08.10.24
Architectural Artifacts of St. Louis, St. Louis, MO
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Bruce Gerrie is Bob Cassilly's friend and collaborator. He is the founder of Architectural Artifacts of St. Louis and American Timber Salvage.

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Daniil:

I want to ask a few questions about your time at Cementland.

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Bruce Gerrie:

I remember the morning of 9/11. We were living out there on the boat. I call it a boat because there were no boats aboard, and therefore, as per the Navy, it would be just a boat. But it actually was five stories out of the river and 250 feet long. And we were sitting there the morning of 9/11 and watching TV with the World Trade Center, out 400 feet on the Mississippi River.

That was just a morning I remember. Bob Cassilly was quite a guy, and I somehow followed him out onto his boat and built a cabin there, below the lock and dam where the water was coming down from the cataract. That part of the river had been declared unnavigable by the Army Corps. We were able to moor 400 feet out into the river, and that's where the former Portland Cement plant had moored the barges that would transport their concrete.

It was quite an exciting time, and Bob was an incredible person. He was working over at that cement plant across the road. Every morning he would leave early, and every evening he would come in at about dusk, about six o'clock. I remember in the warmer weather, he would clean himself off every single day: he was on the bow of this shovel nose dredge, and he would jump off the bow into the Mississippi River and float down to the end of the boat. And as I mentioned, the boat was 250 feet long, and it was a wisp of a rope, a frayed end of a piece of hemp that Bob would catch onto and pull himself out every single time. Myself, I was completely opposite of Bob in these kinds of things. I threw a few objects into the river off the boat to determine where the current was going to bring me ashore, so I knew where I could tread water to and wouldn't panic if I did go overboard. I knew I had to go out a quarter mile down before I should proceed towards the shore.

Anyway, we had a lot of really cool times out there, but we had a frightening night during that year. That was the year 2001, when the Mississippi River reached flood stage and was rising a foot an hour. That meant that we had to raise the lines up a rung an hour. And the boat had gone through an auction and had been severely stripped. I can remember Dave Jump telling me, "If the Coast Guard boards this boat, you better have a bucket full of poo."

That night, it was what I call a situation. It was almost dark, and we were raising these lines with these cable binders that weighed about a hundred pounds. And all of a sudden, somebody dropped a hundred pound cable clamp, and it fell into the Mississippi River. Soon thereafter, the rear of the boat came about, and we were perpendicular to the river. My father had been a combat engineer with explosives, and he had told me how to take out a bridge. When the military would take out bridges, they'd just give it a bump. That was going through my mind at that point, and it was one of the few times I've ever been afraid a little bit. 

But we made it to morning, and that morning was a different day. I had myself a little bit of an attitude. A few months later, Bob asked me if I wanted to contribute to keeping the boat out there on the pier, because it was going to cost 40 grand for the insurance. And I told him I didn't really want to.

So I got myself a loft the next year, but it was a pretty exciting year. I continued to see Bob at the cement plant. He'd be leading his guys, or else there'd be 300 dump trucks backed up, his lady friend screaming her ass off running up the mountain, and she'd stop 300 trucks just like that. Bob said it was the tallest earthwork in North America, and the trucks were bringing the dirt up. He did up to 300 trucks a day, and they were paying like $15. He wasn't getting any money. The other guy, John Patzius, was getting the money, I think.

At one point, Bob received his interest in the Museum and went on a spending spree. The City of St. Louis had deaccessioned dozens of buses, and Bob got a couple dozen. I forgot what he was going to make, but he had no use for the diesel motors, so they were taking those out and selling them. But that was fruitless—he went to Europe, and when he came back, he had a big hole in his pocket. 

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Daniil:

That boat you lived in by Cementland, did Bob want to keep it as just a hangout spot or was he going to do something else with it?

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Bruce Gerrie:

No, he was going to live there. But as I said, Dave wanted 40 grand for the insurance. When Dave took it back, it was really cool what he did with it. That guy is a genius. A shovel nose dredge has two anchors on the bow. So what they do is they drop the anchor, release the cable, and the boat floats back 200 yards. So Dave took that boat with that apparatus for his barge company, and moved barges at his facility on that side of the river. You can still see it there.

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Daniil:

We heard from some crew folks that there were maybe plans of installing generators on the boat to power Cementland.

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Bruce Gerrie:

We had all kinds of things going on. That maybe was an idea. We had a water tap that cost like $150 for a period of time. We had water and electricity. We got all that together. There were only three of us on that boat, and girls would come and go.

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Daniil:

So did the boat come before Cementland?

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Bruce Gerrie:

No, that was after Cementland. He was already working on Cementland. That was in the year 2000. We opened City Museum in ‘97, so it was three years there, and somewhere in those three years he started it.

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Daniil:

Were you contributing salvage to Cementland?

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Bruce Gerrie:

They didn't use much salvage there, except for dirt. I remember in 2008, I was wrecking and taking apart a whole grain elevator facility in Illinois. It took me about a year and a half. And one of the machines was all wooden, so I brought that over there, and we installed it into Bob’s machinery shed, where he was going to do his exhibit. There were always things I was finding.

