Circo’s Bar at 3231 Harney Street was once the convenient, corner pocket, a kind of warm neighborhood tavern trussed by a steady hard core of regulars. Built in the mid 1920’s, decades before the Circo family took the keys, the sturdy, little, one-story, brick and stucco, commercial building in the southeast nook of 33rd and Harney presented a stylish, gabled, red clay tiled roof, Tudor half timbering, and the quaint dormer windows of an English village. It was the angled corner entrance, in my estimation, that was its distinguishing characteristic, for it seemed to my little girl eyes that only the best of older buildings extended this quirky, recessed welcome. I now know that many of these angled entries opened into bars and pharmacies. To some, indistinguishable establishments.

 

 

 

 

 

Corner entry door as seen in November of 2020. I adore this little recessed entry and love imagining what it looked like back when it was built. The dream-worthy architectural characteristics of this building are the originals as well as the amended—the dormer windows, the gables, the timbering, the quatrefoils, the doors on the western side, the bricked up doors and windows…all of the clues make it such fun to study.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think in memory, it had a yellow and white bulbous Circo’s Bar bracket sign secured to that quatrefoil pattern corner entry with traditional storefront display windows. The Mutual of Omaha lunch and liquid lunch crowd, along with some older neighborhood fellows who shuffled over in observance of their circadian rhythm and naturally, the American Linen Supply workers from 3227 Harney, made up the bulk of the midday crowd. The surrounding residential area, on the cusp of busy Harney Street– once rated by city officials as the worst, rippling, chuckholed thoroughfare in all of this city, bordered the Mutual of Omaha campus and shaped the character and makeup of Circo’s nighttime clientele.

 

 

 

I have often written about the local watering hole–these important community halls and the sad decline of the American neighborhood bar since the end of World War II but there was always something special about that corner Circo’s Bar, tucked into that dark stretch of town. In my rumination, it had become its own public character, causing hundreds if not thousands of the Curious Thirsty to go in and look the place over. To a young stranger attracted to the tavern from quick glimpses stolen in passing, it was surprising to hear that many in my group of friends did not carry a similar torch for Circo’s Bar.

 

 

 

From the lights at 33rd and Harney. On 33rd Street, facing south.

 

 

This is a short piece I wrote for University of Nebraska Press. It was originally posted to their website on November 24, 2020. For our purposes today, I have expanded the article to include photographs, ephemera and wanderings.

 

 

The Omaha-beloved Spielbound Board Game Cafe now calls the once Circo’s Bar their home and after much renovation, have dedicated the whole building to their non-profit library of board games cafe. Hugely popular with board game enthusiasts and curiosity seekers, Kaleb Michaud and his team of volunteers have created a special place for fantasy, competition and community. Curiously Spielbound carries the “next-door” address of 3229 Harney rather than the 3231 Harney Street address.

 

 

 

 

 

The Dewey Apartments at 3301 Dewey Avenue. Bostwick, Louis (1868-1943) and Frohardt, Homer (1885-1972). The Durham Musuem. February of 1931. Camera faces southwest corner of 33rd and Dewey.

 

 

Sometime in the mid-1980s, my boyfriend at the time moved into the historic Dewey Apartments located at 3301 Dewey Avenue, to the south of Circo’s and that proximity to both this hidden chamber and its clientele is what escalated my infatuation. The apartments were of a studio, shotgun style built in 1910. Lovely. We pretended we were the Velvet Underground living out our NYC days awaiting Warhol’s next instruction. Dressing in the many, varying  shades of black vintage, thrift store clothes, with a sulking intolerance for the mainstream, I would hide my private interest in the mysterious, perspiring bar windows and the smoky, neon lit patrons of Circo’s. Like a teen anthropologist, I would observe the night herds I saw migrating from covert cars to the corner bar through the casements and balcony of The Dewey. Later their well oiled dancing and stumbling and hooting down the curving back alley of Dewey Avenue along the Dewey Park wall of trees were assessed to be of the adult world.

 

Take stock of the current Dewey Apartments. Still a beaut. Camera faces south. The periphery of Dewey Park seen on the left.

