wrecks
and crime scenes, antique mortician’s tools, life size execution devices
and the only baseball in the world autographed by Charles Manson. The Museum
of Death has been at 548 5th avenue in the historic Marin Building
(site of San Diego’s first mortuary) for the past four years. The proprietors
of this mom & pop establishment ran a book store and an art gallery
on the floors above the museum until the tripling of the rent forced them
to focus on the museum down in the basement.
The museum is not for everyone, but it should force all who enters to confront their mortality. It’s not like the Haunted Motel, no one will jump out at you. This is a serious contemplation of way Americans view (or don’t view) death. There is a culture of small strange museums around the country. Roy Rogers has a museum with a stuffed Trigger and San Diego has a museum with a taxidermied dog named Lady. Has, or had? The museum is being evicted since the principal owner of the building John Day doesn’t think he can sell it with the Museum of Death as a tenant. Day sees a chance to make a buck and doesn’t seem to care what small business is damaged in the process. There have been shady practices: JD Healy, proprietor of the museum, signed a four year lease and later found out that Mr. Day never signed his copy. Anyone who has paid attention to the 500 block of 5th avenue knows that it once featured a variety of small shops and now features some large restaurants and several cigar merchants. The Museum of Death is the unique attraction in the Gaslamp quarter.
You might have heard proprietor Cathee Shultz talking death with Karel and Andrew on KFI radio, or if you were in Miami last week perhaps you may have heard Cathee on “Rick and Soda’s Vacation Destination” or maybe you saw the SD Reader cover story or the Discovery Channel documentary about the museum. How many restaurants in the Gaslamp quarter can boast that? Jaqueline King, the tacky realtor handling the deal, who has brought her tape measure into the museum several times during business hours is telling potential buyers that the basement would be an ideal place for a restaurant or a luxury loft. Is she telling them about E.W. Tebbutt who committed suicide on the premises in 1894? Is she telling them that the original owner of the building was SD’s first coroner?
The bottom line is that the Museum of Death has to move and that Oct. 31 is the last day to experience it in this special locale . The owners are looking at spaces in Hollywood, where the local development corporation is begging unique entrepreneurs like JD and Cathee to set up shop (even a little shop of horrors) but of course they would like to remain the one attraction that sets San Diego apart from the herd. I usually answer that I am not obsessed with death, though I know a lot more about it since working at the museum. I know facts like how many people California has on death row (512), I know that a PSA jet crashed here in 1978 killing 140 people despite the city’s desire to forget, I know that a man was electrocuted to death at the bus stop around the corner in August, despite the fact that the bus stop has been removed without a trace or memorial. The Day of the Dead is a day to remember and the Museum of Death is a place that remembers.
