Seattle Now & Then: The Zindorf Apartments

jrsherrard

10 years ago

(click to enlarge photos)

THEN: A close “read” of this concrete pile at 714 7th Ave. will reveal many lines of tiles decorating its gray facades. (Courtesy, Lawton Gowey)

NOW: One of the Zindorf’s prides, its colored tiles, survive now but under colored coats of what appears to be impervious paint. The real color of the tiles survives for study and touch in the arching entrance.

Mathew Partrick Zindorf, the sturdy builder-developer of these namesake apartments, ran a classified in The Post-Intelligencer for Sept. 19, 1909 that trumpeted the qualities of his then modern four-story (with basement) creation on the east side of 7^th Avenue, mid-block between Cherry and Columbia Streets. Distributed throughout were seventy-one apartments, 40 of two rooms, 28 of three, and 3 of four. Everyone of them had disappearing beds, tiled and enameled bathrooms, kitchenettes fitted with gas ranges and refrigerators, and every apartment was entered thru the elegance of doors aglow with art glass, and along floors, halls and stairs finished in Alaska marble and art tiling.

Preservationist Diana James, quoted here, recorded this peek into the Zindorf entrance while researching for “Shared Walls,” her history of Seattle apartment houses, and often shared with this blog. The three details follow, are also by James.

A Seattle Times early clip on the “new Zindorf.”

The 1912 Baist map locates the concrete Zindorf and its brick neighbor the Columbia at the southeast corner of Columbia St. and 7th Avenue..

The apartment’s accompanying portrait – from about 1911 – reveals that it was lavishly decorated with art tile on the outside as well. But most importantly, these apartments were made of fireproof reinforced concrete. It was a point of such gravity to the long-lived Zindorf that the first line in his Seattle Times obituary for April 13, 1952 reads, “93. Long-time Seattle construction engineer, who built

the first reinforced concreted structure here . . .the Zindorf Apartments.” Historian Dianna James, author of “Shared Walls,” a history of Seattle’s apartment buildings, doubts it. She nominates the Waldorf apartment-hotel for that distinction. Built a few blocks north of Zindorf at the northeast corner of 7^th and Pike and about three years earlier in 1906, in a Times report from 1907, the Waldorf is also described as strictly fireproof . . . built of reinforced concrete . . . There is no wood of any kind, except the flooring.”

Zindorf seems to have had some uncertainty about his namesake apartments before they opened. In a July 11, 1909 Times classified the developer indicates a willingness “to lease for a term of years” his “strictly first-class building and very close in. . .” However, the offer did not, it seems, indicate an impasse, for the 1909 Times classified noted above promised that “the apartment house will be ready for occupancy in October.” Next in the Times classifieds for December 12, a self-acclaimed “first class dressmaker, Mrs. Amsbury, was advertising her services from Zindorf apartment 1-b.” Early in January a “professional masseur and chiropodist” was offering rheumatism massage in a Zindorf apartment.

A century ago the neighborhood was distinguished by the brick Monticello Hotel, directly across 7^th Ave. from the Zindorf; the Seattle Fire Department’s headquarters, at the southwest corner of

Looking southeast across Columbia Street at Seattle’s post-1889 fire headquarters at the southwest corner of 7th Ave. and Columbia Street, and so for most of its life – although not in this early Wilse shot from the 1890s – across 7th Avenue from both the Zindorf and Columbia Apartment. One of Jean’s and my Pacific Features upcoming will show this station in its last days during the building of the freeway, with another transparency by Frank Shaw. (Courtesy Lawton Gowey)

7^th and Columbia; the brick Columbia Bldg. (also showing here), next door at the southeast corner of the same intersection, and nearby both St. James Cathedral and Trinity Episcopal Church. And being “very close in” to the business district was made nearly immediate by Cable Railways on both James and Madison Streets. For the second half of its life, the Zindorf has faced the freeway, and heard it too.

Zindorf’s neighbor the Columbia at the southeast corner of 7th and Columbia. This view of it was recorded by public works photographer James Lee in 1911. The Zindorf appears far right.

Looking northeast towards First Hill from the top floor of the old City Hall. I no longer remember the occasion for my visiting city hall’s exterior balcony, but it was probably during the Royer administration. Here the tops of both the Zindorf and the Columbia peek above Interstate-Five aka within the city as The Seattle Freeway.

WEB EXTRAS

Anything to add, Paul? Yes Jean, but with a confession that we have, again, given most of our time to research and this show-tell (the sensational rewards of research) will suffer some because of it. We don’t have time for it all it seems, however, Ron Edge’s help is typically redeeming in this, and so below we will include a number of aerials got from Ron and from the edges of other collections. To these we will join a few past features from the neighborhood – most of them linked by Ron – and a few other features pulled from this computer. Also we will leave much of the interpretation to the readers. They may feel confident that most likely the Zindorf will figure into what we add – either directly or as a neighbor. What follows, then, is something of a challenge. To repeat, we will begin with the links, continue on then to some aerials and then find a few more neighborly features. (The last may be added later in the week, depending, this evening, on the nighty-bear* impulses.)
* Coined and used by Bill Burden to describe or indicte anything that may have to do with going to bed.

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