitter helping to reopen it, since Twitter first helped spread news of what was happening in Ferguson to the rest of the world. “There’s sort of a redemption arc here,” he says.
Howard hopes that, once the Umbrella Shop is open for real in the next year, it can become a piece of the artistic ecosystem he’s been inspired by since he was a teenager — even if people in places like Portland don’t see it.
“St. Louis is very good at understanding its own value,” he says. “But people outside St. Louis can’t. I want to make that happen here. I want St. Louis to be regarded for the arts culture we have here.”
As the trio walks a reporter to the door, another couple is just poking their heads in. “Welcome to the Umbrella Shop,” Howard says.
“I’ve heard it called that before,” the man says, and then it’s his turn to get a tour, his chance to see the big dreams taking shape behind that old pawn shop marquee.
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