Category Archives: Seattle Now and Then

Seattle Now & Then: Spokane Street from West Seattle

June 28, 2014 jrsherrard 2 Comments

(click to enlarge photos)

THEN: In 1852 many of Seattle’s first pioneers removed from Alki Point by dugout canoe for the deeper and safer harbor along the east shore of Elliott Bay (our central waterfront). About a half-century later any hope or expectation that the few survivors among these pioneers could readily visit Alki Beach and Point by land were fulfilled with the timber quays and bridges along Spokane Street. (Courtesy Seattle Municipal Archive)

NOW: The undulations and elevations required to lift Spokane Street high above the waterways and railways are evident in the Jeanette Williams Memorial Bridge (aka West Seattle High Bridge), seen just left of its west end extension with the ascending Fauntleroy Expressway on the right. — NOW: The undulations and elevations required to lift Spokane Street high above the waterways and railways are evident in the Jeanette Williams Memorial Bridge (aka West Seattle High Bridge), barely seen just left of its west end extension with the ascending Fauntleroy Expressway on the right.

Across the tidelands of Youngs Cove, here at low tide, is Pigeon Point. From central Seattle Pigeon Point is a headland that often blends in with the greater mass of West Seattle and its pronounced Duwamish Head. On the far right, looking over part of the Seattle Steel plant, is a glimpse into the Youngstown neighborhood.

The featured text for this look west to Pigeon Point and beyond it West Seattle is included in the bundle of features included under the first of the three links included following this feature text. — Here Pigeon Point and West Seattle have sorted themselves out with the aid of atmospheric perspective. The point is the darker headland entering the subject from the left. The featured text for this look west to Pigeon Point and beyond it to West Seattle is included in the bundle of features grouped under the first of the three links placed following this week’s feature text.

Jogging through Youngstown, trolleys from Seattle first reached the west shore of Elliott Bay in 1907, the year of West Seattle’s annexation into the city. They came by way of a new swing bridge over the Duwamish River that was roughly in line with Spokane Street. After swaying around Pigeon Point, the electric cars turned south into Youngstown. From there the tracks turned north to Duwamish Head, reaching Luna Park on June 27^th in time for most of the summer play. Built on pilings below the Head, Luna Park was the grandest of the many Alki Beach attractions that extended to Alki Point, which the trollies reached in 1908.

Spokane Street with Pigeon Point on the left. The prospect looks west from near 26th S.W. on Oct. 4, 1920. — Spokane Street with the slight obstruction of Pigeon Point on the right. The prospect looks east from near 26th S.W. on Oct. 4, 1920.

A detail from the 1912 Baist Real Estate Map with Spokane Street at the top and the Youngstown neighborhood at the bottom and south of Andover Street.

Youngstown's "main street," West Andover, looking east to Pigeon Point. — With trolley track on the left, Youngstown’s “main street,” West Andover, looking east to Pigeon Point (with the Point out-of-frame to the left./north.) Courtesy, Lawton Gowey

By 1914 the circuitous route to Alki Beach previously running through Youngstown was straightened. The Spokane Street trestle had been recently extended west across the head of Youngs Cove, reaching West Seattle here at Admiral Way. Captioned at its lower left corner, the feature’s “top” subject’s long look east on Spokane Street was recorded on April 16, 1916.

A Seattle Times clip from April 30, 1916 reporting on the neighborhood's activism for more trolley service. — A Seattle Times clip from April 30, 1916 reporting on the neighborhood’s activism for more trolley service.

Looking northeast from Avalon to the point where the early - in 1913 - Spokane Street trestle reaches West Seattle. Courtesy, Seattle Municipal Archive — Looking northeast from Avalon to the point where the early – Oct. 23, 1913 – Spokane Street trestle reaches West Seattle. Courtesy, Seattle Municipal Archive

As evidence of Spokane Street’s development into a West Seattle funnel, city engineers counted the traffic using it between 5 am and midnight on one day in early November 1915. The partial list recorded that two-hundred-and-ninety one street cars carried 11,699 persons, 692 passenger automobiles carried 1,501 persons, 203 jitneys (taxis) carried 744 persons, and 155 horse-drawn vehicles carried 187 persons across the West Seattle Bridge.

A Seattle Times report on the city's study of bridge traffic, Nov. 6, 1915. — A *Seattle Times* report on the city’s study of bridge traffic, Nov. 6, 1915.

In 1916, the year of the feature’s lead photograph, the West Seattle Commercial Club began the long campaign for a “high bridge” to West Seattle, with grades lifting the traffic above the railroad tracks. In 1929 the trestle shown here was replaced and Spokane Street lifted with fill. The concrete Fauntleroy Expressway, high-flying through Jean’s “now,” was added in the mid-1960s. After another high bridge rebuff from city council, The Times for April 22, 1978, polled West Seattle citizens on secession. A majority favored it.

A pull-page from The Seattle Times on Nov. 26, 1916. Click it - perhaps more than once. — A pull-page from The Seattle Times on Nov. 26, 1916. Click it – perhaps more than once.

In 1929 the trestle shown here (again, with the featured photograph) was replaced and Spokane Street lifted with fill.

A detail of the neighborhood from the city's 1929 aerial survey. The scan is used courtesy, again, of Ron Edge. — A detail of the neighborhood from the city’s 1929 aerial survey. The “fattening” – but not the lifting – of Spokane Street as seen from high above. The scan is used courtesy, again, of Ron Edge who scanned it all: the entire city in 1929, the first such aerial hereabouts.

