Owner Of Literarati Hang-Out Where P Wrote "V" Dies

[Dictel at aol.com]

http://www.seattletimes.com/news/local/html98/obit_011599.html
Posted at 02:30 a.m. PST; Friday, January 15, 1999 
Obituary
Jack David, longtime Blue Moon Tavern owner, dies 

by Carole Beers 
Seattle Times staff reporter 

In its heyday, Seattle's Blue Moon Tavern was a beer-dispensing refuge 
for poets, professors, peaceniks and purveyors of the offbeat. And at 
the center of it all was Jack S. David. 

Mr. David, who died Sunday (Jan. 10) at 90 from complications of 
Alzheimer's disease, co-owned the University District landmark when it 
gained a national reputation as a watering hole for poets and painters 
in the 1950s and radicals in the 1960s. 

"To the Moon!" became a rallying cry for the eclectic mix of customers 
who spent many a night - and day - bellying up to the bar at the 
Northeast 45th Street tavern. 

Instead of discouraging oddball behavior by intellectuals and wannabes 
who occasionally would strip off their clothes or smash glasses, Mr. 
David embraced it and the ensuing publicity. 

University of Washington professor Theodore Roethke in 1954 celebrated 
his Pulitzer Prize for poetry there. Welsh poet Dylan Thomas dropped by 
while on a reading tour. Beat Generation writers Alan Ginsberg and Jack 
Kerouac also visited. 

Novelist Tom Robbins once tried to place a phone call from the Blue Moon 
to artist Pablo Picasso in Spain. 

"All those poets and writers came in and did their work there while 
drinking beer," said Mr. David's brother and partner, Jim David, of 
Oceanside, Calif., who alternated bartending duties with Mr. David 
before moving to California in 1956. He sold his interest in the Moon to 
Mr. David in 1959. 

After high school in his native Tacoma, Mr. David spent 22 years doing 
accounting work for companies run by his uncle, who owned gold mines, 
while pursuing a semiprofessional bowling career. In 1950, Mr. David and 
Jim David decided to go into business together. 

"They were going to open a bowling alley," said Mr. David's niece 
Annette Hystad Hanke of Lynnwood. "Then the Blue Moon became available 
and they bought it." 

The tavern, which began as a cafe in 1934, already was a hangout for UW 
students and professors. But as the 1950s brought new musical, literary 
and political trends, Mr. David and his brother found themselves 
presiding over an intellectual gathering place. 

One Moon regular, Joe Butterworth, reportedly lost his UW professor's 
job after being named a communist during the Red Scare of the 1950s. He 
sat in the Blue Moon after his dismissal and translated the Communist 
Manifesto into old English, occasionally entertaining friends with dirty 
limericks. 

Poet Carolyn Kizer put the place on the map with a 1956 article in The 
Nation magazine. Then-Washington Sen. Warren G. Magnuson read her 
article into the Congressional Record. 

Mr. David happily tolerated the Moon mania, including the penning of 
graffiti like, "We are the people our parents warned us about." He gave 
his regulars rides downtown and anything else they needed, except 
advice. 

By the mid-1960s the Moon's reputation waned as it drew curiosity 
seekers, druggies and bikers. Mr. David sold out in 1966. 

But the Blue Moon has lived on. Expanded in recent years, the building's 
owners extended its lease for another 40 years. 

The tavern was rejected for local landmark status in the early 1990s, 
according to unofficial University District historian Walt Crowley. 

Mr. David never married. But he kept company with Lecil Leslie for 40 
years. "She was divorced and he was Catholic, so they could not marry," 
Hanke said. "She went into a nursing home in 1985, and we went to visit 
her every day for four years. She died in 1989." 

Mr. David also is survived by nieces Linda Brooks of Fallbrook, Calif., 
and Debbie Bannon, Oceanside, Calif. Funeral Mass is at 10 a.m. tomorrow 
at St. John Catholic Church, 121 N. 80th St., Seattle. 

Remembrances may go to Northwest Harvest, 711 Cherry St., Seattle, WA 
98104.