Liberty's seedy side was quirky, colorful

Let us pay homage today to a slice of soon-to-vanish Pittsburgh.

Let us pay tribute to the southern side of the 900 block of Liberty Avenue, Downtown.

The empty buildings along that stretch tell a tale of the seamier days of Liberty. They relate the story of a bygone era when it wasn't safe to walk the street after dark without having to fear a possible holdup, drug or prostitution solicitation or machete attack.

The buildings in that block, directly across the street from the William S. Moorhead Federal Building, are about to meet the wrecking ball. They are being demolished to make way for a $33 million African American Cultural Center that the city hopes will spruce up the area near the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.

Among the buildings being torn down is Jack's Sportshaven, at the corner of Liberty Avenue and 10th Street.

For years, Jack's sported a sign out front boasting that it was the only Downtown bar with cable TV -- a patently false statement.

This dive, which closed in 2000, didn't brag about the career drinkers who were smashed well before lunchtime and the toothless working women who bided their time there between "appointments."

Next door was the Liberty Tavern, a place where you could watch a good knife fight or supersize your meal with a cache of drugs -- until Denise Gaynor, of Friendship, bought the place eight years ago.

Gaynor cleaned up the crowd, turned the menu into something you need not fear and had a loyal following when she closed the doors in March. She now runs the Tonic Bar & Grill across the street.

Next to the Liberty Tavern was a grassy patch on which the long-vacated Mary Ryan's bar and the Palace burlesque theater stood before they were razed in 2002 -- probably seconds before the dilapidated structures would have toppled on their own.

On the other side of the grassy patch was the Chez Kimberly, a strip joint run by divorced couple Ralph Maiette and Sally McKenzie, who didn't care much for each other. That the place stayed in business for nearly 30 years is inexplicable.

The performers at the Chez, which closed in April, were seldom glamorous. They were, even to the average exotic dancer, what limping horses bound for the glue factory are to Kentucky Derby entries.

Or, you know, so I've heard.

Next to the Chez was Steve's Valet, a tailor shop whose owner, Theo Kourkoutis, sold deep-sea sponges and miniature copper diving helmets in addition to altering suits. I asked him why once while interviewing him for a column.

"I love deep-sea diving," he explained.

Fair enough.

Kourkoutis' business wasn't harmed by standing next to a grimy, green adult bookstore.

As many people were seen entering that place as the Hoagie Hut next to the porn place that closed, I believe, sometime during the administration of the first President Bush.

Nothing against the African-American Cultural Center, but what the city is about to gain in aesthetic improvement, it will lose in character as these colorful buildings and their former inhabitants are lost to local history.