One of Bob's main sources toward the end of his life was the Central Library downtown. He got all these double-sided bookcases, and he set them up in one of the lower parts of that building that he was going to use for his exhibit space. And he had three dozen of these double-sided cases in there. And I said, "What are you going to do with that?" He said, "Well, I'm going to fill them full of things, like our own oddities." I said, 'Like what?" He said, "Well, like your propensity to collect doorknobs." He didn't use that word, but that's what he said.

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Daniil:

When did you and Bob start working together in the first place?

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Bruce Gerrie:

It might've been '73. It was right around St. Patrick's Day. Bob and his wife had just moved into the front house over on Albion. Bob was in the front house, and I was in the back, in a carriage house. They came over, and ever since that day to the day he died, we were instantly friends and then best friends. He was always doing stuff to help me.

One time back in the beginning, Bob comes into my house. We had a two story bay window we had contracted for. Our old bay window had fallen into the alley, the whole thing—it was a 150 year old house. So we had two story windows made, and they are still there in Lafayette square. And in the contract, they did the rough plaster but not the finish work. So Bob comes in one morning and says, "I'll plaster your bay if you take me skydiving". And I said something like, "Bob, I gave that up." But I started thinking about it, and I said, "Well, okay." 

So we go over to Sparta, Illinois, and I get him the lessons. I had him jump off a refrigerator and that kind of shit. So we're jumping static line, and there's 300 feet of the chord that's coming off before the pin gets pulled, and the chute comes off the back hard. And the other information you need is that you must maintain the hard arch until the chute opens. I guess he missed that part, because I'm watching as he jumps out with a backwards somersault, and he starts going through his static line. I'm watching him, and he's falling like 300 feet, really going fast. He's knocked out—you get knocked out immediately. And if you don't do anything, without a chute you hit the ground in 16 seconds. But he was always the luckiest guy, and the chute opened off his back just with the right rotation, and he was fine. He plastered my bay.

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Daniil:

So you were both working on projects in Lafayette Square around that time?

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Bruce Gerrie:

Yeah, we both had our first houses.

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Daniil:

When did you move to Lafayette Square?

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Bruce Gerrie:

I came there in '71 or something like that. Later on, about '73, I bought a house for $1,800. I was young and handy—well, semi handy. I did it my way and never finished anything. Look at this, start this, on to something else.

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Daniil:

Was this right out of college for you?

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Bruce Gerrie:

Just about, yeah. A couple years out of college. I had to do a year and a half for the government. And then after that, I met Bob.

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Daniil:

And did you go to school for architecture?

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Bruce Gerrie:

No, I went to school as a writer and a historian. I was supposed to be a writer. We had a girl in our class that became famous. She's probably dead. My professor was just all over her; none of us could do anything right. It was always Ann. She was a year ahead of me, but she became a real writer. The professor was right: she had what it took.

I wasn't really a writer. My father groomed me to be a writer. I won a contest, which he helped me with writing. And I had a column in the town newspaper where I wrote about what was going on in the school I was in. And then later I tried too hard, and it frustrated me, so I gave it up.

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Daniil:

So what did you do when you were living in Lafayette Square?

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Bruce Gerrie:

Well, I was taking pictures right then. When I met Bob, I was taking pictures. And that's the first time I got Bob into jail.

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Daniil:

Oh, what happened?

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Bruce Gerrie:

I had a Nikon and a Pentax. A nice Nikon, and maybe not much of a Pentax, but it was a backup. All I was doing was taking pictures for schools. I was taking yearbook pictures and that kind of shit.

So I'm living in the carriage house, and Bob's living in the front house with his wife. And these guys break in and steal my cameras, so therefore I can't take any pictures. So Bob figures out who were the likely candidates, and lifts them up, and they come clean. Their mother gets wind of it and has Bob arrested by the St. Louis police for assault, because he had handled them. So we went down to the third precinct, and we got him out by getting a lawyer that was charging her children with theft. He never spent a night in jail.

Second time was when we had saved this church tower. Bob and I worked on the demolition of a church in 1978, St. Leo's at 23rd and Mullanphy, but this is another one. I forgot what year it was, but I woke up in the middle of one summer night. They were demoing this church, St. Henry's. I'd been a small part of the demolition business for 50 years, and I knew the demolition crew. So I was talking to Larry; they called him The Indian. He was an American Indian, big guy, good teeth. I said, "We're not going to wreck this today." And I hadn't even planned this. I hadn't even thought about it. And The Indian comes back with a real gruff voice and says, "Says who?" I've always thought pretty quick on my feet. I said, "The city." It's the biggest thing I could think of. So I said, "The city." And he says, "Oh."

So they pulled off the church, and we were able to save one of the towers. And we set it up like a rookery. We hired this mason we knew to brick up all the openings except for the top, so the birds would fly to the top, and we called it our rookery. And we'd cut the grass and this and that for five years. And then one Saturday morning, I come by, and they've got a full demolition crew. I knew the demolition team. And so I came over to their boss, and I called him by name, and I said, "Can we not do this today?" He says, "Well, Bruce, this is my breakout moment. I gotta do this. I can't help you."

