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Published in The Seattle Times online on April 25, 2024
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on April 28, 2024

Beneath downtown, McMahon’s chic characters still tweak vanity

By Clay Eals

When legendary comic Red Skelton played the Puyallup fair in September 1987, he opened with a timeless joke that works for any big burg: “Good to be back in Seattle. Great city — when they get it done.”

His shtick stung because just six months earlier, construction had begun downtown on the Metro Bus Tunnel, disrupting traffic and shopping until its completion in 1990. Buses running in the completed tunnels were replaced later by Sound Transit light-rail trains. But lingering underground today from the late 1980s are eye-popping, publicly funded works by two-dozen artists, including Seattle painter Gene Gentry McMahon.

With “relish and bounce,” McMahon has spent decades poking gentle fun at “stiletto, high-heeled romances in which women on the make mate with underworld thugs,” as one critic opined. That theme was writ large in her 35-by-10-foot transit-tunnel mural installed in 1988 at Westlake Station beneath what was the city’s most elegant department store, Frederick & Nelson.

Today, with Nordstrom above, the mural’s chic characters sparkle in brash juxtaposition as if the piece were brand new. “It’s social commentary about fashion and grooming and how we choose to present ourselves,” McMahon says. “It’s what people wear and bring when they travel, with the mannequins, models and products. I’m playing a little bit on vanity.”

The universal subtext fits a public setting and tweaks an era that is no more, says Greg Kucera, former Frederick’s employee and longtime McMahon champion who after 38 years of operating a Seattle art gallery moved two years ago to France.

“Gene’s art is both literal and very incisive,” he says. “Her mural is an homage to a time of consumerism pre-internet, with the old-fashioned sense of relationship to a salesperson and with products you touch and smell before you buy. The idea of shop-by-mail was quaint. Now everything is delivered to your house.”

These days, McMahon, 81, maintains a studio on Elliott Avenue West, near the P-I globe. There, she conjures lively, provocative art pieces while documenting and cataloguing her countless works. An impish gleam in her eye still conveys edgy enthusiasm.

“I saw the weirdest ad for Nordstrom yesterday,” she says. “It made me want to do [the Westlake mural] all over again. It showed regular white tennis shoes, like Keds. It said they were the most comfortable shoes for the season. Then it showed really high platform heels. Both pairs had gobbledygook flowers. The tennis shoes were $1,200. The platforms were $3,000. I was so revolted. I’m going to use those shoes for something!”

Obviously, neither Seattle nor McMahon is “done.”

WEB EXTRAS

Thanks to Greg Kucera and especially Gene Gentry McMahon for their invaluable help with this installment!

No 360 video this week, but below you will find 4 additional photos and, in chronological order, 18 historical clips from The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer online archive (available via Seattle Public Library), Newspapers.com and Washington Digital Newspapers, that were helpful in the preparation of this column.

Also, Gene wants the public to know about an upcoming event associated with a foundation for which she serves as a board member. The event is a party in honor of the inaugural Alden Mason Award of the Alden Mason Foundation. It will be held at 2-5 p.m. Saturday, May 4, 2024, at Foster/White Gallery, 220 Third Ave. S., Seattle, The grand-prize winner is Ko Kirk Yamahira, with special recognition awards to JoEllen Wang and Juventino Aranda. An informal conversation with the artists at 3 p.m. will be led by Norman Lundin, foundation board member, painter and professor emeritus of the University of Washington School of Art.

And here, to note this column’s lead, we present a couple of 1980s articles about funnyman Red Skelton:

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Published in The Seattle Times online on April 18, 2024
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on April 21, 2024

Light overcame darkness for pioneer kidney patient Clyde Shields

By Jean Sherrard

I saw my physician father cry only once. At his retirement party, he completely choked up when speaking about a man named Clyde Shields. The admiration was not misplaced.

Neither doctor nor researcher, Shields was the world’s first-ever ongoing kidney dialysis patient, here in Seattle. His contributions helped improve and extend millions of lives.

The Northwest Kidney Centers, founded in 1962, celebrated its 62nd anniversary with a Shields-related double act. On March 14, the long-anticipated Dialysis Museum opened in Burien, and the annual Clyde Shields Award for Distinguished Service, bestowed since 1991, was given to Rich Bloch, former Centers board chair.

Before 1960, a diagnosis of end-stage renal disease had only one possible outcome — death. Existing dialysis machines offered temporary relief from accumulated toxins, but repeated use permanently destroyed blood vessels.

Then Seattle nephrologist Dr. Belding Scribner (1921-2003), agonizing over the loss of a young patient, had a “Eureka!” moment.

“I literally woke up in the middle of the night,” he recalled years later, “with the idea of how we could save these people.”