With a glimpse of the steel mill on the far left, here Spokane Street is being reshaped a lifted above fill. The view looks west on July 11, 1929. (Courtesy, Seattle Municipal Archive) — With a glimpse of the steel mill on the far left, here Spokane Street is being reshaped and lifted above fill. The view looks west on July 11, 1929. (Courtesy, Seattle Municipal Archive)

A month earlier on June 6, 1929 looking east over the same Spokane Street approach to West Seattle (proper) with construction begins on new concrete ramps for the Avalon-Spokane-Harbor-Admiral nexus. (Courtesy, Seattle Municipal Archive) — A month earlier on June 6, 1929 looking east over the same Spokane Street approach to West Seattle (proper) with construction about to begin on new concrete ramps for the Avalon-Spokane-Harbor-Admiral nexus. Pigeon Point is on the right. (Courtesy, Seattle Municipal Archive)

At least from my print, the full date, bottom-left, for this look into the construction on the new interchange is cut off. The view looks northeast. (Courtesy, Lawton Gowey)

Blue lines, upper-left, on this ca. 1931 Sandborn Real Estate Map, mark the construction site on the Spokane-Avalon-Harbor-Admiral interchange.

The new and ornamented intersection looking east and asking to be compared to the featured photograph at the top. — The ornamented and almost completed intersection looking east – asking to be compared to the featured photograph at the top.

Below the same ramps (as those one image above) on April 26, 1930.

The concrete Fauntleroy Expressway, high-flying through Jean’s “now,” was added in the mid-1960s. After another high bridge rebuff from city council, The Times for April 22, 1978, polled West Seattle citizens on secession. A majority favored it.

The Fauntleroy Expressway gaining altitude above our and Lawton Gowey’s – the photographer – intersection on May 10, 1`968

Less than two months later, Capt. Rolf Neslund began the rescue of these angry neighbors from their jams and closed bridges on Spokane Street when his gypsum ship Chavez rammed the West Seattle bascule bridge beyond repair. The new high bridge – and heart’s desire – was dedicated on a windy November 10, 1983.

Well, in part. Here we learn from Clay Eals, West Seattle champion and director of its Log House Museum and all that is connected with it, that we are half correct on the date of completion for the high bridge. We quote Clay.

“On our website, you will notice that we are celebrating the 30th anniversary of the bridge this month and next.

But you may say that a 30th anniversary doesn’t square with the Nov. 10, 1983, date at the end of your column — and it doesn’t. That’s because the high bridge wasn’t fully opened on Nov. 10, 1983. Only the eastbound lanes were opened on that date. The westbound lanes were opened July 14, 1984, making the bridge fully open then, hence the 30th anniversary.

Might you be able to change the Nov. 10, 1983, date to July 14, 1984, if not on the Times page then on yours?

Here is a pertinent paragraph of info, taken from the web link above:

“The high bridge didn’t open all at once. Following the ramming of the low-level bridge by the freighter Chavez on June 11, 1978, construction on the bridge began in 1980. Eastbound lanes opened to the public on Nov. 10, 1983, and westbound lanes opened on July 14, 1984.”

Clay Eals, just before the unveiling of the West Seattle totem pole, in his natural setting

WEB EXTRAS

Anything to add, Paul? Surely Jean. In the three features that Ron Edge has posted below with picture-links there is an array of past features that touch on subjects that themselves – most of them – touch on Spokane Street. Here is a general list for what one who clicks the links will find within “Coming Home to Riverside” and the last of the three, “Luna Park Entrance.” The second link is an Addendum to the first.

COMING HOME to RIVERSIDE

* A Riverside Family

* Six Bridges to Riverside (and West Seattle)

* Riverside Junction

* Spokane Street Trestle from Beacon Hill

* West Seattle Ferry at Colman Dock

* Fukii’s Bridge (to West Seattle)

* Elevated Railway on Marginal Way

* The “Shoe Fly” on the West Seattle Bridge

* Trolley Wreck on Spokane Street, Jan 8, 1937

* The Star Foundry, (on Spokane Street)

* Pigeon Point Fire Station No. 36

* Spokane Street Substation – 1926 (on Spokane Street)

* West Seattle High School (not on Spokane Street)

RIVERSIDE ADDENDUM

LUNA PARK ENTRANCE: Sept. 10, 2011

* Luna Park

* West Seattle Harbor

* How to Get to West Seattle

* West Seattle Ferry at Colman Dock

* Sea View Hall

* Halibuts Below Duwamish Head

* Novelty Mill

* Luna Park Below Duwamish Head

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The THREE EDGE LINKS

1. Coming Home to Riverside

2. Riverside Addendum

3. Luna Park Entrance

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MORE FOSTER KLEISER BILLBOARD SURVEY EXAMPLES – with once exception for comparison. All are on Spokane Street an all come with their own captions, which are coded-described in order to put the sign company’s billboards in their proper places for potential clients to imagine their own message. In many of the original negatives for this collection, the billboards have been whited-out so that when the negatives are printed the prints appear without content, the better to imagine your own.

Looking west on Spokane Street a few blocks east of the intersection with Avalon, Harbor and Admiral Way. This is not from the billboard company's collection but is used courtesy of the Seattle Municipal Archive. — Looking west on Spokane Street a few blocks east of the 1929/30 work on the ramps into Spokane’s intersection with Avalon, Harbor and Admiral Way. Although well-stocked with ads, this is not from the billboard company’s collection but is used courtesy of the Seattle Municipal Archive.

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A SOLEMN CALL FROM THE RAMPS – 1937

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A TEST

The subject below looks west not on Spokane Street but on James. That is Trinity Episcopal on the right at 8th Avenue. I am cleaning up and clearing out old stuff and this is one of many hundreds of screened prints – prints exposed through a half-tone screen for off-set printing – I discovered on a bottom shelf in one of my archival cubbies. It was probably printed in the early 1980s for possible inclusion in “Seattle Now and Then, Volume One.” I am testing it here to determine if its like the other screen prints found might be recycled with some tweaked scanning.

