"It is unfortunate that the square is in the middle of a blighted ares that is marked by a high crime rate," Capt. Thomas J. Moran said. "We have stepped up our patrol in the square in an effort to combat the criminal elements that tend to gravitate toward an entertainment area."

That wasn't enough.

"The kids don't belong down here but it isn't our fault their parents let them run all over the place," Whiskey a Go-Go operator, Russ Lewis said.

The old clubs began closing. Laclede doused some of the gas lights in 1967 for failure to pay. Police made drug arrests and thwarted a desperate bid to save the strip with topless waitresses. The Exit gave up the spirit in 1969, about when cultural pathologists pronounced the end of Gaslight.

Massucci died in 1971. Jack Parker, the last Gaslighter, moved O’Connell’s from Boyle to Kingshighway in 1972. Five months later, the aldermen abolished Gaslight Square, restoring the strip as part of Olive.