(click to enlarge photos)

This, I believe, is only the second occasion in which Jean Sherrard, the “repeater-photographer” in this partnership for nearly a decade, has managed to include himself in his “now.”  Standing on the roof at the northwest corner of the ten-story Cambridge Apartments, he appears bottom-right with his head and shoulders sticking out from the building’s shadow, near its pinnacle.  It is not a good likeness. While both Jean and his shadow are broad-shouldered, Jean is over 6 feet 5 inches tall.  [The Golden Rule feature has been placed at the top of those collected by Ron Edge below.]

The historical photo at the top was most likely taken in 1923, the year the Cambridge started letting its convenient studio apartments to renters who often worked nearby in what was then already identified as Seattle’s new retail section. Dating the photo is helped by the dark-roofed Dreamland Pavilion, on the far left, at the northeast corner of Union St. and Seventh Ave.  Dreamland was razed for the Eagle’s Lodge, which opened in 1925. 

Bottom-right in the featured photo is another big new roof, with the raised architecture of either a fly loft (above a stage) or a grand hall. Like the Cambridge, Evergreen Lodge No. 2 of the Ancient Order of United Workmen opened its new hall at 1409 Ninth Ave. in 1923.

The Cambridge is nestled at the southeast corner of Union Street and 9^th Ave., with its back to one of the two steepest grades on First Hill.  (The other is near 9^th and Jefferson.)  Most tenants enjoyed splendid views towards the Olympic Mountains and Lake Union.  These prospects were partially obstructed in the 1960s with the construction of the I-5 Freeway.  They were then lost in the 1980s with the unwanted embrace of the Washington State Convention Center, which, with its neighbor, Freeway Park, was built on top of the Freeway.  Still, the sprawling concrete center deserves some credit.  It dampens the noise of the Freeway, and through mitigation, the Center also helped the city purchase the Cambridge in 1987 for conversion into low-income housing.

When Jean first stepped onto the roof, led by Chong Han, the apartment’s live-in manager, he was instantly enchanted.  It is from this prospect that the terraced architecture of the Convention Center’s south façade, a mingling of greenery and green glass, can be both enjoyed and admired.  Jean tells me that he and Chong shared visions of roof gardens atop both the Cambridge and the Convention Center.

Almost floating above the Center is Jean’s second subject, Seattle’s spreading skyline, heading north for Lake Union down the “Westlake Funnel.” On the subject of our current “high-rise habit,” PacificNW readers may wish to return to Lawrence W. Cheek’s thoughtful feature “Higher Seattle.” Cheek’s revealing cover article for this magazine was published on the 13^th of September, 2015.

WEB EXTRAS

Here’s our second video featuring Mistah Dorpat…

[Allow me to interrupt here Jean.  In the interview clip above, you make note of the OCS (Overall Cooperative Structure) lightshow-concerts-dances that I helped put on at the Eagles Auditorium in 1967.  Here’s the poster – a flyer decidedly economically printed – for the first of those concerts: a benefit for the Free University of Seattle.  As the poster “suggests” the concert date was January 14 and so still a few months short of the “Summer of Love” in 1967.  The dance was billed as “Feather Ecstacy,” a title which you can find in the poster, but rendered with a kind of rectilinear variation of psychedelic style lettering, it is hardly readable.  (The principle pen work seems to be a blending of St. Theresa of Avila with pillow fluff.  By the way, the drug Ecstasy was not then yet known.) This graphic was included in the recently published book titled “Split Fountain Hieroglyphics – Psychedelic Concert Posters From The Seattle Area, 1966 – 1969.”   I attended the book’s  happy introduction in Ballard earlier this fall, and was surprised to be given a copy because one of the quick covers I did for Helix was included.  Its a splendid book, wonderfully printed.   Now I confess that I am also responsible for this “little rough flyer” which is also in the book although probably not on its artistic merits but for its historic position.   I might have stayed mum on this for the poster is credited to another’s penpersonship.  However, in the interest of fact-checking I will now forsake that handy cover and take responsibility for the flyers rude qualities.  The police read it, and busted it – the concert – for what they claimed was a violation of the 1929 law against “shadow dancing.”  You can read about it in Helix, and since that issue is an early one, it is included among those we have so far posted on this blog.  Look for the  Helix button on the front page.]

To boot, I’ll throw in a couple of shots of the Cambridge from different perspectives:

Anything to add, boys?  SURELY Jean, beginning with two apologies that less spring than stumble through old age.  You caught my mistaken anticipation for an upcoming feature that has already been “up” and that merely two weeks past.   It was and still survives on this blog as the feature that looks north from Union Street and Terry Avenue, and so just above the Cambridge Hotel.  It is one of the steepest grades on the ridge that joins Capitol and First Hills, and before the Jackson Street Regrade (1909) and the Dearborn Cut (1912) Beacon Hill too.   My second blunder – on  the video – describes the coming of both the Convention Center and Freeway Park in the 1980s.   The park dates from the 70s, and we will attach a feature below that celebrates – and records –  inauguration then.   Otherwise Ron and I have attached a lot of features, most of  them from the neighborhood.  Many will be familiar to readers to keep returning to us for both something new and some of the same old.  Now we start the links with that  feature notes in video, that of the Golden Rules Bazaar advertising card.  As you know Jean doing unto others as you would have them do unto you is also a good survival strategy.  Apropos survival, Jean how did you manage to lean down from the rooftop of the Cambridge to record your shot of its cornice printed her above this paragraph?

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