1601 Guadalupe St. and the History of Cherubs Tattoo

Cherubs is a tattoo shop and art space that began with the marriage of a teen dream and a building located on the Westside of San Antonio at 1601 Guadalupe St.  Home to a long history of activists, musicians, and visual artists the Westside made us feel welcome and that it was a perfect fit, not to mention there were tons of people wearing tattoos but no shops around for folks to get them in.

Built in 1924, 1601 turned 100 years old the same year Rick and I bought the building.  If you’ve ever seen it in person it has an undeniable charm that only comes with a century of people leaving their mark on a space.  Built 3 years after the 1921 flood, which expanded the north side of San Antonio while devastating the Westside, it is one of the oldest remaining buildings on Avienda Guadalupe and is a joyful image of the past.

Originally built by Jesus and Trinidad Treviño, Trinidad became the sole owner of 1601 in 1929.  Trinidad was a mother and was a seamstress by trade.  She was employed at several local businesses throughout her life such as a second-hand army goods store, Radio Cap Co, and Ace Manufacturing Company.  Her son Jaime Treviño was a veteran of WWII. Stationed in France, he became fascinated with French culture.  Upon his return to the states he began speaking French regularly, changed his name to Rene, started a French club at Brackenridge High School, and transformed the front part of their family home into a Parisian barber shop.  Our neighbors describe him as a tall man who was quiet, but pleasant, could be seen most of the time wearing a beret, and would let people in need stay in his home where he now lived and worked.  With an artistic eye, he left little touches around the building such as the mosaic front porch adorned with vintage tile, two concrete and rock pillars that hold up the awning in the front, and an inscription on the sidewalk, signed “Monsieur Rene Treviño.”

After Rene’s passing the building sat empty until 2012 when Jerry Cavazos bought it from Rene’s remaining family.  Jerry is a character within himself, he is a contractor by trade, an entrepreneur, and an avid collector of all kinds of artwork.  He has an eye for salvaging abandoned objects from various buildings and property (I found this out while looking at old google maps photos which show certain features on our building once belonging to others on the street lol). Jerry’s vision for the building was to return it to a live-work space and wanted to bring people over the Guadalupe bridge to see what the Westside has to offer.  During Jerry’s ownership several business were in and out of the building such as La Casa de Alebrijes and Mr. Pinguino, both raspa spots, a bike shop, and probably the most successful business, Mr. P’s which was San Antonio-style Tex Mex eatery. Jerry also notoriously used it as his personal hangout and home away from home.  We’ve had a couple of people in the neighborhood jokingly mention that Jerry was a ladies man and that they’ve “ended up at that place” hinting that it was a pretty wild party from time to time.  He also hosted a poetry club and art shows adding to the building’s artistic spirit.

Meeting Jerry for the first time was magical.  We had originally met his realtor to look at the place and we instantly fell in love with the building but it had sat empty for over a year and was in pretty bad shape.  There was a hole from our now apartment into one of the bathrooms on the lower level, holes cut into walls with obvious water damage, a full abandoned commercial kitchen (with about a year’s worth of grease trap cockroaches), and septic bathrooms.  We could barely afford the building let alone the repairs.  We thanked the realtor, told him we couldn’t pull it off and left that day wanting more but knowing it was out of our hands.  Two weeks later we got a call from the realtor expressing that Jerry wanted to meet with us and that he was willing to work with our budget.  We met Jerry who is an older man with slicked-back hair, a salt and pepper goatee, wearing a nice collared shirt with a few buttons undone showing off a heavy gold chain with a large coin attached and black rimmed glasses.  His wish for it to remain in artistic hands was obvious and he felt that our vision was perfect for it.  We walked the property together and he agreed to make any repairs we requested and the deal was done.  We were lucky enough to buy it from him, outside of the bank, on it’s 100th year of existence and we have a continued relationship with him to this day which I am thankful for.  We talk about once a month or so and he exchanges wisdom for updates on the building.

There is an old Japanese tattoo design inspired by the yokai called Tsukumogami.  These yokai are inanimate objects that have served their owners for 100 years, after which they receive a soul, become self aware, and are sometimes mischievous. Having served both Jerry and the Treviños for that amount of time along with dozens of strange occurrences that we have experienced in the building we often joke that we have a yokai on our hands.

Cherubs began as a dream of mine when I first started getting tattooed in street shops as an 18 year old.  I was fascinated by them, I loved the smell, being surrounded by wild imagery, the loud music, artists openly collaborating with each other, and the excitement of patrons being permanently marked.  Best of all you could just walk right in off the street into a completely alien world fueled by art.  I knew that I not only wanted to be a tattooer but that I wanted to create a space like this.  I started in 2012 at the age of 20 and the longer I spent in the industry the more my rose colored glasses began to slip. I started to notice that my idealized vision of street shops were not the reality-a lot of them were elitist, overpriced, sexist, racist, homophobic, etc, and even though they were accessible to the average person it wasn’t the romantic world that I had in my head.  I was determined to make the vision I had into a reality.  My dream consisted of weirdos, freaks, and outcasts being able to express themselves next to someone who is straight laced trying to dip their toe into our wild world-and ultimately also being able to be expressing themselves too.  I wanted to build a community through art, provide affordable tattooing in all styles and backgrounds, offer flash and custom tattoos of all sizes, be a pillar in the neighborhood around us, and have a building that could endlessly be changed and rearranged through artistic expression that we could never get kicked out of. Cherubs is now my third shop and attempt at this, the road hasn’t been easy to achieve this vision-I had a shop in Chicago that is still around called Red Devil Tattoo that I owned with Kyle Butler and before 1601 was Cherubs it was True Believers Tattoo that I owned with Lauren O’Connor, both who had greatness of their own but who I eventually parted ways with.  I always knew that having a street shop is something that would require others and is not something I could do alone but I underestimated how important it would be to find the right people to work on this project with.  Cherubs finally feels like the vision has come into fruition.  The spirit of the building, the Treviños, Jerry, Rick, our patrons, and my co-workers make the shop feel the way it does today.  Finding the right people to achieve this vision with was something I underestimated from the start but was the key to unlocking this dream and allowing it to flow from my brain into the world around me.