Skull's Rainbow Room

A 1948 supper club in the basement of the Southern Turf Building on Printers Alley, downtown Nashville. Dark for about 17 years, it reopened in June 2015 with live jazz and burlesque.

The Southern Turf Building went up in 1895 and sits on the National Register of Historic Places. In earlier lives it held a saloon, an upstairs brothel, and bootlegging tunnels.

Founder David “Skull” Schulman ran the room for 50 years and was called the “Mayor of Printers Alley.” A Hee Haw regular, he walked dyed poodles on rhinestone leashes.

Schulman, 80, was attacked in a robbery at the club on January 21, 1998, and died the next day. Press reported 2 convictions in 2001; the Tennessee Innocence Project has questioned the investigation.

Staff and visitors report Schulman’s figure in the club and out along Printers Alley, sometimes with a small white poodle at his heel.

During the years the room sat in storage, employees told of a shape resembling Schulman. Renovation lead David Wileman described unexplained cold spots during the 18-month, un-air-conditioned job.

The lore has a dated paper trail: a 2016 Nashville Scene feature on the reopening put the sightings on record and noted ghost tours already stopped at the club.