Included here as a text to determine if a screened print (made of little black dots) might be scanned for on-line use without interference. Click it to see if it succeeds or flops.

Seattle Now and Then

Seattle Now & Then: Kinnear Park

June 21, 2014 jrsherrard 2 Comments

(click to enlarge photos)

THEN: For his May Day, 1901 portrait of the Seattle City Council, the photographer, Anders Wilse, planted them, like additions to the landscape, on the lawn somewhere in the upper part of Kinnear Park. (Courtesy, Seattle Municipal Archives) — THEN: For his May Day, 1900 portrait of the Seattle City Council, the photographer, Anders Wilse, planted them, like additions to the landscape, on the lawn somewhere in the upper part of Kinnear Park. (Courtesy, Seattle Municipal Archives)

NOW: Sitting among the VIPs attending the recent April 26th “Grand Opening” of Lower Kinnear Park’s restoration is HBB Landscape Architect Aaron Luoma and his son Owen. It was HBB that guided the design and work involved, including the paths, the 1947 tennis court, seen here, and the park’s new and popular Off-Leash Area for dogs. Dean Koonts, also of HBB, notes that the two trees “posing” upper-right are both included in the list of Seattle’s “Exceptional Trees.” The closer one with silver bark is a Copper Beach, and behind it stands a European Hornbeam. [ Marga Rose Hancock’s full list for Jean’s repeat reads, “Front Row: Brian Yee (FOLKpark), Acting Superintendent of Parks Christopher Williams, Deputy Mayor Andrea Riniker, Kay Knapton (FOLKpark), Deborah Frausto (FOLKpark), Jean Sundborg (Uptown Alliance), Karen O’Conner (Seattle Park staff), Ian Gerrard (with French horn), slamandir (trombone and no last name, no upper case letters) – Top Row: Matt Mulder and doggie Sam (FOLKpark), Michael Herschensohn (Queen Anne Historical Society), Seattle Councilmember Jean Godden, Seattle Councilmember Sally Bagshow, Kim Baldwin (Seattle Parks staff), State Senator Jeane Kohl-Wells, Aaron Luoma and son Owen (HBB Landscape Architects), Christa Dumpys (Dept. of Neighborhoods), Laurie Ames (Dept. of Neighborhoods), Marga Rose Hancock.)

On Christmas Day 1894, a landslide dropped a 150-foot swath off the bluff between the lower and upper parts of Kinnear Park into Elliott Bay. Seattle’s third park sits on the southwest brow of Queen Anne Hill. From its northern border on West Olympic Place, it nearly plunges 250 feet in elevation to the waterfront.

For the Seattle Park Board, the slide of ’94 was encore to a swan dive taken a year earlier by the city treasury with the economic Panic of 1893. The board decreed that “the limited funds at disposal” be used only on the “upper portion of this park, which is upon the solid bluff.” When Angie and George Kinnear gave the park to the city for one dollar in the fall of 1887, the beach, backed by ancient Douglas Firs, was already a poplar retreat for those who could reach it. Its open view to the Olympics was blocked earlier that summer of ‘87 by the Seattle Lake Shore and Eastern Railroad, the first of three off-shore trestles to run between the beach and the bay.

A crude copy of Parks Dept.'s engineer-historian Don Sherwood's map of Kinnear Park included in his magnus opus handwritten coverage of the history of all Seattle Parks. Note colored in red the "viewpoint" comfort station hand-colored in red on the map above and reflecting a sunset in Lawton Gowey's side below. — A crude copy of Parks Dept.’s engineer-historian Don Sherwood’s map of Kinnear Park included in his magnus opus handwritten coverage of the history of all Seattle Parks. Note the “viewpoint” comfort station hand-colored in red on the map above and reflecting a sunset in Lawton Gowey’s side below. The map, above, and also outlined in red, are the tennis courts in Lower Kinnear Park that are shown, in part, in Jean’s repeat.

From the upper park the views across Puget Sound were transcendent, (still are) and it was there that the Seattle City Council relaxed on the afternoon of its May 1, 1900 “official inspection tour.” City Engineer Reginald Thomson, sitting here directly behind the councilman on the far left, led the May Day tour that was primarily of the reservoirs and standpipes being then completed for the anticipated delivery by gravity of cool and pure Cedar River water in abundance. For his “repeat” one hundred and fourteen years later, Jean Sherrard took the freshly restored but still steep path down the bluff to record the Park Department’s and FOLKpark’s Grand Opening of the restored park on Saturday, April 26, last.

We take a chance this is part of the original park department path that linked the lower and upper parts of Kinnear. We remember reading "Kinnear Park" written on the original slide . . . we think. — We take a chance that this is part of the original park department path that linked the lower and upper parts of Kinnear. We remember reading “Kinnear Park” written on the original slide . . . we think.

FOLKpark stands for Friends of Lower Kinnear Park. For this Sunday’s feature the most important member among them is Marga Rose Hancock. A neighbor of the park, she first suggested this “now and then,” and then, out of respect to the dress code of the city council in 1900, pulled from her large collection of purple hats, covers for the heads of those posing now, including one of a FOLKpark member’s dog named Sam. Jean’s “now” is a sampler of both happy and concerned citizens. It includes the department of park’s acting superintendent, the deputy mayor, several more members of FOLKpark, two council members, a Washington State senator, the director of the Queen Anne Historical Society, and a representative of the neighborhood’s Uptown Alliance.

Also posing are two members of the Ballard Sedentary Sousa Band, which played for the dedication ceremony. Marga Rose is found, all in purple, behind the band’s trombonist named salamander. It is a moniker that by request includes no caps or first name.

