It’s 1940. Down Elm Street, Deep Ellum residents and visitors stroll down the sidewalk on a Saturday afternoon. Jazz music is heard from the nearby Gypsy Tea Room. The street stretching toward downtown is lined mostly with pawn shops. One shop draws more attention than most. It’s Honest Joe’s, the best known pawn shop in Dallas.
Today, the building is still in the family. Honest Joe’s granddaughter, Laurel Levin has turned it into a luxurious pet hotel called Urban Paws, the only one of its kind in the neighborhood. It caters to a young and trendy apartment-dwelling generation, providing their pets with townhomes, suites and the latest collars.
But many longtime residents of Dallas and Deep Ellum remember Honest Joe’s as a place where they could stroll through aisle after aisle of disorganized pawned items. Where everything from guns to prosthetic limbs could be found and where customers knew each other by name.
“It was the hub of Deep Ellum,” said Dallas resident Herschel Wilonsky, whose family owned a business across the street. “Everything revolved around Honest Joe’s.”
Urban Paws has taken up residence in the old Honest Joe's building. Rubin Goldstein's granddaughter, Laurel Levin, has transformed the Deep Ellum legacy into a luxurious pet hotel. (PHOTO COURTESY OF URBAN PAWS OWNER LAUREL LEVIN)
The original owner of the building at 2524 Elm St., Rubin Goldstein, came to Dallas from New York in 1931. His two older brothers, Dave and Isaac already owned businesses in Deep Ellum, and like many Jewish merchants at the time, Goldstein set up his own pawn shop.
“He was the mayor of Elm Street,” said his son Eddie Goldstein. “If anyone had a problem they came to Honest Joe’s.”
Goldstein came to be known as “Honest Joe” when a shop regular named Little Jimmy told a skeptical customer, “Don’t worry, lady. This is Honest Joe,” according to Alan B. Govenar and Jay F. Brakefield in their book, Deep Ellum and Central Track: Where the Black and White Worlds of Dallas Converged. Goldstein died in 1972, but the shop would remain open until 1985. Today, his legacy lives on in the stories people tell.
Honest Joe’s and many other pawn shops in Deep Ellum acted as money and credit lenders to poor blacks and whites. Regular customers would hock anything of value. In one case, a customer asked Goldstein, “What do I have to do to get $20? Give you my right arm” taking off his prosthetic arm and setting it on the counter.
According to Eddie Goldstein, a customer nicknamed “Hook,” who had lost both of his arms, was arrested one day for pick pocketing. Honest Joe saved him from prison by testifying that both of his prosthetic arms were in hock at the time the crime was committed.
Eddie Goldstein started working at the shop at the age of six. One afternoon, he decided to put out a box of false teeth for sale for 35 cents as a joke. One customer found a pair he liked and used a file to grind the teeth down until they fit in his mouth.
Old time residents say the pawn shop was well known by the signs plastering the storefront reading: “HONEST JOE, LOAN RANGER,” and “Emmes Joe,” which means Honest Joe in Hebrew. The sidewalk out front was always cluttered with used tools and hubcaps, while the inside was packed with mountains of pawned items. The shop was always lively with Deep Ellum residents just hanging around. Goldstein would sometimes have to force people to leave according to son-in-law Marvin Levin.
“It’s going to cost you a dollar, if you hang around any longer,” Goldstein would say.
It wasn’t only residents who hung around. Folks like Sammy Davis Jr., John W. Carpenter, who founded Lone Star Steel Company, the Dallas mayor and famous wrestlers paid visits, too.
Goldstein employed an in-house painter who would make the signs for the storefront. One time, Goldstein saw a picture of the Sistine Chapel ceiling and told his painter that he wanted his ceiling painted. But in the end, the ceiling was covered with signs advertising Honest Joe’s, according to Levin.
Goldstein also owned a station wagon, covered with advertising signs and with a nonfunctional submachine gun on the hood. He would often drive downtown in the vehicle as a way to advertise.
On Nov. 22, 1963, Goldstein saw a crowd downtown waiting for President Kennedy’s motorcade. He decided to drive down in his station wagon to advertise. His was the only car on the street before the motorcade approached and he would later be linked to nightclub owner Jack Ruby, who shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald two days after the President’s assassination.
According to Eddie Goldstein, Jack Ruby used to come into Honest Joe’s and buy things for his nightclub, The Carousel. He once wanted some stainless steel tables and argued with Goldstein about the price. They finally settled on $125, but when Ruby’s employees came to pick up the tables they handed Goldstein an envelope with only $90. Goldstein asked Ruby about the money and he said “I figured I’d pay you what I wanted.” Goldstein forced Ruby’s employees to unload the tables and bring them back to the shop.
Months later Ruby would ask Eddie, “Your old man still mad at me?”
Goldstein was a good business man and often found ways to get around laws, according to Levin. The Blue Law restricted activities or sales of goods on consecutive Saturdays and Sundays. So Goldstein opened up the tin shed next to his shop and did business there only on Sundays. It was called Truthful Joe’s.
During the prohibition era, the top floor of Honest Joe’s was a speakeasy. It was raided in the 30s and sealed off by the police. In the 60s, Dallas raised Central Expressway and had to cut into the top floor of the building. Goldstein and Levin broke into the third floor to see the old place. When they walked in, they saw bottles for beer and wine, turned over tables, betting slips scattered on the floor and telephone numbers on a building post.
“It was like we stepped back into the 1930s.” said Levin. “Like they just raided it yesterday.”
In the late 60s, many pawn shops in Deep Ellum began to go out of business. When Honest Joe’s started to go under, everything else followed, says Eddie Goldstein.
Today, long time residents of Deep Ellum still remember Honest Joe’s and what it mean to the area.
“It’s kinda got a legendary status,” said Sean Fitzgerald, president of the Deep Ellum Community Association. “It’s symbolic of the long standing history of Deep Ellum as a place that welcomes diversity.”
In 2007, the old pawnshop’s storefront broke off and fell to the street, so Goldstein’s granddaughter Laurel Levin decided to restore the building and make it into Urban Paws. Levin lived in Chicago where she had to have her dogs walked two times a day. She came back to Dallas and saw the same need for many local apartment dwellers.
“I wanted a place that was comfortable,” said Laurel Levin. “Where customers would know where their pets were going to be.”
It took two years to restore the building, and Levin did her best to preserve Honest Joe’s and use recycled materials. Part of the ceiling is still the original from the old pawn shop, and the glass railings on the second floor, which allow for a watchful eye down to the first floor dog parks, are from the Reunion Arena in Dallas.
“He would either be so proud or so mad, if he saw how they had changed his store,” said Eddie Goldstein.