Fair and Festival – No. 16: Fountain of Creation

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For No. 16 we have move from No. 15 south across Republican Street through a portal between two fair buildings that have survived as parts of the Northwest Rooms of Seattle Center, which were once-upon-a-time home for much of Bumbershoot’s now largely lost Literary Arts program – both the readings and the book fair.  For some of us this was the most evocative corner of Bumbershoot.   While there is some literary art in rock it is not so varied or sustained as it was with Bumbershoot’s Literary Arts part or program.

Opened in 1903 and razed for Century 21, the Warren Avenue School crowded the southeast corner of Republican Street and Warren Ave. This put part of its north end, here on the left, in the Northwest room that was home during Century 21 to the Canadians, and during many Bumbershoots, to the festival's Literary Arts.
While the streets are not named in this detail lifted from the 1912 Baist Real Estate Map, it is easy to identify them. Left-of-center in the green block there is the named Warren Ave School, still crowding both Republican Street, above it, and Warren Avenue, to the left of it. The school's footprint held where now, to repeat, are parts of the Northwest Rooms, the Fountain of Creation, and the Coliseum. This detail also shows the by now familiar Sara Yesler Home, aka Wayside Hospital, aka apartment house, at the northwest corner of Republican and Second Avenue, now home of the Rep. The undeveloped block here at the center, a playfield for the school, is now awash with the International Fountain. Mercer Avenue is at the top; Queen Anne Ave, far left; 4th Ave. far right.
The section of interest, Section No. 2, is ponderously named the World of Century 21. It concentrates on the Coliseum, and can be compared to the Baist map above. The look down on it all from the Space Needle in 1962 that follows may also be compared to the Baist Map and this Ron Edge sandwich. The International Plaza, Seattle sculptor Everett DuPen's Fountain of Creation and just above or north of the fountain, Century 21's long rooms used as pavilions for, among others, the Canadians, Mexico, Denmark and Japan.
Looking northwest from the Space Needle during Century 21. The subjects of both yesterday's No. 15 and today's No. 16 can be readily found below.

 

During the fair looking east through the Fountain of Creation with the International Plaza’s pavilions on the left – future home for much Jazz and Literary Arts at Bumbershoot.
Jean’s “repeat” put him up against the wall.  He remarked “things have been moved.”
Catching a wading Jean getting his shot of the Fountain of Creation from the pool.
The Canadian mark can be read in this twilight look over Everett DuPen’s fountain during the fair.
After the fair as a sign that the Century 21 campus was being turned into a working Seattle Center, this sketch of the fountain and its surrounds appeared in the times. We reprint the caption.         FOUNTAIN: The World’s Fair Fountain near the Coliseum designed by Everett DuPen, Seattle sculptor, serves as the foreground for a newly remodeled exhibit-banquet hall occupying the former Canada Pavilion at the Seattle Center. The former Denmark Pavilion, right, will be inclosed and used as a permanent restaurant. (Seattle Times, March 9, 1964)

 

 

 

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