Kinnear Park Playground, June 1913. (Courtesy, Seattle Municipal Archive)

Five blocks east of the park, the Kinnear mansion kept its own surrounding park until replaced by the Bayview Manor.

WEB EXTRAS

Anything to add, Paul? We hope to – Ron and I. There are former features from this blog that have parts relevant to this southwest corner of Queen Anne Hill. Included are the blog features titled “The Whilhelmina / Winona;” “Smith Cover Glass Works,” published April 28, 2012; and “Testing Cedar River Water,” that appeared here on Jan 2, 2010. And there are others, as you will find if you use the KEY WORD approach offered above, and type there either “Kinnear” or “Queen Anne.” We sincerely hope to also put up actual links to some of these by the time the sun rises, illuminating the paper routes to your front doors.

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The Kinnear Park Mushroom with the southern head of Magnolia showing through the screen of park trees on the far west side of Smith Cove. (Courtesy, Seattle Municipal Archive)

THE KINNEAR PAR MUSHROOM AKA UMBRELLA

Seattle’s earliest parks from the 1880s and 1890s were rusticated with park benches shaped from unhewn tree limbs, trestles, pergolas and gates that one might imagine were handmade by forest nymphs. Judging by the number of photographs that survive, one of the more popular examples was Kinnear Park’s romantic mushroom – or umbrella or parachute.

A “rustic parachute trellis seat” is what the Seattle Park Department’s annual report for 1892 calls it. Also that year a “rustic bluff barrier rail” was completed along the exposed edge of the upper level of Kinnear Park. Thee improvements were made two year after the Kinnear family’s gift to the city was cleared of underbrush. Beds of flowers and hrub were donated by neighbors and arranged by the park’s gardener. In 1894 a “picturesque pavilion” wa added atop a knoll and connected to the park by “rustic bridge.”

The Seattle Park Department’s archival “Sherwood Files – named for Don Sherwood and searchable on the park department’s web page – do not reveal when the umbrella was removed. Ultimately these rustic structures were too delicate – too organic — to survive the wear of admiring park visitors. And on occasions this narrow strip along the southwest slope of Queen Anne Hill was quite busy. For instance, the crowds attending the Tuesday evening concerts in the park during the summer of 1910 averaged more than 2,500.

This snow covered mushroom comes from a collection of glass negatives photographed by the Queen Anne Duffy family in the first years of the 20th Century. Consequently, this is most likely not the Big Snow of 1916.

Through the summer of 1936, Kinnear Park was used for Sunday forums on such uplifting topics as “How Cooperatives Help Our City” and “Are We Getting Better or Worse?,” and six-minute talks on “Why I am a Republican, Democrat, Socialist, Communist, Prohibitionist.” These assemblies concluded with community sing-alongs which, The Seattle Times reported, send the crowds home with their faces “wreathed in smiles.”

Another early-century snowscape in Kinnear Park.

Most likely this is another slide by Queen Anne resident Lawton Gowey. — Most likely this look west from Kinnear Park and over Puget Sound is another slide by the helpful Queen Anne resident, Lawton Gowey.

Another photo opportunity for the council member and by A. Wilse on the first day of May, 1900. (Courtesy Municipal Archive)

Seattle Now and Then

Seattle Now & Then: The Gatewood Lodge

June 14, 2014 jrsherrard 1 Comment

(click to enlarge photos)

THEN: The Gatewood Craftsman Lodge was built on a road, in a neighborhood, and near a public school all named for the developer Carlisle Gatewood, who also lived in the neighborhood. The three women posing in the third floor’s open windows are the Clark sisters, Jean, Dorothy and Peggy, members of the family that moved into the home in the late 1930s.

NOW: For his “repeat” Jean has posed replacements for the Clark Sisters in the top-floor open windows. House researcher Bethany Green holds her dog Lily at the center, Margaret Hayes, the lodge’s present resident, now for thirty years, is on the right, and Margaret’s niece Sarah Barton is on the left. Sarah also manages The Gatewood Bed and Breakfast. Margaret explains, “The only way to keep it is to let it sustain itself.”

This grand three-floor West Seattle lodge-size home with a rustic porch and veranda looks west from about 350 above Puget Sound and six irregular blocks west of the highest point in Seattle. (If you should wish to visit Seattle’s summit you will find it unmarked in the alley between 35^th and 36^th Avenues Southwest, south of the Water Dept. standpipes on Southwest Myrtle Street. At about 522 feet high, the alley transcends Queen Anne Hill by more than fifty feet.)

The address here is 7446 Gatewood Road S.W., which runs at a slant through the hill’s otherwise generally compass-conforming grid of streets and avenues. Most of these are crowded with homeowners who respect their neighbors open views of the Olympics by landscaping their lots low. Here, however, on Gatewood Road the Olympics are rarely seen, except in winter from the bedroom windows on the third floor. The home is nestled in the shade of one of the clinging greenbelts that interrupt the open sweep of the hill. Only a bird’s call away, the Orchard Street Ravine climbs the hill. It is one of the verdant West Seattle watersheds protected as a Park. By testimony of those who have lived here, the effect is like living in a park,

Surely a good sampling of the residences on this graceful western slope of West Seattle are homes with big families, but few of them also have eight bed rooms like this one had in 1910 when the English/Canadian couple, Francis John and Pontine Ellen Harper, built it for themselves, their five children, John, Frances, Macdonald, Cecil and Margaret, and more. A different Margaret, Margaret Hayes, the present owner since 1987, was told that there were sixteen living in the big house in the beginning.

