(Jan 2011) Even as the 120-year-old CSPS gets a new roof and its first-ever elevator and air-conditioning system, the project is re-establishing connections with a rich and socially progressive past.
Workers are turning up everything from a lucky horseshoe to old newspaper clippings, calling cards and playbills. Underneath layers of paint in the old bar area, a worker recently uncovered the craftsman signature of a formerly anonymous worker, dated Jan. 22, 1904.
The original CSPS Hall was named for the organization that built it, Czecho-Slovak Protective Society. That group was formed in 1854 by 29 Czech immigrants in the back room of Jacob Mottl’s tavern in St. Louis. Their first mission was to provide a way for Czech and Slovak immigrants to pool their resources and help families after a death or disaster in the community. The society, which built CSPS halls across the country, served as a model for fraternal benefit groups to come. (The group changed its name to Czechoslovak Society of America, or CSA, in 1933 and continues to this day as CSA Fraternal Life.)
The CSPS group’s second mission was to provide a place for social activity and entertainment. Our own CSPS Hall hosted everything from concerts to weddings to labor meetings. It was a place where Old World traditions of Czech and Slovak immigrants were preserved, even as new customs were learned, where citizens could gather to improve working conditions, scrutinize political candidates and celebrate community milestones.
Legion Arts’ adoption of the second- and third-floor spaces in 1991 continued that tradition on many levels: from programming live music, dance and theatre to involving artists and the arts in community development and neighborhood building.
Following quite literally in the tradition of disaster relief, the organization was one of the first flood-impacted businesses to reopen following the historic floods of 2008, providing grants and services to local artists who had studios, supplies and work damaged or destroyed.
Legion Arts further responded by focusing its continuing series of community forums and artist residencies on the role of the arts and artists in a post-disaster community. Participants ranged from Jordan Hirsch, executive director of the artist relief organization Sweet Home New Orleans, to Louisiana artist Brian Guidry, who created an installation from flood debris collected along the Cedar River.
The CSPS renovation project is not only bringing thriving businesses to historic storefronts and fitting restored double hung sash windows with motorized room-darkening shades; it’s bringing about a refreshed focus on the social commitments that the original CSPS so faithfully fulfilled for a growing community of Czech and Slovak immigrants. From an artist-in-community program based in the restored firehouse, to an incubator for fledgling arts ventures, Legion Arts is expanding and renewing the mission on which it was