The solution? A surgically installed tube providing a loop between artery and veins might be opened and closed as needed for repeated dialysis without destroying blood vessels.

With the help of UW mechanical engineer Wayne Quinton, Scribner created the “Scribner shunt,” a U-shaped Teflon device whose non-stick surface helped to prevent blood clots.

Scribner’s first patient was Shields, a 39-year-old machinist dying of kidney failure. On March 9, 1960, the newly improvised shunt was implanted in Shields’ arm and attached to a dialysis machine.

The results were immediate and dramatic. “As the waste was filtered from my body,” Shields said, “it was just like turning on the light from the darkness.”

“We took something that was 100 percent fatal and overnight turned it into 90 percent survival,” Scribner said.

For the next 11 years, Shields underwent dialysis, which entailed three 12-hour sessions per week.

Until his death from a heart attack in 1971, Shields, a skilled machinist, served as research partner as much as patient. “Time after time,” Scribner said, Shields was “the observant patient who

put us onto a new solution.” His courage and insights proved invaluable in solving problems as they arose.

Today, Shields’ son Tom injects a personal note of gratitude for the treatment that extended his father’s life. “Those 11 extra years were so important to me,” Tom says. “If dad taught me one lesson, it’s don’t give up. Get back to work and get her done.”

WEB EXTRAS

Just a couple this time round.

And ending on a personal note – a portrait of Jean’s dad, Dr. Don Sherrard, who choked up talking about his favorite patient Clyde Shields. It’s displayed on the wall at the museum.

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Published in The Seattle Times online on April 11, 2024
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on April 14, 2024

Presiding over West Seattle,
the Mount’s heart has beaten for 100 years

By Clay Eals

Not for nothing is it known as the Mount.

Perched on one of Seattle’s highest hills is Providence Mount St. Vincent care center. Its promontory along 35th Avenue Southwest oversees northern West Seattle and boasts a commanding view of downtown.

Likewise, though its 9.3 acres are walled off from much of the surrounding streetscape, the Mount holds a reputation and presence as warm as it is lofty.

Anyone who’s lived long in West Seattle probably has known of an elder family member or friend among its 800 yearly rehab patients or 175 others living final chapters under skilled nursing care. Toss in 109 apartments, a 100-child daycare, 200 volunteers and 487 staff from varying ethnicities, and you get an influential chunk of the community’s foundation.

That, of course, derives from longevity. The Mount building marks its centennial April 26, with a morning-to-evening rededication 100 years to the day since the first such public ceremony.

Initially women-driven, the non-sectarian center took root in Catholicism long before 1924. Its founding Sisters of Providence organized in the 1830s in Montreal. In 1858, they launched the first Pacific Northwest hospital, at Fort Vancouver. World War I interrupted plans in 1914 to expand to Seattle, but 10 years later saw the opening of the bluff-topped, dark-bricked, five-story complex, then called the St. Vincent Home for the Aged.

“A woman who gives her life to care for the old is as much a patriot as the soldier who gives his life on the field of battle,” Acting Gov. William Coyle said in praising founders at the dedication. “Your service is as great in peace as in war.”

Seen from above, the Mount’s layout forms an “H,” certainly symbolic of health. At its core, like a rudder, is a grand chapel. As times evolved, so did the institution’s name, services, staffing and outer face (a major mid-1960s rebuild and additional St. Joseph Residence gave it softer tones of tan and brown).

A high point came in 2015 when NBC “Today” showcased the Mount’s innovative Intergenerational Learning Center, pairing seniors with preschoolers, starting in 1991. The clasped hands and blended voices of old and young tugged at televised heartstrings.

Actually, the Mount’s centennial saga could generate at least 100 such heartwarming stories. One could be culled from 1974, when caregivers urged a resident in her 80s to keep moving to stay young in spirit. But she resolutely asserted she was too old for yoga classes: “I’m not going to stand on my head at my age.”

No wonder. She might not have been able to enjoy the view.

WEB EXTRAS

Thanks to Molly Swain and Veronica Couto of Providence Mount St. Vincent and Cynthia Flash of Flash Media Services for their invaluable help with this installment!

To see Clay Eals’ 360-degree video of the “Now” prospect and compare it with the “Then” photos, and to hear this column read aloud by Clay, check out our Seattle Now & Then 360 version of the column.

You also will find a commemorative booklet,  10 additional photos (including several then/now pairs submitted by the Mount) and, in chronological order, 29 historical clips from The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer online archive (available via Seattle Public Library), Newspapers.com and Washington Digital Newspapers, that were helpful in the preparation of this column.

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Published in The Seattle Times online on April 4, 2024
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on April 7, 2024

For first world flight, from Seattle to Seattle, hope took to the air

By Clay Eals

Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, the Wright Brothers. We all recognize those aviation icons and their deeds.