Five families in all lived and paid taxes here through what the Southwest Seattle Historical Society calls The Gatewood Craftsman Lodge’s 104-year history. Representatives for all of them will be on hand next Sunday June 22 when the Society joins the present owner as interpreting hosts for another of the Society’s annual and enlightening home tours titled “If These Walls Could Talk.” The point is, of course, that next Sunday they will be talking. The public is invited to this fund-raiser. (For details call the Log House Museum at 938-5293.) We give special thanks to the “house history” done by Bethany Green and Brad Chrisman, whom Clay Eals, the Society’s director calls the “core of the home-tour committee this year.” In Jean’s repeat, Bethany is holding her dog Lily in the third floor window.

WEB EXTRAS

Anything to add, Paul? A few this evening and perhaps a few more tomorrow. First, again with the help of Ron Edge, we will grace the below with some links of other West Seattle stories pulled from features of the past. Then we will draw on some recent works of the Log House Museum and its energetic director and our by now nearly old friend, Clay Eals. After all that I’ll put up a few more of the by now many features on West Seattle subjects that we have published in Pacific since we started in the winter of 1982. There may be – again & again – some repeats. This week we will spare our readers the music analogy for these repetitions and variations. And Jean may your Hillside theatre dress rehearsal this Sunday afternoon and next weekend’s performances go well, this in your, well, what anniversary of starting these productions on Cougar Mountain?

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Towards the rear, Director Clay Eals with his red shirt and tie of many colors looks over the Totem Unveiling ceremony like the guardian angel he is.

The LINKS that follow come from the Southwest Seattle Historical Society, greater Seattle’s most vibrant of neighborhood-based heritage groups. HERE FOLLOWS with Links a letter we received from Clay Eals its directory this afternoon.

Dear Jean and Paul

Tomorrow’s “Now and Then” is stellar. Saw the printed bulldog edition. Thanks again. The event is not tomorrow but rather the following Sunday, June 22, and it will be helped immensely by your contribution.

[Oops! We gave the wrong address.] Don’t worry about the address. It’s only two digits off (should be 7446, not 7448), but there is no home even close to 7448. The closest one is 7228. So there will be no real confusion.

For your blog, you might want to add these links:

http://www.loghousemuseum.info/events/home-tour-2014/
http://www.loghousemuseum.info/blog/its-still-a-home/

If you want to add stuff about the totem, then here are links to most of what you Jean sent me:

http://www.loghousemuseum.info/ (the five-part series)
http://www.loghousemuseum.info/blog/reaching-the-sky-our-admiral-totem-pole-is-unveiled/ (the big group photo, plus some cool video, including an entertaining time-lapse)

Out the door. Thanks again!

Clay

Jean's cherry-picker overview of the thousand-plus celebrants at the totem's unveiling. — Jean’s cherry-picker overview of the thousand-plus celebrants at the totem’s unveiling.

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Seattle Now and Then

Seattle Now & Then: The Lake Union Dam Washout

June 7, 2014 jrsherrard 5 Comments

(click to enlarge photos)

THEN: From the Fremont Bridge, this subject looks northwest across the torrent that followed the washout of the Fremont Dam in the early afternoon of March 13, 1914. Part of the Bryant Lumber and Shingle Mill appears left-of-center. The north end of the Stone Way Trestle appears in the upper right corner. (Courtesy, Seattle Municipal Archives) — THEN: From the Fremont Bridge, this subject looks east northeast* across the torrent that followed the washout of the Fremont Dam in the early afternoon of March 13, 1914. Part of the Bryant Lumber and Shingle Mill appears left-of-center. The north end of the Stone Way Trestle appears in the upper right corner. (Courtesy, Seattle Municipal Archives)

NOW: In the mid-1950s the former Bryant Mill site was converted into an industrial center, but it took until the 1990s for the site’s extensive architectural make-over to begin. On the Wallingford horizon many of the surviving homes predate the 1914 washout.

The Stone Way Bridge from the Westlake Ave. and Queen Anne side. Across the bridge, above the center of the subject, the large box factory of Western Cooperage stands out.

South from 34th Street into the — South from 34th Street on December 27, 1997 into construction for the new tenants of the old Bryant Lumber Mill site east of the Fremont Bridge

Two sensational news photographs appear on the front page of the Friday, March 13, 1914, issue of The Seattle Times. One is of the historic and deadly Missouri Athletic Club fire in St. Louis. The other from Portland, Oregon, shows a “flame-wrapped” steam schooner drifting along the docks on the Willamette River “starting a new blaze at every place she bumped.” Also sensational, standing above it all, the day’s headline reads FREMONT BRIDGE DESTROYED: Flood Threatened By Breaking Of Lake Union Dam.

Front page - top half - of The Seattle Times March 13, 1914 issue. — Front page – top half – of The Seattle Times March 13, 1914 issue.

[CLICK to ENLARGE]

The Seattle Times next day - March 14. 1914 - report. — The Seattle Times next day – March 14. 1914 – report.

Soon after the Fremont dam, constructed to control the level of Lake Union, broke in the early afternoon, the bridge did too. It was a little late for The Times to get a picture in that day’s evening addition. However, over the weekend, The Times featured several pictures of the flood, including one that was very similar to the historical photo used here. Both photographers stood precariously close to the open center section of the Fremont Bridge that was swept away towards Ballard about two hours after the dam’s collapse. The Times 1914 photo was taken later than this one, for in the newspaper’s illustration the water level is lower and the dam’s surviving wing gate pilings, also seen here, stand out more. Employed by the city’s public works department, “our” photographer took several shots of the washout and its unsettling effects.

FREMONT BRIDGE, looking northwest. — FREMONT BRIDGE: above, looking northwest. [Courtesy, Municipal Archive], below, looking east.

