MoBar: a journalism (drinking) institution

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“Those were the days …”

A proper newspaper town (such as St. Louis was, which once had a number of competing morning and afternoon papers) must have a proper newspaper bar. A few have floated around Tucker Avenue just north of Washington Avenue, an area that was home to the old Globe-Democrat and is still the site of the Post-Dispatch newsroom.

The one that remains is Missouri Bar & Grille, also called MoBar (701 N. Tucker Blvd.). When I solicited stories that made MoBar, well, MoBar, from Post-Dispatch veterans, I got a lot of the same comments: “Those were the days.”

MoBar began as a hangout for Globe-Democrat journalists, while the Post-Dispatch had a bar across the street from it called The Press Box.

An Terry Ganey was an Associated Press reporter in the 1970s and worked out of both the Post-Dispatch and Globe-Democrat offices. He says Globe staffers would frequent Missouri Bar & Grille after the deadline for the morning paper.

“Sometimes, people would drink at the Grill until it closed, and then they would buy a six-pack there and drink beer on the sidewalk in front of the place until the wee hours of the morning,” Ganey adds. He recalls a city editor from the Globe “chewing out a reporter at the Grill when he found out the reporter didn’t subscribe to his own newspaper.”

When The Press Box closed, P-D employees shifted to Missouri Bar & Grille.

“Mostly, I remember going there on the day the Globe-Democrat announced that it was folding,” longtime Post-Dispatch reporter Harry Levins says. “Along the bar, any sense of rivalry died along with the Globe.”

“There were two Greek brothers (Ernie and – heck, I cannot remember the darling one) who presided over the Mo. Grill and took it in stride when a member of the sports department had a canoe stretching across several tables for weeks, as I remember,” says Sally Bixby Defty, another former Post-Dispatch employee. “There were stringent social standards: fifth floor people (news, features, sports) socialized together or with printers. NOBODY socialized with the (despised) advertising types from the sixth floor.”

Repps Hudson, a former reporter, recalls that MoBar is where the publisher met with newsroom staff over the course of months to hear complaints about the editor, which resulted in the editor being fired.

Tony Lazorko is a former art director at the Post-Dispatch. His major memory of MoBar is an evening when journalists downed six rounds of Schnapps shooters “and went behind the bar to ‘assist’ a young lady who had a whip to keep people in line.” One of the journalists thought the crowd was getting out of line, so he took the whip. “In the ensuing mayhem of snapping whip and people trying  get outta the way, every table and its contents came crashing down on the floor. The two young owners came out of the back room to see what the ruckus was all about, and broke into loud laughter!”

A more recent memory comes from former Post-Dispatch page designer Danielle Newman, who recalls sitting in MoBar in the early morning hours of the 2000 presidential election “after we’d put the paper to bed with George Bush as the winner.”

“Around about 2am, the TV news on at the MoBar started showing headlines along the lines of ‘Al Gore retracts concession.’ That’s when the higher ups started to get worried looks on their faces. I think we ended up going to the office at 6 the next morning to do an extra.”

Today, MoBar is still frequented by journalists, but the plethora of fancier bars that sprang up along Washington Avenue has diluted its title as the one destination bar for journalists.

As Levins says: “Switching to morning publication seemed to put a dent in Post-Dispatch drinking. In the P.M. days, most of us got off around 3 p.m., leaving a few hours to drink before the dinner hour. But the A.M. schedule kept people at work later. What’s more, the composition of the newsroom was changing. Instead of the largely raffish batch of 1971, the younger reporters were better educated, came from higher up on the socioeconomic ladder and, in their Yuppy-ish way, preferred a glass or two of white wine to five or six bottles of beer. Also, many of the new young reporters were women, less given to hell-raising.”

Bixby Defty recalls: “That was back when people drank a LOT… before the New Prissiness came in. My, but we had fun.”

(Looking for MoBar’s exact location? It’s noted on this map of Washington Avenue and the downtown area.)

Beer app! Get your free St. Louis beer app!

St. Louis is a beer town. Sure, there’s Anheuser-Busch. But there’s oh so much more, too.

In fact, Post-Dispatch beer blogger Evan Benn has his own beer app, perfect for shopping, bar hopping and some good old-fashioned beer known-how.