But what about Army pilots Frederick Martin, Lowell Smith, Leigh Wade and Erik Nelson? Their names have eluded cultural literacy, though they were the initial pilots leading the inaugural round-the-world voyage by air, a six-month U.S. military feat that began and ended in northeast Seattle 100 years ago.

This weekend marks its centennial. On April 6, 1924, some 300 onlookers witnessed four two-seat, open-cockpit Douglas biplanes named Seattle, Chicago, New Orleans and Boston taking off from Sand Point Airfield. Using interchangeable wheels and floats for periodic landings, the armada headed northwest — clockwise if you could eye the route from above the North Pole.

In this nascent era, among relentless complications, two planes perished. The Seattle crashed into an Alaskan mountain. Its two-man crew hiked five days through snow, holed up in a trapper’s cabin three days and walked one more day before their rescue and return home.

The Boston sank near Iceland, replaced by a backup, the Boston II. The original Boston crew later joined the crews of the Chicago and New Orleans, and the three planes came full circle, landing Sept. 28 at Sand Point, greeted by an adoring crowd of 40,000.

The 175-day sojourn touched 22 countries, some of which had never seen a plane. The purposes, outlined by Major Gen. Mason Patrick, were lofty:

• Demonstrate aerial communication with “all countries of the world.”
• Prove flight as practical “through regions where surface transportation does not exist or at least is slow, dangerous and uncertain.”
• Show that aircraft could operate “under all climatical conditions.”
• Prompt aircraft to adapt to “the needs of commerce.”
• Showcase the “excellence” of American aircraft and byproducts.
• Honor America as “the first nation to finally circumnavigate the globe.”

Indeed, hope filled the air for the April 6 launch. “Seattle has an interest in the gallant effort of the Army airmen not felt by other cities,” The Seattle Times editorialized that day. “It is here that they make their adieus and receive the expressions of goodwill from an admiring city.”

The same hope imbues this year’s six-month First World Flight Centennial celebration. The Friends of Magnuson Park group plans big events at Sand Point and the Museum of Flight around the Sept. 28 return date. But fittingly the party already has begun in the intangible air of the internet, with a “Follow the Journey” campaign on Instagram and Facebook.

“It’s a daily experience,” says Elisa Law, executive director, “to drum up global recognition and collective memory.” Through it, the Friends seek to unearth photos and other artifacts from the flight’s 74 worldwide stops.

As for Martin, Smith, Wade and Nelson? We could call them “The Boys in the Sky.” Hollywood, anyone?

WEB EXTRAS

Thanks to Jade D’Addario of the Seattle Room of Seattle Public Library, Wendy Malloy of the Museum of History & Industry, Phil Dougherty of HistoryLink and to Elisa Law and Cynthia Mejia-Giudici of Friends of Magnuson Park for their invaluable help with this installment!

To see Clay Eals’ 360-degree video of the “Now” prospect and compare it with the “Then” photos, and to hear this column read aloud by Clay, check out our Seattle Now & Then 360 version of the column.

You also will find 2 more videos, 64 additional photos and, in chronological order, 8 historical clips from The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer online archive (available via Seattle Public Library), Newspapers.com and Washington Digital Newspapers, that were helpful in the preparation of this column.

And don’t miss these in-depth HistoryLink stories on the First World Flight by Phil Dougherty:

• Seattle to Seattle: The First Aerial Circumnavigation of the Globe (Part 1) – HistoryLink.org
• Seattle to Seattle: The First Aerial Circumnavigation of the Globe (Part 2) – HistoryLink.org
• U.S. Army Air Service airplanes land at Sand Point Aerodrome to complete the first flight around the world on September 28, 1924. – HistoryLink.org

And this link for a long-running dream:

• The Seattle World Cruiser Project

The following panels are from a free exhibit commemorating the six-month 1924 feat, open weekdays at Mercy Magnuson Place, 7101 62nd Ave. NE, at Sand Point.

The following panels are the initial Instagram posts for the First World Flight centennial celebration.

The following images are of the 2021 aviation murals created by students at Building 41 at Sand Point. The Friends of Magnuson Park hope to make it a visitor center.

The following photos depict an aviation display at Magnuson  Community Center, 7110 62nd Ave NE.

The following photo and video are from Magnuson  Community Center’s dedication July 7, 2023.

The following photos depict the First World Flight commemorative monument at the entrance to Magnuson Park.

The following photos are from the collection of Ron Edge.

The following panels are from the May 2023 newsletter of Friends of Magnuson Park.

