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@ Work: Percy's Bus Stop Pub Bar and Restaurant

Percy Taylor at his Percy's Bus Stop Pub Bar and Restaurant.In the late 1960s, Percy Taylor was ordered by the government to move his restaurant from Dronningens Gade across from the old Squirrel Cage, because it lay in the heart of Charlotte’s Amalie’s historic zone.

Some 40 years later, Taylor has created his own historic zone at the other end of town. Percy’s Bus Stop Pub Bar and Restaurant is an island landmark on Veterans Drive across from the Seabourne Seaplanes terminal.

The double-decker bus is the real thing, Taylor points out.

"It’s an AEC Regent III London Transport bus, the standard transport with an AEC engine."

What it is today, is a St. Thomas icon, as is Taylor himself. Flamboyant in his dealings with the government years ago, Taylor is a soft-spoken gentle soul today. Once you get him to sit down, he speaks with fondness of the life that has transpired underneath somewhat eccentric ceiling(s).

Taylor arrived from Montserrat as an 18-year-old in 1952, with no experience in much of anything.

"I did everything," he says, "dishwasher, cook, bartender. I started out at the Crown Bay Inn below WSTA in the Sub Base, and worked nights at Sebastian’s on the waterfront."

Eventually, with his characteristic perseverance, he opened his own place, the Royal Palm, in Smith Bay. Meantime, he had taken notice of a genuine London Transport bus, which he says, was brought here by the West Indies Co. as a promotion for Beefeater London gin.

"It would take school kids to Magens for tours, but the trees were overgrown on that road, and it became a problem, so the trips were cancelled."

He saw an opportnity.

"I went to West Indies and made them an offer, which wasn’t enough, but it’s all I had. Then, about four months later, they called and said to come and get it."

So, for $700 the course of Taylor’s life took a dramatic change. His imagination went into high gear, and the next thing the town knew, a bright red double-decker diner appeared, much to the delight of locals, and to the growing dismay of historians.

"I got a cabinet-maker and we pulled out every other seat and made booths,"Taylor says. The diner happily fed folks for three or so years, before the government clamped down on the operation.

At its present location, it simply grew, much as the wind blows.

"The bus got too small, so we had to move inside after about three years," he says. "I just kept adding pieces," he says. "Marilyn took our first roof."

Describing Percy’s is a challenge.

"People drop by every so often and leave things," he says, with a wave of the hand, to explain his notion of interior decoration. The furniture reflects the feeling of the Bus Stop. It’s home. It’s comfortable, and has been that for legions of folks for decades. It extends. Just when it looks like that’s the back, you discover a stage, another back room, and, beyond that, another London bus.

"I went to London," Taylor explains with a slight sigh, "to get it, but when I brought it back, the parts were so hard to get…"

There it sits. Off to the side there’s a greenhouse of sorts, filled with light and flora.

"It’s my newest project,"he says.

We are sitting in straight-back dining room chairs covered in deep mustard velour, very comfortable. The next table has outdoor patio chairs.

"People leave lots of strange things," Taylor says, with a laugh. Somehow, everything works. Each mismatched table is covered with a crisply laundered bright red table cloth.

The place has been many things to many people.

"We used to have a younger crowd," he says. "Dancing, bands almost every night. The Imagination Brass band started here, and the Seabreeeze band" he says, "lots of fun and very little trouble."

Percy’s is still an essential stop on carnival J’ouvert tramp, a place for a good conversation with folks who have some history under their belt. It’s been a base for past senate campaigns, memorials for those no longer able to lift an elbow, for countless political rallies, and the legendary Sam Kings’s Senior Citizens weekly radio show, to say nothing of a favorite watering hole for Antilles Airboats employees in the ’60s and ’70s.

"After Marilyn took our roof, we still had a generator," Taylor says, "so we put up a tarp, and served food and cold beer until curfew. There was hardly any place that could open for so long. In Hugo, we had three feet of water right here."

Taylor’s compassion extends beyond the territory.

"We’ve had fund-raisers for Montserra ,and for Katrina. We worked with the Red Cross, and we and we took in a lot."

There could be a problem on the horizon. The St. Thomas Coastal Zone Management Committee last year approved the construction permit for Surtep Enterprises, a facility proposed by Allison "Allie" Petrus that would house a convenience store, gas station and food court north of Percy’s.

"I’m not happy; it will affect my parking," Taylor says. He adds with hard-earned wisdom and a slight smile, "I’ll learn to live with it."

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