(click to enlarge photos)


I sparked when first shown the left half of this ca. 1929 panorama of the Swedish Hospital campus. Although not placed side-by-side, both parts are included in an album of about 100 photographs taken by Seattle/Ballard professional Klaes Nordquist. Most of the photos are from the 1920s and have Swedish subjects. Kristine Leander, the current Executive Director of the thriving Swedish Club, introduced me to the album. She has recently donated the collection to the stewardship of the Museum of History and Industry both for safe-keeping and public access.

It was only recently that I recognized that the Nordquist album also held the right half of the panorama printed here. The combined view looks south-southwest from Nordquist’s prospect near the northeast corner of Summit Avenue and Marion Street. The original three-story hospital sits one block south at the northwest corner of Summit and Columbia. Both in the featured panorama and in the photograph printed directly above, it is the ornate structure below the water tank, which is half-hiding behind the chimney at the pan’s center. (Jean and I first featured this “Summit Avenue Hospital” in PacificNW’s November 8, 2014, issue. It is repeated below as the first link among those placed by Ron Edge for the week’s’ feature.) Far right in the panorama stands the hospital’s first over-sized addition, planned in 1925 and completed to seven floors in 1929.





Finally, we will note two nearby landmarks in Nordquist’s pan that in the late 1920s had not yet removed for expansion of the Swedish Hospital campus. The north façade of the nearly block-long Otis Hotel, far left in the featured panorama is described in a Times classified for June 24, 1928: “This popular residential hotel, 804 Summit, opposite Swedish Hospital is being thoroughly renovated … private phones, excellent meals, splendid location.” Across Summit Avenue, at its southwest corner with Marion, nestles the

professional home for six eye, ear, nose and throat specialists. W. Marbury Somervell, at the time one of Seattle’s best-known architects, designed this two-story red brick jewel that opened in 1906. Thirty years later, the clinic was moved on rollers down Marion Street to make room for the expanding Swedish Hospital. For this discovery I wish to thank Ron Edge, already noted above, a friend with both zest and talent for eleventh hour research.

WEB EXTRAS
Here’s a little mystery I found just after snapping the ‘Now’ shot for this feature. Just below the Nordstrom Tower, there is an obstructed view from the sidewalk of a trio of old Corinthian (so they appear to me) pillars, just below the skyway. There are no plaques identifying them and no indication of their former use and location. Dear readers, we invite you to solve the mystery…


Anything to add, boys? Yes Jean, and most relevant is the first link, our earlier feature on Swedish Hospital.. May the dear readers open it first.
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