The following photos are from a photo album given by the Navy to Tiburcio V. Mejia at Sand Point in 1956. Here is a remembrance from his daughter, Cynthia Mejia-Giudici, board member of Friends of Magnuson Park:

“My father, Tiburcio V. Mejia, was a chief petty officer in the Navy, then a steward as that was the highest level Filipinos could attain at that time. We transferred here December 1956, and he retired during the 1965 school year. I was 12 or 13 in the group photo below. My brother, Ted, was about 10, and my sister, Leslie Ann, was 5 or 6. My mother, Connie, was a proud wife.

“My brother said that the photo album was most likely presented to my dad when he retired, possibly as a commemorative gift. Dad enlisted at Glenview, Ill., in 1942. He served admirals on aircraft carriers. We have slippers from his travels to Algeria and photos of him wearing a Scottish kilt. He was in the European theater and didn’t see ground combat. One of his assignments was on the USS Missouri. My father kept a file of programs of dinners that he who most likely coordinated, also recipes. Precious stuff!”

 

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A NOW & THEN APRIL FOOL’S SPECIAL

Are These Quirky Tales for Real?

Certainly plenty of weird things have happened in the Seattle area and beyond — but have all of these?

By Clay Eals and Jean Sherrard

Through the decades, we’ve all seen them: the wacky people or experiences that make us laugh, cry, roll our eyes — sometimes all three. Often they’re enshrined in photos that rarely make the history books. But what’s April Fool’s Day for if we don’t flaunt such images and mess with the annals of time?

We at “Now & Then” dug out some of our favorite quirky images and asked local history compadres to do the same. We boiled them down to 10 vignettes.

Below, enjoy these off-the-wall snapshots of yesteryear, but keep your guard up for tomfoolery. Think of each “Then” photo and vignette below as a mystery, and of the corresponding “Now” (which you can find when visiting the link below each “Then” vignette) as the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help us history!

And don’t forget to click here to see The Backstory!

Quirky tale #1:
Discovering a vicious sea monster

Long before radio and TV (and certainly the internet), newspapers abounded with eyewitness tales of dreaded sea serpents. It became almost a sport to try to prove such sightings. In 1906, a group of natty gents took matters into their own hands, showcasing visual evidence of such a find. At Rainier Beach, they wrestled a sharp-toothed beast to stillness just long enough for a photo to document their temporary prize before rolling it back into Lake Washington.

IS THE ABOVE VIGNETTE TRUE OR AN APRIL FOOL?
CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT!

Quirky tale #2:
Sculpting faces in raw meat

Where horsemeat once was peddled in the Pike Place Market — during wartime rationing in the 1940s — now stands Mr. D’s Greek Delicacies, a take-away restaurant serving customers for more than four decades. Along with classic Hellenic fare, owner Demetrios Moraitis, 89, creates art in the bizarre medium of gyro meat. Over the years, Mr. D. has carved lamb busts of notables — from Market savior Victor Steinbrueck and Zorba the Greek to Barack Obama and the 2016 matchup of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

IS THE ABOVE VIGNETTE TRUE OR AN APRIL FOOL?CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT!

Quirky tale #3:
Bashing a bicycle, Balch-style

In the 1970s, zany Dick Balch was a mind trip. In ever-present TV ads, the hippie-ish huckster with a high-pitched giggle wielded a sledgehammer to clobber cars at his Federal Way dealership. The man drew attention! Promoter Ben Laigo understood this. So when he launched the first official Seafair Bicycle Rally & Picnic in 1972, he persuaded Seafair Queen Lynn Garcia to pose in Balch’s lot to “smash” a 10-speed with a sledge. Ever the ham, Balch joined in the scene with a giant grin.

IS THE ABOVE VIGNETTE TRUE OR AN APRIL FOOL?
CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT!

Quirky tale #4:
Notching another official Seattleite

On Oct. 7, 1937, the front page of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer showcased this cheeky photo. In it, cigar-chomping Eddie Rivers, a popular PR and advertising man for Seattle’s Hamrick-Evergreen Theaters, chose a unique way to announce the birth of his third child. Named after a popular song, Rivers’ daughter Charmaine was, he insisted, a “first-class attraction” appearing for a “long-term engagement some five weeks ago.” He credited the booking to “A. Stork.”

IS THE ABOVE VIGNETTE TRUE OR AN APRIL FOOL?
CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT!

Quirky tale #5:
Facing a nun-too-subtle challenge

For amateur photographer Max Loudon, who documented his lively bachelor life in the early years of the 20th century, this snapshot of six Benedictine nuns in their habits during a visit to Seattle’s first world’s fair, the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exhibition of 1909, is one of a kind. What expressions! From grin to grimace, the sisters’ enjoyment of the AYPE seems … mixed. Loudon noted their provocative question: “How do you tour a city like Seattle?”

IS THE ABOVE VIGNETTE TRUE OR AN APRIL FOOL?
CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT!