During its nearly day-long outpouring, Lake Union dropped about nine feet. Beside the bridge, at the lake’s north end the worst damage was to the railroad trestle along the north shore. At the south end of the lake the greatest casualty was the big new dock built by the then thirty-year-old Brace and Hergert lumber mill. Stacked with lumber, the exposed pilings supporting the dock gave way early Saturday morning. Nearby, on the lake’s east shore, those among the “houseboat colonists” who had dared to keep to their floating homes were awakened by the crash. By noon the houseboats tied to the shore were resting on the lake’s bottom at an angle that was good only for reading in bed. Also by noon on Saturday it was clear that Ballard would not be washed away.

Fortunately for the several trolley lines that served Fremont, Wallingford, and Green Lake, as well as the interurban to Everett, the long temporary trestle crossing from Westlake to Stone Way, seen here in part on the right, did not collapse. Traffic that normally crossed at Fremont was redirected there by Carl Signor, an alert neighbor with a hay, grain and flour store located near the south end of the Fremont Bridge. The bridge collapsed soon after Signor’s timely signal.

WEB EXTRAS

Much to add this week, Paul? Indeed, Jean and starting with an Edge-link to an opening day subject for the Fremont Bascule Bridge, followed by another beginning with the odd story of a crashed trolley in Fremont. And following these pulls by Ron Edge, we will string out a variety of photos of the Fremont Bridge thru time and from different prospects, beginning with a few from Queen Anne Hill. This chain will also feature a few construction shots of the bascule bridge, which is, of course, the one we still cross. We hope to be able to date them all – or nearly.

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I have pulled this from SEATTLE NOW & THEN VOL. 1, which was first published in 1984 and then reprinted about three times. I lived off it. Hopefully the text is accurate. On rereading old features I have found a few bloopers, I confess. Usually mistakes of directions. Still, question authority. This appeared first in the Feb. 12, 1984 issue of Pacific Magazine.

[CLICK to Enlarge and make it readable – we hope.]

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The FREMONT BRIDGE from QUEEN ANNE HILL

Probably the earliest extant panorama of Fremont from any prospect - circa 1891. The early low bridge is hard to make out in the emitting atmosphere of mill. — Probably the earliest extant panorama of Fremont from any prospect – circa 1891. The early low bridge is hard to make out through the atmosphere of the mill.

The still "low bridge" in 1903, looking north again from Queen Anne. A feature for this subject is included as the 58th "story" in Seattle Now and Then Volume Two. — The still “low bridge” in 1903, looking north again from Queen Anne. A feature for this subject is included as the 58th “story” in *Seattle Now and Then Volume Two*.

An Oakes "real photo" postcard from Ca. 1907. Phinney Ridge is on the horizon. — An Oakes “real photo” postcard of what is still the “low bridge,” from Ca. 1907. Phinney Ridge is on the horizon with the forest of Woodland Park on the right.

Construction of the new "high bridge" in 1911. Directly below is a detail showing the work-in-progress, on this lifting of the grade, at 34th and Fremont. — Construction of the new “high bridge” in 1911. Directly below is a detail showing the work-in-progress on this lifting of the grade, at 34th and Fremont.

Looking north into the same wide-body construction on the Fremont Bridge and dated June 21, 1911 (Courtesy, Municipal Archives) — Looking north into the same wide-body construction on the Fremont Bridge and dated June 21, 1911. This is somewhat earlier than the subject above it, which shows that the bridge has been considerably widened on its east side while here the “east lane” is still at the original elevation, on the right. (Courtesy, Municipal Archives)

The clip from Pacific on Nov. 28, 2004. [Click to Enlarge]

Date March 18, 1915, this is the last of the old and short-lived high bridge. Work on its bascule replacement ran from 1915 until it opening in 1917. — Date March 18, 1915, this is the last of the old and short-lived high bridge. The disrupting work on its bascule replacement ran from 1915 until its opening in 1917.

The upheaval of early construction, again looking from the Queen Anne end, dated May 10, 1915. [Courtesy, Municipal Archive]

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Early Army Corps work on the canal, looking east to the low bridge, ca. 1903.

Improvement on the Fremont Dam ca. 1903, looking east to the "Wallingford Peninsula" where the gas works were implanted in 1907. Note the view of the dam directly below from 1907. The gas works can be found along the north shore of Lake Union. [Courtesy, Army Corps] — Improvement on the Fremont Dam ca. 1903, looking east to the “Wallingford Peninsula” where the gas works were implanted four years later in 1907. Note also the view of the dam directly below from 1907. There the gas works can be found along the north shore of Lake Union. [Courtesy, Army Corps]

The Fremont Bridge looking east from the "low bridge" circa, 1907. — The Fremont Bridge looking east from the “low bridge” circa, 1907. Western Cooperage is on the far left, but the temporary Stone Way Bridge is still four years ahead.

A trolley car either heading for Fremont or leaving it crosses the "low bridge" as seen from the lower bridge that crossed the channel above the Fremont Dam. Ca. 1907. — A trolley car heading for Fremont, crosses the “low bridge” as seen from the lower bridge that crossed the channel above the here bubbling Fremont Dam. Ca. 1907.

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March 3, 1915, from the Fremont side looking southeast to the "high bridge" repaired after the 1914 collapse, but here soon to be razed for construction of the bascule replacement. — March 3, 1915, from the Fremont side looking southeast to the “high bridge” repaired after the 1914 collapse, but here soon to be razed for construction of the bascule replacement.

The Fremont spillway constructed with the 1914 repair of the collapse timber high bridge. Dec. 11, 1914 — The Fremont spillway constructed with the 1914 repair of the collapsed timber high bridge. Dec. 11, 1914 Below is the “now” of this pair that first appeared in Pacific on July 7, 2006.

