Brooklyn, Missouri — [St. Louis Post Dispatch]- About a dozen teen and preteen girls raise their hands above their heads and then down to their chests, pressed palm against palm in prayer.

Songs about belief, virtue and the love of Jesus play in the background. The praise dancers, students in a faith-based dance troupe, perform for a crowd of 150 classmates and parents at an evening assembly in the Lovejoy School gymnasium.

Six blocks away, several young women at Roxy’s raise their hands above their heads and shake their hips on dimly lit stages to Pat Benatar’s “Heartbreaker.” They strip down to the stilettos on their feet. Men pay to watch and touch them as they dance.

These are the two worlds of Brooklyn, an eight-square-block village of about 600 people just across the Mississippi River from St. Louis.

The village has no industry to speak of except for the adults-only variety — four strip clubs, a massage parlor and an adult bookstore, whose suggestive signs beacon passers-by on Route 3. Cars with Missouri license plates fill the parking lots at night and disappear by daylight.

Here, risqué businesses and children are oddly and inextricably linked. Strip clubs help send local kids to trade school or college. They pay for after-school programs and youth outings. And without adult entertainment, it’s unlikely this village could survive financially.

The X-rated world contributes roughly three-quarters of Brooklyn’s $380,000 in revenue through sales tax and a $30,000 annual licensing fee per business. Mayor Nathaniel O’Bannon says he is pursuing an adult entertainment tax to get the clubs to finance street repairs, public safety and other city services.

Although he’s not a fan of adult pursuits, he says they sustain village life. “We’re an impoverished city, we have no other businesses to help,” he says.

In the Metro East area, the presence of adult entertainment is by no means unique to Brooklyn, as more than a dozen strip clubs call St. Clair County home in communities like Sauget, Washington Park and Centreville.

It is the proximity of Brooklyn’s adult businesses to so many spots frequented by children that defies the norm.

A tiny, abandoned park and playground are across the street from one strip club. One of the village’s 11 churches is in the center of the adult district. And Lovejoy School, a Head Start program and a preschool academy are within walking distance of strip clubs.

Some say this juxtaposition hurts the moral fiber of the community, and some say it is a benefit to the village. Others say the curious mix is neither good nor bad, just a way of life.

“We just don’t go up that way,” 17-year-old Ichameka Withers says of the village’s strip club district. “You get used to it.”

At the fall semester assembly, after the praise dancers disperse, Withers and other top students are awarded electronics and gift cards for attendance and scholastic achievement. Students of all ages proudly accept their awards, totaling $3,000.

No one is reminded that about $700 of the money that paid for these prizes was donated by adult businesses.

At the Lovejoy spring commencement ceremony, a man from Mehlville usually moves among the caps and gowns, congratulating the seniors on their achievements and awarding four $1,000 scholarships.

The benefactor is Micheal Ocello, president of VCG Holding Corp., a national adult cabaret chain that runs the Brooklyn clubs PT’s and Roxy’s.

The scholarship money comes from the Brooklyn Adult Trust, set up in 2002 and funded by the village’s adult businesses.

Ocello estimates that adult entertainment has in the past five years donated $100,000 to the community in “extras:” a snow removal vehicle, furniture for the community center, $2,000 for an annual summer youth work program, refreshments at the neighborhood Safe Night event, tickets to Cardinals games for children.

He notes that adult businesses are legal ventures; though they don’t cater to children, there’s no reason they can’t reward the whole community. He brought a similar message last year when he won a seat on the Mehlville School Board, despite the initial reservations of some who weren’t keen on a strip club owner serving in that post.

“I think it’s wonderful that we can give back and make a positive impact on these kids’ lives,” he says, referring to Brooklyn.

There are officials in the Metro East area who have refused money from adults-only clubs on moral grounds. Frankie Seaberry, a longtime foe of adult businesses, said she didn’t accept such contributions while she was mayor of Centreville because she thought it would be hypocritical. Seaberry finds it irritating that so many adult clubs locate in predominantly black communities like Brooklyn. “Minority leaders should not be so easily enticed,” she says.

Most Lovejoy school officials have no complaints about adult entertainment; rather, they are grateful for the clubs’ contributions.

Superintendent Raelynn Parks says most children don’t walk past the adult entertainment district to get to school. School board member Wendell Marshall says the clubs operate by night, the school by day, and the two rarely interact.

“They are good community partners,” he says.

Brooklyn is believed to be the oldest town founded by blacks, settled in the 1820s by 11 families fleeing the slave state of Missouri. The name is a source of pride for African-Americans across the region.

Today it is known for hosting strip clubs, which operate with few clothing and zoning restrictions.

Some parents and children playing at the community park adjacent to Lovejoy School worry about the clubs’ impact on their neighborhood.

Robbyne Moore, 32, said she tries not to drive by the adult district with her kids in the car. Once she did, and her young son and daughter caught a glimpse of a woman in a tight miniskirt, scant top and cowboy boots exiting a cab.

Her son looked out the window and said, “Ooh, ooh.” Her 5-year-old daughter said the woman “looked so pretty.” “I am like, ‘Oh, hell no,'” Moore says.

Marschanice Grutcher, 28, believes people here think living with strip clubs in their backyard is normal because they’ve never experienced anything else.

“You have more strip clubs than activities for kids,” she says.

The park is one of the few spots for kids, with its brightly colored playground and well-maintained lawn. It opened about three years ago as an alternative to the tiny, neglected playground across the street from the strip clubs.

Even the park was indirectly paid for by adult entertainment: The $900,000 cost came from a special fund set up with a $1 million fine paid by a former massage parlor operator convicted of money laundering.

A half-dozen congregants at weeknight meeting at Southern Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church hold hands in a circle, bow their heads and pray.

Pastor Darryl Calmese of Hazelwood preaches that true religious transformation is akin to mixing Kool-Aid. Just as the beverage needs sugar and water and dye, a life change requires the heart, mind and tongue to work together. Paying lip service or feeling moved aren’t enough.

Those in church can’t hear the music from the strip clubs down the street, but they do see those clubs as they enter and exit.

“They are just taking from the town,” says Mary Miller, 66. “They are not a good influence.”

Miller grew up here but now lives in St. Louis, though she will always consider Brooklyn her home. She is not alone in her decision to leave: The village population has almost halved, from 1,144 people in 1990 to 676 in 2000, according to U.S. Census figures.

While no local women are known to dance in the clubs, Calmese says he doesn’t want girls to think stripping is a good life, and he doesn’t want the boys taking jobs at the clubs as adults. Youths are taught from a young age not to go to “that part of town,” he says, and most oblige because of close-knit family life and a heavy church presence.

But even the pastor acknowledges that the clubs support the town financially.

Protesters — some clergy, some laity — have tried and failed to shut down the clubs throughout the years.

Jake Harris, a former alderman and parks commissioner, has organized protests, written letters to local newspapers and decried village leaders for kowtowing to adult businesses. He says strip club owners control the village by controlling its purse strings.

“It’s a sophisticated shakedown,” says Harris, 59, who now lives in Belleville.