Quirky tale #6:
Shining light on a riverside petroglyph

South of Fall City, the Raging River sometimes sloshes at high levels, but not enough to obscure a mysterious marker carved onto a 5-by-6-foot piece of riverside granite. Depicting a salmon and the sun, the petroglyph sits flat, as if on a tabletop. When hikers stumble upon what seems like ancient art, they’re stunned. Shouldn’t it be highlighted on some guide map? Well, Fall City historians don’t like to disclose its precise locale. Best not to invite vandals, they say. So in obscurity, its legend lingers.

IS THE ABOVE VIGNETTE TRUE OR AN APRIL FOOL?
CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT!

 

Quirky tale #7:
Fishing for a streetside dinner

Infamous Gutter Creek, running down First Avenue before the Denny Regrade reshaped much of the city’s topography, was notoriously muddy. Returning salmon could even be caught in its shallow freshets at certain times of year. In our “Then” photo, snapped between 1903 and 1906, an enterprising young fisher trolls for his dinner. A small crowd observes from the sidewalk in front of the Virginia Bar, erected in 1903 at the southwest corner of First and Virginia.

IS THE ABOVE VIGNETTE TRUE OR AN APRIL FOOL?
CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT!

Quirky tale #8:
Pigging out on the shoreline

He hid it well, but Seattle Mayor Carl Hinckley moonlighted as a bedraggled buffoon on the downtown waterfront in 1908-09. Masquerading as “Uncle Hiram and His Pig,” he induced his porcine partner, Betsy, and various dogs to perform crowd-pleasing tricks, while his hay-filled “Studebaker” wagon poked gentle fun at his campaign contributors. Hinckley built a following as what the Seattle Post-Intelligencer called “one of the best impersonators of the original down Easterner in the country.”

IS THE ABOVE VIGNETTE TRUE OR AN APRIL FOOL?
CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT!

Quirky tale #9:
Doppelganging a Dorpat

On a 2005 trip to Paris, his first since age 16, our favorite Seattle historian, Paul Dorpat, then 68, was on a mission. Newly available birth records from a Grand Forks, N.D. hospital questioned his family history. In a double whammy, he learned not only that he was adopted in 1938 but also had an identical twin, Denis Poisson-d’Avril, who had moved to Paris after World War II with his own adoptive family. Hoping to visit this noted Left Bank philosopher at his Sorbonne digs, Dorpat serendipitously caught a glimpse of his twin at a sidewalk café and without a word sat at an adjoining table.

IS THE ABOVE VIGNETTE TRUE OR AN APRIL FOOL?
CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT!

Quirky tale #10:
Sinking an unexpected hole

It was an encounter too close for comfort. Here we have evidence from Nov. 12, 1957, of a little-known and quickly hushed-up incident in which an asteroid entered the earth’s atmosphere and crashed onto a boulevard on the north side of Queen Anne. It left a massive hole before rolling down a wooded slope to Aurora Avenue North.

IS THE ABOVE VIGNETTE TRUE OR AN APRIL FOOL?
CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT!

And don’t forget to click here to see The Backstory!

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Published in The Seattle Times online on March 21, 2024
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on March 24, 2024

Climate of today sinks Puyallup’s 1941 ‘House of Tomorrow’

By Clay Eals

The setting was — and remains — idyllic.

It’s just a stone’s throw (or two) from busy Highway 167 and the green-tinted George Milroy truss bridge that crosses the robust Puyallup River at 66th Avenue East. But this quiet spot in rural Pierce County also is hidden by woods and tucks itself along meandering Clarks Creek.

Facing the babbling stream and hearing little but the chirps of birds, you might never guess that behind you, for 83 years, has stood a unique multi-floor residence that its designer and builder dubbed the House of Tomorrow.

If you’re familiar with hucksterish home shows, such a label sounds like so much real-estate hype. But it’s an identifier as singular and audacious as its originator, Bert Allen Smyser (1893-1987).

The brash entrepreneur assembled a career of not always highly heralded feats and schemes. His 1930 coffee-pot shaped Tacoma roadhouse survives today as Bob’s Java Jive. Rejected, however, was Smyser’s late-1950s brainstorm to host what became the Seattle World’s Fair, complete with a “sky-high” restaurant and a swirling, suspended transit system, in Auburn.

Smyser — whose nickname was “Bullnose” because he preferred rounded to square corners — lived with his wife for decades in his Clarks Creek creation, a symphony of curves in the established international Art Deco style known as Streamline Moderne. Equally notable was Smyser’s pioneering use of plywood as a primary building material. Upon the home’s construction, the Tacoma News Tribune declared it “as modern as milady’s next fall chapeau.”

Over time, however, the elements took a soggy toll. Repeatedly and increasingly frequently, Clarks Creek flooded the building — four times between 1941 and 1978, and in at least seven instances since 2008, when its latest private owner purchased it. The twin culprits, says Randy Brake, Pierce County project manager, were nearby development and climate change.