I spent the sixties in Washington DC at a university, and there was a lot of activity in the latter part, protests and stuff. I saw some of that. So I went up there in front of all the equipment they had. They were going to try to pull it down with cables, and they were already engaged. They were ready to go. I sat down in front of it and crossed my legs Indian style, waiting. This St. Louis cop shows up; he was a motorcycle cop. I knew he was a motorcycle cop because he had those tall leather riding boots, and he was wearing jodhpurs or something. He comes over, and he's got a whip, and he starts switching me with his whip.

So the way they usually do it is the easy way or the hard way. You can go the hard way if you want, but I figured I'd take the easy ride. So I went for the easy ride, and he was switching me a little bit, and he took me up to the paddy wagon. There was an officer up there, and he told me to sit down. I was sitting down for about 45 minutes, and the officer was watching me. He says to me, "Isn't that your Jeep down there?" I had parked in the middle of the road. And I said, "Yeah, that's my Jeep." He said, "Don't you think you better move it?" And I said, "Yes, sir."

So I went down there, and I called Bob, and I told him, "Hey, they're wrecking our church." So he was going to come right down. I'm waiting for him, and he doesn't show up. I call him up, and he's at the filling station. We're both driving diesel motors, and he's put gasoline in his diesel motor. Those trucks shut down really quick when that happens. So he was stuck, and I had to go over and pick him up. So I picked him up in that Jeep, and we came back, and I said, "Bob, what do you wanna do?" And he says, "Let's pull over where you were sitting." So we pull over in the Jeep, right about to the same place I was. And it was a ragtop jeep. I don't know if you remember MacGyver from the eighties, but this was the MacGyver-mobile. There were so many snaps and whistles on this thing.

Bob and I, we got this ragtop all closed up. I don't know how many police were there, but they were being real conscientious. They don't want to get out the jaws of life or anything else they got in their arsenal. They're trying to just get the door open, and every time they get the door open, I lock it again. I get away with that about four times. And then on the fifth time, we had a draw. So I decided to go out the easy way. And they of course handcuffed me behind my back and took me to the paddywagon. I didn't get to see what happened to Bob, but they did deliver him later, and he was bloodied up. So we're in the police paddywagon, and we've got our hands behind our back with these handcuffs. And Bob's got his telephone in his hand behind his back, and he's trying to call somebody. And I said, "Bob, who are you trying to call?" You know what he said? "The police."

So they take us to the new headquarters of the third district and put us in a jail cell and take our shoes and our shoelaces in case we hang ourselves or whatever. Eventually, they let us out. We made bond; a friend of mine had a pocket full of cash—I think it was about a thousand bucks. But they had some evidence. I hadn't seen the altercation that Bob had gotten himself into, but evidently he ripped the shirt off some cop. And so they had a bloody shirt, and they weren't letting up.

So we hired a lawyer and copped a plea of littering. And then our buddy Greg Rhomberg made us celebrities down in his museum, Antique Warehouse. We had a lot of fun after that.

There was no brick salvaged from that church. Not because the brick cleaners weren't there. They were there, and they were chanting, "Whatcha gonna do when they come for you? Bad boys, bad boys." They were chanting that, but they were really just brick cleaners trying to get some money. I knew them because of my past relations. What eventually happened at the end of the day is there were no bricks cleaned, because that church was made with German mortar that was brought over in barrels from Germany before World War I. Incredible mortar. So there was no gain. It was all for nothing.

Our new alderman at the time was the one that called for that emergency demolition. There was no need for that. We were taking care of that ground. He actually just did a short run in the pen for receiving a bribe, and he just got out of jail. I took a little pleasure in his situation.

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Daniil:

How did you make the jump from photography to demolition business?

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Bruce Gerrie:

Well, I was still trying to write and not doing very well. After I had done my duty to the government, I went on a hiatus to Canada and wound up visiting this guy up on a river in Newfoundland that had a business stripping antiques of their paint. I spent a few days there and ended up trying it. The homeowners in Lafayette Square had a common dip tank that they were using for their doors. And I had a nice-sized garage behind my house, 25 feet wide. I put a dip tank in there, and I would change the doors out and hose them off, making a few dollars

One thing led to another. Since I could strip things, I was buying things I could strip, architectural things. That's probably what was the genesis of this whole 50 years of madness. Bob was with me for just about 40.

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Bruce Gerrie:

Bob said to me, "You're not the most logical person, but you're my best friend, and I want you to set up this architecture museum." And I said, "Well, what do you want me to do, Bob?" He said, "Just do your best." I said, "Well, I always do my best." Why would you not? Unless you are depressed. So you don't want to be depressed. 

That's why I smoke. I don't have any reason to be depressed, so with some kind of medication, I can alleviate the depression. I have no reason—you should see where I live. I live in the country; I have a mile of clear water. I live in paradise. I built my own house, a beautiful house. And you're not supposed to finish your house, because then you die. That's what they say.

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