The app includes Benn’s reviews and star ratings for about 200 beers from St. Louis and beyond, searchable by brewery or style, plus notes and beer lists from about 50 St. Louis bars, restaurants, brewpubs and retail shops.

Download the free Hip Hops Beer Guide at stltoday.com/beerapp.

Meet the Weatherbird

The first Weatherbird, left, was drawn by Harry B. Martin and published Feb. 11, 1901. The Bird often celebrates notable events, like the completion of the Gateway Arch in 1965. He first appeared in color in the 1980s.

The Weatherbird is a Post-Dispatch tradition, and the oldest continuously running daily cartoon in American journalism. The first Bird was published Feb. 11, 1901. (He’s an Aquarius.) Since then, he (or sometimes she) has rarely been at a loss for a few pithy words.

The original Weatherbird, drawn by Harry B. Martin, was quite literally a silent “weather” bird. Martin thought he would need six versions (sun, rain, snow, cloudy, hot and very cold) to cover the range of St. Louis weather conditions, but he soon realized the Bird had a lot more to say. Before long he was drawing a new Weatherbird each day that was related to something in the news.

Over the past 100 years, the Weatherbird, and the Birding process, have evolved. Today, the full-color Bird is drawn by Dan Martin, and Post-Dispatch copy editors gather to come up with the Bird’s quips, known as Bird lining. The top five submissions are then put to a public vote on the Weatherbird’s blog, The Bird’s Nest. The quip with the most votes appears on A1 of the next day’s paper.

Weatherbird artists

Only six men have drawn the Weatherbird, and three have been named Martin (all unrelated).

Harry B. Martin // 1901-1903
Martin came up with the Weatherbird while on a trip when he saw comical photos of young birds with gaping bills.

Oscar Chopin // 1903-1910
Chopin expanded the Bird’s role, using him as the central figure in a news cartoon. During the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, Chopin made sure the Weatherbird reported from the fair every day.

S. Carlisle Martin // 1901-1932
Martin is best known for changing the Bird’s appearance to look more like a frog than a bird. Martin also changed the focus of the Weatherbird’s commentary, moving from weather and news quotes to more controversial topics regarding local and regional mishaps. During Martin’s tenure, the Bird established a “six words or less” Bird line pattern that is still in place today.

Amadee Wohlschlaeger // 1932-1981
Known simply as Amadee, the fourth Weatherbird artist modified the Bird’s bill, again making him more frog-like in appearance. Amadee’s birds were recognized by their loud sports coats and cigars

Albert Schweitzer // 1981-1986
Schweitzer was the first to draw the Weatherbird in color. He also was known for drawing Birds wearing bow ties.

Dan Martin // 1986-present
Martin has worked to make the Weatherbird more bird-like in appearance. He was the first to draw a “floating” Weatherbird outside of a traditional box.

About the Post-Dispatch

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch building in July 1962. Post-Dispatch archives

St. Louis Post-Dispatch  //  900 N. Tucker Blvd., St. Louis  //  800.365.0820  //  @stltoday and @weatherbird

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch began on the steps of the St. Louis Courthouse. On Dec. 9, 1878, a handful of people showed up for a public auction of the bankrupt St. Louis Dispatch. Joseph Pulitzer, 31, bought the paper’s name and press for $2,500.

Pulitzer, a Hungarian immigrant, came to America to join the Union Army in 1864. After the Civil War, he moved to St. Louis where he became a reporter for the German-language Westliche Post in 1868. Four years later, Pulitzer bought the Post for $3,000; he sold his stake for a profit in 1873. After buying the Dispatch, Pulitzer merged the papers.

Pulitzer vowed to make his paper a voice for reform. The paper hammered tax dodgers, gamblers, corrupt politicians and railroads on the take. The editor-publisher’s nervous energy permeated the paper. “Mr. Pulitzer was the damndest best man in the world to have in the newspaper office for one hour in the morning,” managing editor John A. Cockerill later said. “For the remainder of the day, he was a damned nuisance.”

The Post-Dispatch also dabbled in sensationalism. On Oct. 13, 1882, the paper made sensation news itself when hot-tempered lawyer Alonzo Slayback carried a grievance against the paper into Cockerill’s office. Fists flew, and Cockerill fatally shot the lawyer.

Pulitzer left St. Louis for New York, where he bought the down-and-out New York World in 1883. William Randolph Hearst bought the rival New York Journal from Pulitzer’s brother Albert in 1895, which led to a circulation war. The competition, particularly coverage before and during the Spanish-American War, gave rise to “yellow journalism.”