A record of the spillway from the Queen Anne side, with lines drawn indicating the expected level of the canal once the locks are closed and the canal is flooded. [Courtesy, Army Corps] — A record of the spillway (not spilling) from the Queen Anne side, with lines drawn indicating the expected level of the canal once the locks are closed and the canal is flooded. Again, that is the old pre-bascule short-lived high bridge beyond. [Courtesy, Army Corps]

Looking southeast through the open wings of the brand new but not yet opened to traffic Fremont Bascule Bridge.

January 10, 1917 [Courtesy, Army Corps] — January 10, 1917. This look was photographed some few days before the one above. [Courtesy, Army Corps]

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Early work on the north pier being prepared for concrete, March 23, 1916.

Some of the hardened results on the north pier, April 8, 1916.

An "aerial" panorama (perhaps shot from the tower showing above the south pier in the photograph two above this one) looking west down the canal on May 4, 1916. — An “aerial” panorama (perhaps shot from the tower showing above the south pier in the photograph two above this one) looking west down the canal to a Ballardian sky of mill smoke and airborne lefse particulates on May 4, 1916.

Here the daring photographer has turned around, again on May 4, 1916, to look west over the Stone Way Bridge and the smoking Gas Works to a Capitol Hill horizon. Note the generations of Westlake (25 years worth) both hugging the shore and taking it on the right. Dexter descends to the bridge, far right. — Here the daring photographer has turned around (again on May 4, 1916) to look west over the Stone Way Bridge and the smoking Gas Works to a Capitol Hill horizon. Note the generations of Westlake (25 years worth) off-shore, hugging the shore and taking it on the right. Dexter descends to the bridge, far right.

Work on the north pier, July 7, 1916. — Work on the south pier, July 7, 1916. The Bryant mill is on the left and the Stone Way Bridge on the right.

The South Pier from the north end on Aug. 17, 1916.

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“THE BUSIEST BASCULE IN THE U.S.A.”

Until the Aurora Bridge was completed in 1932, the bascule at Fremont was busy enough to be considered the busiest bridge of its kind in the U.S.A.. With the University Bridge it was one of the two primary funnels into the north city. — Until the Aurora Bridge was completed in 1932, the bascule at Fremont was busy enough to be considered the busiest bridge of its kind in the U.S.A.. With the University Bridge, it was one of the two primary funnels into the north city and beyond. Here the “outbound traffic through Fremont” in the late afternoon of June 27, 1923, for the most part avoids the center of the street and the tracks for the several trolley lines – including the Seattle-Everett Interurban – that then used them. In the mere fifteen years between the opening of the bascule and that of the flyover Aurora Bridge, Fremont prospered as a mill town and roadside attraction.

. . . and sometime in 1924 (if memory service) when the serious talk about building a high bridge was elevating from warm to hot. — . . . and sometime in 1924 (if memory serves) when the serious talk about building a high bridge was itself arising from warm to hot, photographs like this were produced as evidence for the state legislature. [Courtesy, Municipal Archives]

The Aurora Bridge under construction seen from the Fremont Bridge.

Thin traffic on the Fremont Bridge, looking north into Fremont, April 18, 1939. Within two years the trolley rails will be removed.

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FREMONT HISTORICAL SOCIETY

If you find Fremont history alluring, as do I, you may want to join the Fremont Historical Society. I took this portrait of its first members at its first meeting in the summer of 2004. They are, left to right: Julie Pheasant-Albright, Audrey LIvermore, Roger Wheeler, Paul Fellows, Helen Divjak, Heather McAuliffe, and Carol Tobin. The second picture below it was taken within a year (or so) at another FHS meeting, that in the Fremont Library. At the bottom, the front page for the FHS web is added to help with your perhaps first search into Fremont history: finding and contacting the society.

UNDER THE BRIDGE, JUNE 15, 1917 QUIZ. Which end?

* CORRECTION: The caption to the topmost photo – the primary one for the feature – incorrectly described it as looking northwest. Actually, it looks northeast or to make a finer point of it, east-northeast. Although I knew the correct direction I wrote it wrong and the regrettable truth is that I am too often using left for right and north for south and so on and on. It might be that in this week’s blog, through its many pictures with directions, I have done this stupidly more than once. My editor at the Times has complained to me more than once about this. However, one direction I always get correct is up and down, and for that exception I am proud. When readers correct my either dyslexic or careless/spaced-out mistakes they sometimes do it with such cosmological concern that it would seem for them that the world would sit askew until my directional malaise is twisted back to health. And now once more, and something like Atlas, I have leveraged the world back it its original pose with the north pole pointing to heaven and Wallingford, where I live, northeast of Fremont and much else.

Seattle Now and Then

Seattle Now & Then: The Pike Place Corner Market Building

May 31, 2014 jrsherrard Leave a comment

(click to enlarge photos)

THEN: In this April morning record of the 1975 “Rain or Shine Public Market Paint-in,” above the artists, restoration work has begun with the gutting of the Corner Market Building. (Photo by Frank Shaw)

NOW: Jean Sherrard captured the agreeable exterior of the restored Corner Market Building on this spring’s sunny Easter Sunday.

Frank Shaw's black and white negative of the same artists near the corner of Pike Place and Pike Street. When we discover their names we will add them. — Frank Shaw’s black and white negative of the same artists near the corner of Pike Place and Pike Street. When we discover their names we will add them.

Completed in 1912, five years after the opening of the Pike Place Market, the Corner Market Building is set like a keystone at the head of its landmark block bordered by First Avenue, Pike Street and Pike Place. The architect, Seattle’s Harlan Thomas, wrapped elegance around the corner with contrasting brickwork, generous arching windows along the top floor, and at the sidewalk, open stalls for selling mostly fresh foodstuffs.