 

 

Two residences east caddy-corner of The Dewey. The hidden mystery stucco house (seen left in this photo) at 411 South 33rd Street was directly south of Circo’s Bar.  Obsessed with it. The corner apartment building next-door has always intrigued! Not many like this in town. In fact, I could never get a handle on this one. 425 South 33rd Street is listed as a commercial building built in the 1950s but I swear older folks would sit out front in the 1980s.

 

 

 

Meandering off to the east is Dewey Avenue. This is one of the best, little-used streets that only those in the neighborhood utilize. The Circo’s Bar patrons would park on this curving road on a busy night. There was a fence and used to be deep thicket of volunteer trees all along this southern edge that bordered Dewey Park. The trees grew through that rickety fence and was destroyed in place, which served as a nice cut-through for all sorts to the ne’er-do-well park far below. All of that has changed now. Dewey Park has been revitalized and I’ve got many younger tennis-playing friends who are none the wiser.

 

 

 

A Smidgeon of History

 

 

 

Early Years

 

Our Circo’s Bar building at 3231 Harney carries the legal name of Reeds 6^th Addition, Lot 8, Block 0. The Lot 8, Block 0 encapsulates 3231 and 3229 Harney as well as other addresses assigned to the building. Traveling back in time, before this Tudor structure was even built, Edna L. Jacobs and her husband sold the corner lot to E. B. Gibbs for $5,000 in 1924. To be clear as mud, an “undivided half interest in 3229 Harney.” A bit of chiseling on this would reveal that Edna Jacobs was daughter of Edward Bourne Gibbs Jr, a retired stockman. The Senior E. B. Gibbs (deceased in 1914) had been a railroad pioneer with the U. P., in addition to railroads in Missouri and Iowa. The Gibbs family were heavily involved in Douglas County real estate. In such familial manner son-in-law attorney Leon Jacobs and his wife, Edna Gibbs Jacobs, began acquiring and selling parcels all over town.

 

1925. Omaha Daily News. “Intends in the future to develop the property.”

After a pending legal action with Prudential Insurance Company, Ed Gibbs sold the whole corner parcel to Ben Garrop and wife for $11,500 in 1925. Between this purchase time and 1926, Ben Garrop built the Tudor style suite of shops at 33^rd and Harney that we see before us today.

 

 

 

1926. World-Herald archives.

“Corner for drugs. 3 smaller stores for beauty parlor, barber shop, plumbing shop etc.” This was fascinating to find and made sense of the variety of doors and seemingly separate business bays within the one building.

 

The northern elevation always carried two separate addresses and had two distinct bays as long as I could remember.

 

The western elevation is my favorite because of all the architectural clues, weathering and sheer time and energy that went into both design and construction. The Elizabethan window that pushes out. The timbering, the brackets. The tiny windows. The old sign. The old electrical to a door. The old awnings fixtures. The brick gable parapets.

 

Southern elevation. All entries bricked up now. Love that prominent parapet.

 

 

 

The English or European Tudor enjoyed popularity in America in the 1920s. There are fantastic examples of commercial Tudors all across our country. Garrop’s contribution to this architectural style reminded me of the Kalamazoo, Michigan Oakland Pharmacy built in the same time period.

 

And who could forget 5018 Leavenworth? A very nice European Tudor example.

 

Sidenote—Garrop later bought 3223 Harney, a one story brick store and 403-407 South 33^rd Street with five shops in it, all around his Tudor 33rd and Harney building.

 

 

 

The Garrops

Berko Gorobzoff immigrated to the United States in 1904 from the Russian city of Ekaterinoslav, now part of Ukraine. At Ellis Island it is said Mr. Gorobzoff changed his surname to Garrop. As Ben Garrop, he moved to Omaha and married, opening Garrop’s Grocery. A portion of this information was gained from composer Stacy Garrop’s history of her great grandfather.

 

Anna and Ben Garrop. The Garrop couple had three children: daughters Katherine and Rosalie and son Sam.

 

Whether Mr. Garrop built 33^rd and Harney as a real estate investment or to eventually house his grocery store, he later did relocate Garrop Grocery from 3024 Leavenworth, previously at 27^th and Binney, to the new up and coming area. 3229 Harney and accompanying suites were in the middle of a fantastic neighborhood. His grocery would face a row of large houses. By at least 1930 Garrop Grocery had moved into his Harney location.

