![]() The rough-and-tumble boys’ club of the past is long gone, and Barba’s shop has moved beyond Grimm’s American traditional designs, the simple, bright, bold style that dominated America for decades. It’s now called Outer Limits Tattoo and Museum, run by Kari Barba, who bought the place in 2002 with partners. But 22 Chestnut Place is still open for business as the 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue of the tattoo world. Nor is Bert Grimm’s, which closed in 2002. ![]() The Pike is no longer there, knocked down and redeveloped over the past 20 years, now home to pricy apartments and trendy retail. The saying is ‘What the West Coast originates, the East Coast imitates.’ All of the style and influence came out of California.” “You had all of these styles coming together there for the first time, and people would build on it. “I think it’s had more impact on the styles of tattooing and where they come from than anything,” says Phil Sims, who worked at Bert Grimm’s from about 1972 until 1980. From Sailor Jerry’s disciples to the godfathers of black-and-gray, nearly every tattoo design and style traces its heritage to Bert Grimm’s World Famous Tattoo Studio, created, practiced and perfected by a coaching tree that extends to the stars and youngsters of the present day. Through here, tattooing made its first forays into the mainstream while maintaining its working-class, countercultural roots. Many of the country’s top tattooers moved their businesses to Grimm’s kingdom rather than shop-hopping in various cities, creating the first major tattooing scene in the United States. As much a businessman as a tattooer, Grimm soon owned a handful of other shops on and around the Pike. Already, the Pike boasted one of the world’s first formal tattoo studios (opening in the back of a photo shop in 1927, the same space Grimm had just bought), and it would occasionally host some of the industry’s first legends, pioneers such as Lee Roy Minugh and Owen Jensen and his wife, “Dainty Dotty,” a 600-pound fat lady at the circus when she wasn’t tattooing.īut then Grimm arrived, carrying with him an encyclopedia’s worth of designs. Its parlors stayed open around the clock to make sure the seamen boisterously waiting in lines that stretched down the block got the pieces they wanted, often sacrificing hygiene and safety as they cranked out as many eagles, anchors, hearts and daggers as possible. When the Navy docked their ships mere stumbling distance from the Pike, the strip transformed from mainstream fun zone to a tattoo paradise. But business had dried up, so Grimm did what generations of Americans passing through the Gateway to the West had done before. Louis, where he had established himself as the best ink slinger in the Midwest. ![]() A middle-aged man with dark hair and tattoos up and down his arms, Grimm had just moved to Long Beach from St. The small square space on the bottom of an apartment complex built in 1921 stood at the heart of the Pike, the legendary stretch of amusement-park rides, novelty shops, restaurants and seaside frivolity that drew in all of Southern California.īut the Oregon-born Grimm wasn’t there for those niceties. He called them his ‘Shut the fuck ups’.In 1952 or 1954 (depending on who’s telling the tale), Bert Grimm bought a business located at 22 Chestnut Place in Long Beach, on the corner of Chestnut and Ocean Boulevard. Frank: We all used to laugh at Gerard because he had these headphones that blocked out all sound.I really envy it: he can just tune noise out and read in the middle of the chaos of an airport. Gerard: He’s always reading - on planes, on the bus, in the bunk, wherever.Books are like movies though, I have so many favourites, it varies according to my mood. I think Catcher in the Rye is my favourite book, though I love almost anything by J.D. ![]() The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is an incredible book that I am reading at the moment.
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