By Jerry F. Schimmel
FRISCO'S anti-Barbary Coast faction must have been celebrating on March 11, 1937, the day the owner of the Hippodrome at 555 Pacific Ave. took down sculptor Arthur Putnam's controversial panels.
Two plaster castings revealed satyrs and wood nymphs nakedly cavorting. Their antics had decorated the building's entrance for three decades.
Church leaders and other advocates of righteousness had deplored the panels for 30 years. The figures were lewd, they said, and their anatomy was too detailed.
Cameras flashed on that day 60 years ago when workmen carried away the heavy squares. Newspapers announced the panels had been purchased by an unnamed New York art collector. They were replaced by streamer-draped nymphettes.
Putnam's castings were sculpted in 1907 during construction of the Hippodrome, one of scores of saloons and dance halls crowded into six blocks of the Barbary Coast. Putnam would become famous, but he was broke in the years just after the 1906 earthquake. Odd jobs like the satyr and nymph kept bread on the table.
The sculptor became the first American to exhibit in France's Palais Legion d'Honneur. In time he attracted wealthy patrons like Alma de Bretteville Spreckels, the Crocker banking family and pub- view at the California Legion of his mountain lions and pioneers on publisher E.W. Scripps.
His sculptures have been on view at the California Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park since it opened in 1924. Easier to find are his mountain lions and pioneers on
more than 300 cast-iron lampposts placed on along Market Street's "Path of Gold" in 1916.
A childhood concussion left him unable to work in his last years. Drinking eased the pain but
drove away his wife and children. He died in Paris in 1930 after briefly recovering his strength.
To many, he was San Francisco's greatest artist.
The Hippodrome's name was first applied to a now-bland brick building across the street at 560 Pacific St., later renamed as "avenue." Frank Schivo opened the original there in 1911 and kept it going until Prohibition. In the mid-19208, the name moved across the street to 555. No one remembers why.
In the years before the Barbary Coast was closed down in 1917, the building that then housed Hippodrome No. 2 included four other dance halls and a shady hotel. By 1911 there were the Old Campfire at 551, the Comstock at 553, the Moulin Rouge at 555 and Jack Dougherty's Montana at 557.
Underneath Dougherty's and down a set of wooden stairs, a fifth revival of the Bella Union Theatre opened in 1909. On the second floor reached by stairs at 559, the Montana Hotel provided cheap space for gentlemen with willing ladies.
Room accommodations and escort services were handled by Dougherty's bartenders and the upstairs bouncer.
Several partners owned the Moulin Rouge, or Red Mill, as it was sometimes called. The best known was Charlie Landau, who ran a dance hall on the same spot from 1902 to 1906 until it was destroyed in the earthquake and fire.
The Moulin was raided by police and closed in 1915. Bar girls were caught working the dance floor long after they had been banned.
In 1997, Pacific Avenue is as sedate as "Terrific Street" was rowdy. Phil Malik's upscale office furniture emporium occupies the Campfire and Comstock saloons and the Moulin Rouge.
Bentley Carpets occupies the Montana. Stairs to the Bella Union are boarded over. The hotel rooms provide offices for travel agents, bookkeepers and sundry enterprises that thrive in creaky buildings.
The news is that the satyr and nymph panels never left town. On walks through the old Barbary Coast, I found one in storage and the other on private display. None of the owners had been aware of their history.
Ninety years later, Putnam's low-relief castings look tame in comparison with, for example, the signs for Broadway stripper clubs.
Putnam's work is still worth viewing for its own sake. Maybe a day will come when his Terpsichoreans can strut publicly.
San Francisco Examiner
Sept. 12, 1997
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