 

An interior view of Garrop’s Grocery located at 3229 Harney. Photographer: William Wentworth. Durham Museum. 1937. An idea of what the large retail windows used to look like. The view vaguely display homes and trees across Harney.

 

 

 

 

The Neighbors

 

3319 Harney on the left built in 1910. 3322 Harney on the right, built in 1910.

 

 

3310 Harney on the left, built in 1905. 3315 Harney, on the right, built in 1899.

These great houses are up Harney Street to the west. Perusing the historical photographic aerials, the footprint of the large homes across the street from the Garrop Grocery, no longer extant, was the exact size of these neighboring homes. I am going to guess that the missing homes were of a similar style and built within the same time period.

 

Across the street on Harney had always been large houses and apartment buildings until they were razed in the late 1950s, early 1960s as surface parking for Mutual of Omaha. Later Midtown Crossing.

 

The current view to the north of the 3229 and 3231 Harney building. The Midtown Crisis, I mean, Midtown Crossing Parking Garage.

 

 

The old Northwestern Bell Telephone Exchange building at 3301 Harney Street. Built in 1905, this wonderfully, odd building is thankfully still standing. Designed by our local architecture crush, Thomas Rogers Kimball and built by Charles Bauer for the Nebraska Telephone Company, it sits across 33^rd Street, directly to the west of our Garrop Tudor building. In my teen years this was the Knights of Columbus club. They would rent out their “social hall” and I remember at least one punk show taking place here– a day show as I recall. Photographer: Bostwick, Louis (1868-1943) and Frohardt, Homer (1885-1972). 1931.

The Kitty Lou Candy Shoppe

 

Starting in 1930, 3231 Harney lodged a new business– the Kitty Lou Candy Shoppe. Lewis (sometimes spelled Louis) Asbyll and his wife, Katherine, the true-life Kitty Lou, were proprietors. Katherine, of Kitty Lou fame, was Ben Garrop’s daughter. Katherine had been her father’s grocery bookkeeper for many years. The Garrop Grocery was located in the furthest east bay facing Harney and the Kitty Lou confectionary was on the far west. The entry to Kitty Lou’s was that angled, recessed door that I knew as Circo’s Bar entrance. In 1937 the Asbylls applied for a license to sell beer out of their confectionary and the adult beverages poured henceforth. They would drop the “Candy” of the Candy Shoppe and focus on the fountain service and beer.

 

Delicious sandwiches and beer. What else does one require? My Omaha Obsession friend Bob Wilkerson dug into his tremendous collection for us and I am grateful. The Kitty Lou Shoppe matchbook.

 

 

In 1931 an armed bandit came into the Kitty Lou Candy Shoppe and held up the joint. Lewis Asbyll, on the left, was running the store that day and had to give up $200 from the register. All customers raised their hands as ordered but B. R. Daniels,  a nearby neighbor and a patron on that day. “I won’t raise my hands for anybody, gun or no gun.” Daniels sat calmly at his table during the holdup. He was ultimately pistol whipped. The Asbylls’ little bulldog, Peggy, also showed fearlessness when she barked and snapped at the bandit’s legs. Peggy even got her photo in the newspaper that day. Not to worry, the detective squad showed up and no one was seriously injured.

 

Lewis Asbyll many years later. Photograph borrowed from Quetzlito on Ancestry. I could find no photos of Katherine Asbyll. The couple had one child, son Jay Asbyll.

 

 

It was the United States Census of 1940 that tipped me off. Lewis Asbyll and wife Katherine Garrop Asbyll lived with the older Garrops in the 411 South 33^rd Street house of my obsession. The family home was but a hop and skip from where they all worked.

 

The mysterious stucco at 411 South 33rd Street is a longtime favorite. This was home to both the Garrop and Asbyll family. When the J. D. Weavers lived here in 1917, the stucco house was struck by lightening. “The bolt hitting the chimney and jumping to one side, tearing a hole as large as a barrel through the roof, and then lost itself in the basement.” The article noted that no one was hurt and the lightning did not set the house ablaze, “although it tore up Mrs. Weaver’s room on the its way to the basement.”