In 2016, the county sought mitigation funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In 2022, FEMA granted $600,000 to help the county buy the property and raze its signature home, determining that it was neither cost-effective nor practical to relocate it. The county aims to return the site to wetland in perpetuity.

At only 1,012 square feet, the House of Tomorrow is hardly a mansion. But Smyser’s creation and the experimenter himself present a complex, fascinating tale, authenticated by historically meticulous and richly illustrated research documents totaling 272 pages. At last-peek open houses Jan. 17 and Feb. 3, streams of visitors verified its appeal.

But demolition is nigh. The bulldozer is due to arrive in April.

Alas, once again tomorrow cannot keep pace with today.

WEB EXTRAS

Thanks to Adam Alsobrook and Randy Brake for their invaluable help with this installment!

No 360 video or additional newspaper clips this week, but you will find covers of two research documents totaling 272 pages on the House of Tomorrow.

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Published in The Seattle Times online on March 14, 2024
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on March 17, 2024

A Seattle treasure soon to be demolished — but not forgotten

By Jean Sherrard

Our mission, should we choose to accept it: Find a rare image of a soon-to-be razed mansion and repeat it on location. Surely not impossible, right?

Fortunately, the Museum of History & Industry supplied the only extant “Then” photo of what director Leonard Garfield calls “one of the great private estates from one of Seattle’s golden eras.”

But capturing the “Now” photo proved a greater challenge.

“This is a caper,” MOHAI board member Maria Denny said as we glided through Montlake Cut in a battered cabin cruiser, turning north into Lake Washington on a balmy winter’s afternoon.

Maria’s great-great uncle Rolland Denny (1851-1939) commissioned noted Seattle architectural firm Bebb & Mendel to design a three-story Spanish Mission Revival mansion. Completed in 1907, it was christened Loch Kelden — a fusion of wife Alice Kellogg’s name and Denny’s own. Overlooking “Loch” Washington, the then-50-acre estate was a wilderness retreat accessible only by boat from Madison Park.

In 1974, the Unification Church acquired the mansion and its remaining 1.7 acres, using it as a domicile and hosting dignitaries, including founder Sun Myung Moon and his wife.

On the market since 2022, Loch Kelden recently was sold to developers for what real-estate sites say is $5.999 million, “pending feasibility.” Preservationists could not nominate it as a city landmark because the state Supreme Court has exempted religious entities from landmark designation unless such owners support or seek it. Thus, demolition appears imminent.

In February, Scott Dolfay, the church’s retired property manager and caretaker for more than two decades, graciously offered a farewell tour to a group of historians. Two days before our visit, however, the invite was rescinded due to a strict nondisclosure provision of the sale agreement. Access to the grounds to take our repeat photo also was denied.

So we opted for a boat’s-eye view. Putt-putting past expansive waterfront homes, we spotted the cream-colored mansion on Windermere bluff. “Spectacular!” said Maria Denny. “I’d forgotten how lovely it is.”

It stirred a raft of family memories as well. Her father, the late Brewster Denny, often visited Loch Kelden, fondly recalling his 11th birthday party, thrown there by his “Great Uncle Roll,” notably the youngest member of the well-known Nov. 13, 1851, Alki landing party.

Two months old and near starvation, Rolland was not expected to live. But Duwamish tribal members supplied the infant with life-saving clam nectar.

In the end, why does this lovely place matter? For Maria Denny, the answer is simple: “Holding onto pieces of history means that we continue remembering them.”

An improbable and uphill mission, perhaps not yet impossible.

WEB EXTRAS

Thanks to Elke Hautala, Cari Simson, Scott Dolfay , Leonard Garfield, Eugenia Woo and Maria Denny  and Howard Lev for their invaluable help with this installment!

To see Jean Sherrard’s 360-degree video of the “Now” prospect and compare it with the “Then” photos, and to hear this column read aloud by Jean, check out our Seattle Now & Then 360 version of the column. Also, below you will find a video interview of Maria Denny by Clay Eals.

See below for 5 more photos from fall 2023 by David Williams.

And further below, see 8 photos from Magnolia resident Tab Melton, in the 1950s before he was born and when his family lived at Loch Kelden.

Here are the 1950s photos provided by Tab Melton, when his family lived in a log cabin on the Loch Kelden estate. The photos show Tab’s three older siblings. Tab recalls that when his father, George Melton, lived in the mansion, the two watched the Nov. 25, 1963, funeral of slain President John F. Kennedy on a portable TV in the mansion’s parlor, where the copper fireplace was festooned with tapestries.