When Pulitzer died in 1911, control of the World went to his sons Ralph and Herbert. The consolation prize, the Post-Dispatch, went to “Young Joe,” the second Joseph Pulitzer. Twenty years later, Ralph and Herbert Pulitzer went to court to sell the World. It was bought by Roy Howard for his Scripps-Howard chain. Howard closed the World and laid off the staff; the final issue was printed Feb. 27, 1931.

The Post-Dispatch, however, continued to prosper. Although the paper made “Young Joe” wealthy, his priorities put profits below the news. When a business manager suggested cutting news hole, Pulitzer snapped: “You cannot edit a newspaper with a yardstick or a meat axe.”

Like his father, Joseph Pulitzer mounted local crusades. The paper persuaded Congress to impeach a despotic federal judge in East St. Louis in 1926. Ten years later, reporters dug up a sleazy story of voting fraud in St. Louis. In 1940, the Post-Dispatch foiled a scheme by Missouri Democrats to steal the gubernatorial election. Relentless campaigning forced the city to clean its air by mandating smokeless coal. And relentless reporting following a 1947 coal mine disaster in Illinois turned up shabby dealings by that state’s regulators.

Pulitzer pushed to cover events outside of the St. Louis area. The paper’s Washington bureau refused to let go of an oil-leasing scandal known as the Teapot Dome case. Gritty reporting put grafters in prison and, in 1927, gave the paper its second Pulitzer Prize. In 1945, the Washington bureau dug up another sleazy deal involving oil and politics, and brought the paper another Pulitzer Prize. Six years later, the bureau uncovered graft among federal tax collectors, leading to bureaucratic reform, prison sentences and another Pulitzer Prize.

At Joseph Pulitzer’s right hand for much of his tenure was a legend in American journalism: O.K. Bovard. From 1908 to 1938, Bovard reigned as managing editor. On Nov. 7, 1918, Bovard scoffed at word from the United Press that World War I had ended. The rival evening paper, the St. Louis Star, printed an extra and crowds went wild with glee, but Bovard stood his ground. He was right: The news was premature by four days.

The strong-willed Pulitzer and strong-willed Bovard were bound to clash. Things came to a head in 1938, during the Great Depression, when Bovard called for a Post-Dispatch crusade in favor of nationalized industry and Pulitzer refused. Bovard pinned a resignation note on a bulletin board and walked out of the newsroom forever.

In 1951, the St. Louis Star-Times, the paper’s evening competition, went belly up and the Post-Dispatch had a healthy edge in circulation over its morning rival, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat.

Four years later, the second Joseph Pulitzer died. Another Joseph Pulitzer stepped in — the grandson of the founder. To add confusion to the paper’s history, the third Pulitzer was known as Joseph Jr. or “J.P. Jr.”

Joseph Pulitzer Jr. had grown up wealthy and had a great appreciation for culture and art; he introduced a Music and Arts page in 1956. But he did not shy from hard news. In 1971, the Post-Dispatch defied the federal government by publishing excerpts from “The Pengaton Papers,” a secret history of the Vietnam War. The Supreme Court eventually upheld the paper’s defiance.

In the 1970s, Pulitzer pushed Linotype machines and letterpress presses out in favor of new computerized typesetting and offset presses. But the dominance of the evening paper began to fade, replaced by television programming. In February 1984, Pulitzer switched the paper to a morning publication, going head-to-head with the Globe-Democrat. Two years and two owners later, the Globe-Democrat folded. (Late in 1987 and out-of-town entrepreneur started a rival paper, the tabloid St. Louis Sun. It lasted seven months. In 1994, the Globe-Democrat name resurfaced as a free paper, largely recounting historical events. On Dec. 8, 2009, an online newspaper under the Globe-Democrat name was launched.)

In 1986, Pulitzer relinquished his titles as editor and publisher; he remained board chairman of Pulitzer Publishing. When Pulitzer died in 1993, his position as chairman went to his half-brother Michael Pulitzer, who was already the company’s president. On Jan. 31, 2005, Michael Pulitzer announced the sale of Pulitzer Inc. and all of its assets, including the Post-Dispatch, to Lee Enterprises of Davenport, Iowa, for $1.46 billion.