 

 

Years later the Kitty Lou establishment would changeover into Harold’s and Mil’s Grill. Ben Garrop died at age 68 in 1947.  Garrop’s Grocery formally moved to 1023 South 48^th Street by 1950 and closed sometime after 1953.

 

 

Circo’s Bar

 

Louis Sonny Circo was born in 1920 just a few years before the 33rd and Harney building was constructed to parents Salvatore Anthony Circo and Marianna Franco Circo. “Sam” and “Marie” raised their family at 1412 South 4th Street, smack dab in the center of Omaha’s Little Italy. (Still standing and recently for sale: 1412 South 4th Street. ) Had it not been for the burglars who chiseled a hole through the wall of the Salvatore Circo Bar at 1002 Harney back in 1940, I might not have ever heard of the Circos’ earlier incarnation. Father Sam and son Lou had filed for a liquor license and planned to build at 120 South 9th Street, after Louie had served in World War II. The Circos also pulled pints at their infamous 317 South 15th location.

 

 

 

Circo Bar and Cafe at 120 South 9th Street– where father and son, Sam and Lou, planned their bar upon Lou’s return from World War II.

 

 

Wonderful ephemera from Circo’s Bar at the 317 South 15th Street location. “You are a stranger here but once.” Thanks to friend Bob Wilkerson for sharing his perfect collection.

 

After Sam’s passing, Louie moved Circo’s Bar into the 33rd and Harney location in August of 1965. In a strange duplication, soon after receiving the keys, burglars would cut a hole into Louie’s roof and lower themselves into the bar with a ladder. Circo’s Bar enjoyed decades of steady, loyal business in this civic junction of sorts, thanks to its personable host, Louie Circo. An Omaha Giant, Louie single-handedly entertained his captive audience with his near-effortless, contagious warmth and anecdotes. This was back when tiny bar owners had big personalities and the art of conversation was as much a draw for the customer as a pint.

 

Early on Louie and wife Dorothy June Smith Circo lived at Dorothy’s mother’s home at 2565 Pinkney. The couple would have children Sonny, Donald, Caren and Cathy. The 1966 City Directory logged the Louis Circos lived at 1015 South 33^rd Street.

1015 South 33rd Street is a very pretty, proper house, located near Turner Park.

 

 

 

Advertisement from Christmas of 1970. “Meet Your Friends Here. Nebraska No. 1” borrowed from eBay.

 

 

Harney Econ-O-Wash coin operated laundry would move into 3229 Harney in the the late 1960s-early 1970s, once the Garrop’s Grocery store. Some will remember Marvin Gardens restaurant and a series of delis would swap out leases next door to Circo’s Bar through the years, complimenting Lou’s trade. By the time I could enter Circo’s legally, the affable barroom had experienced some unfortunate tarnish in the public eye and became yet another version of itself. Withal the mid 1990s brought the Sig Ep boys to the 3301 Harney address, once home to old Northwestern Bell Telephone Exchange building. Just a tumble to the west, and the Sigma Phi Epsilon boys eagerly employed the corner bar as their auxiliary rumpus room.

 

 

 

Sigma Phi Epsilon house at 3301 Harney, the old Northwestern Bell Telephone Exchange building.

 

 

My Memory of Circo’s

When I finally entered Circo’s in 1999 or 2000, I was clearly late to the party–much more driven by curiosity than to have a cold draft–but it was my turn to go in and look the place over.

 

Once inside, the bar stretched the eastern most wall; the room elongated in the familiar rectangle of a classic taproom. Like any favorite Midtown bar, Circo’s was cool and dark like a cellar, with the scent and feel of an unaired basement. Down the center of the room were wavering rows of well-battered tables with strewn about chairs, most surfaces, to recollection, sloshed with beer and liquor. An older gal bartended while a wild man was spied behind the bar, brandishing a stationary microphone, the kind used to announce when an order from the grill is ready. This sluggish, snarling master of ceremonies gave his boozy talk and openly assessed me as we walked up to order, publicizing his pointed thoughts. I was the entertaining subject. Thankfully, or not, I had cut my teeth in the unrestrained punk clubs of the Midwest where public humiliation and squaring up to loudmouth boys with microphones was routine. That might have been when I decided not to impose my taste on the jukebox or make any plucky movements.