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Published in The Seattle Times online on March 7, 2024
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on March 10, 2024

Panoramic book reveals Space Needle’s newly transparent views

By Clay Eals

Somehow I can’t forget a delightful ditty from when I was 11 years old. Its lyrics come from one of many Seattle World’s Fair-themed songs in 1962, sung to the show-tune melody of “Hey, Look Me Over”:

Hey, look us over, come to the fair
Come to Seattle, fun is everywhere

Climb up in space, look all around
You’ll be amazed at the sights you see
You never knew that could be found …

Of course, the reference was to the Space Needle, now the preeminent worldwide symbol of Seattle. To me, the 605-foot beacon is calming, inspirational, ubiquitous. It’s in framed posters at home. It’s on my smartphone wallpaper. It’s in the corner of my eye whenever I zip around the city. I doubt I’m alone.

You might not have visited the Needle other than to show visitors. Whether dissuading you was the press of everyday life or the price of admission ($26-$39 today, depending on age, vs. $1 in 1962), your last ascent might have been years ago.

In fact, you might not have ridden the golden elevators to the “top house” since its breathtaking renovation of 2017-18.

But hey, now you can learn about and enjoy the big redo at ground level.

Just published is a lavishly illustrated book, “New Heights: Transforming Seattle’s Iconic Space Needle” (192 pages, Images Publishing Group). It was written and assembled by Olson Kundig, the Seattle-based international design firm that shepherded the $100 million project.

The book snugly complements Knute Berger’s definitive 2012 tome “Space Needle: The Spirit of Seattle” (184 pages, Documentary Media).

And just as with the song lyrics, “New Heights” makes clear that for the Needle’s renovators, the views were THE thing.

Heeding the city Landmark Preservation Board’s admonition to retain the Needle’s original look and profile, changes nevertheless were substantial — and stunning. Off came exterior security cages in favor of tall glass panels. Interior windows were deepened. Off came opaque walls. Away went the rotating restaurant in favor of a rotating (and revealing) glass floor. Transparency ruled. The relentless refrain was: “Does it serve the view?”

With 160 images, including eye-popping panoramas, the book depicts history, visions, models, construction and finished results. Brief text adds insights and incidentals. Examples: TV’s “Jetsons” possibly assigned the Needle the persona of “a midcentury cartoon.” And when navigating the new glass floors, the project architect’s two young daughters had clearly divergent reactions (!).

Naturally, the book can’t fully substitute for the actual experience. So the best place to find and purchase “New Heights” might be atop the Needle itself. “You’ll be amazed at the sights you see …”

WEB EXTRAS

Thanks to Mathilde van Tulder, Alan Maskin, Blair Payson and Cate O’Toole for their invaluable help with this installment!

To see Jean Sherrard’s 360-degree video of the “Now” prospect and compare it with the “Then” photos, and to hear this column read aloud by Clay, check out our Seattle Now & Then 360 version of the column.

No historical news clips this week, but below you will find 2 additional then/now photo comparisons. And we’ve just gotta include the full lyrics to “Hey, Look Us Over,” sung to the tune of “Hey, Look Me Over” and referenced at the beginning of this column:

Hey, look us over, come to the fair
Come to Seattle, fun is everywhere

Climb up in space, look all around
You’ll be amazed at the sights you see
You never knew that could be found

And while you’re here, take a boat ride
Out on the Sound
Find the joys of living, pleasures here abound

So get out of the habit of staying home
Take a plane, a train or bus
Come to Seattle, have a good look at us!

Plus, of many videos promoting the Space Needle and Seattle Center, click here for a choice one from 1968.

(Click and click again to enlarge photos)

Published in The Seattle Times online on Feb. 29, 2024
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on March 3, 2024

History with a heart: Postcard detective identifies long-gone home

By Clay Eals

Often we shrug: “Here today, gone tomorrow.” For Adam Alsobrook, the phrase transforms wistfully into “Here yesterday, gone today.”

In off-hours, the architectural historian and resident of Seattle’s Beacon Hill neighborhood often dons a figurative fedora to become a specialized detective after my “Now & Then” heart.

Alsobrook, 45, dives into what collectors call Real Photo Postcards (RPPCs), an early 20th-century phenomenon triggered by a then-new Kodak camera that let hobbyists and roving photographers print images on postcard stock for mailing.

Often unlabeled, the cards were produced in tiny runs, depicting subjects without commercial appeal. Today they flood eBay (2,700 “Seattle” listings alone, for example), but many are quite rare.

These missives also bore handwritten messages with fleeting details that some sleuths find maddeningly incomplete in suggesting what the images portrayed. Missing info, however, only stirs Alsobrook’s juices of research, training and intuition.

Case in point: our main “Then” postcard. An unknown person mailed it from Seattle on Sept. 13, 1907, to Mrs. F.F. Adams of Leverett, Mass.

Alsobrook scoured reference books, databases and other online resources, to no avail. But with expert-level acumen in residential historical design, he combed Sanborn fire-insurance maps to glean hints of the house’s locale.

He started with Capitol Hill and Queen Anne, then circled to First Hill, cracking the case by finding a mapped footprint at the northwest corner of University Street and Summit Avenue that matched the image.

This corresponded with a March 2, 1902, Seattle Times blurb about architect W.D. Kimball designing “an extensive double residence” for attorney Winfield R. Smith at that corner. Six days later, an architectural rendering appeared in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

By about 1909, it had become a Catholic home for “working girls,” a euphemism for unwed mothers, and, by the late 1920s, a maternity hospital. It was razed in 1928, making way for Maynard Hospital. Today, it’s a multi-floor retirement community.

Alsobrook has investigated many other RPPCs, including those whose subjects still stand, such as a 1909 image of a Ravenna home at 5643 Brooklyn Ave. N.E. But the 1907 card of the long-gone University/Summit building may be the only photographic record of its existence.

His pie-in-the-sky hope is that historical residential photo-documentation will become as routine as today’s DNA-aided ancestry research. Why is such visual insight important?

To Alsobrook, it reflects our country’s culture. Relentlessly “nomadic,” Americans nevertheless deeply value their ever-changing built environment, he says, and making public its history can be uplifting.

For evidence, he needs only to flip over the 1907 card to its three-word inscription, fertile with rooted affection: “Our Seattle Home.”

WEB EXTRAS

Thanks to Adam Alsobrook for his invaluable help with this installment!

No 360-degree video for this installment yet. But …

You also will find 4 links, 1 video, 1 additional photo and, in chronological order, 2 historical clips from The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer online archive (available via Seattle Public Library), Newspapers.com and Washington Digital Newspapers, that were helpful in the preparation of this column.

• Adam Alsobrook’s blog
• Real Photo Postcard site 1
• Real Photo Postcard site 2
• Real Photo Postcard site 3

 

(click to enlarge photos)

Published in The Seattle Times online on Feb. 22, 2024
and in PacificNW Magazine of the printed Times on Feb. 25, 2024

Think you have a long wait for state ferries? So did Seattle!
By Jean Sherrard

Waiting in line for a ferry, whether in the eight-lane lot of our 1936 “Then” photo or in today’s hugely expanded parking areas, we all have ample time to reflect on the state of Puget Sound car ferries. Their turbulent history began long before our own pandemic-induced cross-Sound woes.

In 1936, the family-owned Puget Sound Navigation Company (PSNC), aka the Black Ball Line, had become the largest inland ferry system in the world. Incorporated in 1900, the ambitious firm already had converted many of Seattle’s passenger-only “mosquito fleet” boats into car ferries, operating from its Colman Dock base. Having just snapped up its main rival, the Kitsap Transportation Company, after a crippling strike the year before, PSNC utterly dominated Puget Sound ferry traffic in the depths of the Depression.

But for owner and company president Capt. Alexander Peabody (1895-1980), storm clouds brewed. With a booming voice and imperious if dapper manner, “Cap,” as he was known to his friends, was notably contentious.

His ferry monopoly — which would last for more than fifteen years — would be eventful, buffeted by labor unrest, a disgruntled riding public and an exasperated state government.

Sneak a glance back at Colman Dock where patient motorists wait to cross the Sound. If Bremerton bound, they might be in for a treat, boarding the Black Ball’s sparkling new flagship Kalakala, whose streamlined design and Art Deco interiors reflected a hopeful future. (For $10, “Cap” had acquired the Peralta, a California ferry burned to the waterline, and built the maritime marvel).

With the openings of Oakland’s Bay Bridge in 1936 and the Golden Gate Bridge the following year, PSNC snapped up surplus wooden-hulled ferries on the cheap from California. Soon, 17 more Bay Area vessels joined the Black Ball fleet, their Golden State yellows repainted in northwest green.

Peabody’s combative instincts were tamed patriotically during World War II when, by U.S. government request, he had kept fares low. Early in 1947, however, he refused to negotiate with Black Ball engineers demanding better pay and shorter hours. Their response: a six-day strike, leaving 10,000 commuters stranded.

Several months later, to recover lost revenue, Black Ball raised rates by 30%, further enraging ferry riders.

When the state rolled back fares, a truculent “Cap” pulled the plug, halting operations for more than a week. Seen as extortion to leverage higher fares, the cutoff triggered increasing calls for public ownership of the ferries. Widely criticized, “Cap” eventually accepted the state’s offer of $4.9 million to buy the Black Ball Line — dock, stock, and ferry.

On June 1, 1951, Washington State Ferries was born.

WEB EXTRAS

More photos of the newly remodeled Colman Dock.