 

 

Friend Bob Wilkerson shared the matchbook collection from the 3231 Harney location.

 

There was a mighty force twisting within Circo’s Bar on that topped up night. We clearly didn’t know this cast of characters and definitely couldn’t perceive the in-club rules. Had there been hanging lights, I imagined the patrons would have been swinging from them that night. The room was charged with customers in all manners of dress and undress, apparently friends but the general sense of the premises was not particularly encouraging of any first encounter communication. I was not sure of the membership requirements, but the friendships of the steadies appeared deep and nondiscriminating. What with the habitué sexual foraging, the bickering, the foul-mouthing, eruptions of mighty, spontaneous howling and the homespun bragging, all fascinating, coded, inner-circle transmissions, we knew our place as sightseers.

 

Drinks in hand, we detected a backroom to the south, down a stair or two from the main festivities and made our way to the rear without much deliberation. It only seemed right that newcomers be relegated to this outer fringe, a sort of Siberia, but found we were not the only misfits banished to this backseat. There was a smattering of smaller groups of raucous tables, their confidence indicated we were again in the company of regulars. The walls were covered in graffiti, the billowing smoke profound. In memory there was a pool table in that rear room, but unforgettable were the dilapidated, teetering stack of vinyl booths, newly ripped from their stations. I imagined the collapsed pile had been taken unbeknownst and unprovoked, clobbered and pounded by the likes of a maudlin band who had once corralled and drank in their comforting compartments. I was quite stunned with the hot-tempered display but more for the seating itself, as it must have been caught unawares. When asked, the denizens nearest us shrugged at the heap, almost decoding, “Last night.” Shot glasses castoff to another corner. I was hooked.

 

Omaha’s Dana Altman chose Circo’s Bar as a location in his 2001 film, The Private Public. I have never seen this film and was surprised to find these stills because I honestly thought I have dreamed the whole environment. Altman captured the backroom of Circo’s Bar perfectly.

 

 

Hours later we would wander out of that historic recessed door, into the black of 33rd Street to wander to our cars on Dewey Avenue. I was of the adult world. Easy laughter would rise up occasionally through the years, enjoying what we could still remember. The lasting observation was that Circo’s was much more than some escape from the loneliness and alienation of its inhabitants’ drudgeries. This small corner of the world treasured true solidarity. They were most alive on that night, and I was the lucky stranger to catch them in their close knittedness, although perhaps much like any other night. Circo’s Bar would shutter its doors shortly after 2002 and another great public character would disappear.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Epilogue

In the years to follow the close of Circo’s Bar, the once Garrop’s Grocery at 3229 Harney would be home to Harney Street Grill, Nick’s Grill and Celestial Cuisine. The Circo’s Bar location at 3231 Harney would house Mr. D’s Bar, Daddy’s Getaway, 2007 Jets All Sports Bar and Grill and 2008-2011 Attic Bar & Grill. Kaleb Michaud and his Spielbound group took the keys in 2013, expanded into the whole building and have been going strong ever since.

 

Jets All Sports Bar and Grill. Very time limited. Photo borrowed from Loopnet.

 

 

Attic Bar and Grill. They had a good run. Photo borrowed from Loopnet.

 

 

I welcome your feedback and comments on Circo’s Bar and the history of owners. Please share your additional clues to the story in the “Comments,” as we know more together. I am actively looking for any Circo’s Bar photos at any location. If you are from the Garrop or Asbyll family and have photos to share with me, please make contact. If you are from the Circo family and can share any photos or info, please make contact. Everyone would love to read what you have to say and it makes the sharing of Omaha history more fun. You can use an anonymous smokescreen name if need be. We want to hear from you.

 

 

My friend Tony Bazis was an extra in the Altman film as  “man on the phone” during a Circo’s Bar scene. Here he is during filming with actress, Traci Bingham.

 

 

 

Another favorite strange road in Omaha. 33rd between the Northwestern Telephone building and the Circo’s Bar building has always felt like an alley. Do you agree?

 

 

 

 

Love the area and hungry for more? Check out A Passing Glimpse: 3205 Harney Street.

 

 

Want to know a local woman’s connection to Circo’s Bar, check out: Finding Rose Lazio.

 

 

 

 

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