The corner before the Corner Market Building. The view looks northeast from the "elbow" where Pike Street turns north (left) into Pike Place. — The corner before the Corner Market Building. The view looks northeast from the “elbow” where Pike Street turns north (left) into Pike Place.

The photographer Frank Shaw dated this, his 2×2 inch slide, April 12, 1975. Joan Paulson disagrees, and in this I join her. April 12^th was the Saturday when the nearly week-long “Rain or Shine Public Market Paint-in and Historic Restoration” was fulfilled and celebrated. That morning, before the awards, artists could apply their last brush strokes to their assigned 4×8 foot primed panels, which for the next seven months would serve as both an exhibit and as a construction fence to separate and protect laborers and shoppers from each other.

Another of Frank Shaw's recordings of the Market murals. Might that be Victor Steinbrucke watching, far right? — Another of Frank Shaw’s recordings of the Market murals. Might that be another over the shoulder shot of Victor Steinbrueck watching, far right?

The same lads and the same Frank Shaw. — Moments later the same lads and the same Frank Shaw.

Moments later and with some help from Pop, perhaps. (Frank Shaw)

It was Paulson who put the primed panels and about fifty painters together and, when needed, purchased the art supplies as well. Paulson recalls, “They could start painting on Monday. It rained on Tuesday. Most likely this is Wednesday or Thursday. There’s too much left to do with the panels and too few people for it to be the celebration on Saturday the twelfth.”

Frank Shaw recorded several shots of the front facade looking north across Pike Street.

As a chronicler of Pike Place Market History, Joan Paulson notes the unique “bottom-up” energies that made protecting the market a people’s project. connecting historic preservation with urban renewal and its federal funding. Appropriately, a force named Friends of the Market fueled the victorious 1971 citizens’ initiative to “Save the Market.” In most of this, U.W. professor of architecture Victor Steinbrueck was never out of the picture, and here (at the top) in Frank Shaw’s slide, Joan Paulson has found him as well. Far right, in the shade of his straw hat, we may detect over his right shoulder, that the “savior of the market” is working on his own contributions to the “Paint-In.” In Jean’s “now” photo, although thirty-nine years later, Joan Paulson stands at the corner holding up a rolled paper in her right hand.

Joan Paulson explains that the 4x8 mural panels made it possible to both open and move the fence when needed. This, it seems, is later in the week of painting than the colored snap at the top. (Frank Shaw) — Joan Paulson explains that the 4×8 mural panels made it possible to both open and move the fence when needed. This, it seems, is later in the week of painting than the colored snap at the top. (Frank Shaw)

On Saturday April 12, at the high noon lunchtime awards ceremony, Steinbrueck was one of the winners. The judges explained that to this special “paint-in artist we give the whole Market to do with as he pleases for the rest of the day, and Roger Downey (one of the judges) will wash his brushes.” With work completed on the Corner Market Building’s exterior in late November, all the “unique-to-the-market masterpieces” came down, including the surviving half of Steinbrueck’s mural, the part not punctured by a beam during construction.

Looking east from the "elbow" in 1919 with the then seven-year-old Corner Market Building on the left. (Courtesy, Municipal Archive) — Looking east from the “elbow” in 1919 with the then seven-year-old Corner Market Building on the left. (Courtesy, Municipal Archive)

A typically alert Lawton Gowey recorded this portrait of a worn market on Oct. 25, 1974, and so before the restoration.

Gowey returned on April 21,1976 to study the consequences. (Lawton Gowey)

WEB EXTRAS

Anything to add, Paul? Yes Jean, a protracted attention to the Pike Place Public Market in 1975 with a selection of photographs scanned from volume 2 of the 5 volumes of Frank Shaw negatives huddled in 18 inches on a shelf to the side of me in this north end crypt. We will attempt to get our choices up before climbing the steps to join the bears, but we may not. If not we will finish it off after seven or eight hours sleep and a late breakfast. The captions here will be minimal. We will elaborate with them alter, and hope some of you may help. (See above. You can comment.) Joan Paulson is also going study them and she, obviously, is the expert for such content as is in what follows. Thanks again to Mike Veitenhauns, Frank Shaw’s nephew, whom I first met forty-plus years ago at Fairhaven College, he a student and I an artist-in-residence. The Shaw snaps that follow will be arranged in no particular order – unless you notice one.

Several self-portraits by Frank Shaw explained as in the "Seattle Center Kaleidoscope, 11:45 Am, Jan. 12, 1978." — Several self-portraits by Frank Shaw explained as in the “Seattle Center Kaleidoscope, 11:45 Am, Jan. 12, 1978.”

Two buskers at the elbow — Buskers at the elbow (better than blisters on the knee)

More buskers at the elbow, and the hint of some order.

Looking north on Pike Place - again at the corner - with an early capture of Artist the Spoonman, in white right-of-center. — Looking north on Pike Place – again at the corner – with an early capture of Artis the Spoonman, in white right-of-center.

Spoonman, Wonder Bridge and She Who Stands Guard.

One way to the mens' room in 1975. — One way to the men’s’ room in 1975.

Rock-n-Roll - or perhaps the blues - on the roof of the Champion Building — Rock-n-Roll – or perhaps the blues – on the roof of the Champion Building

Market stairway for saving space - and the curves. — Market stairway for saving space – and the curves.

A variation on “I’d rather have a paper doll that I could call my own, that other fellows could not take or steal!” Celebrating Valentines Day in a store nearby.

Mary's corner, most likely in the basement or low-downs . . . — Mary’s corner, most likely in the basement or low-downs . . .

A juggler-busker or busker-juggler, depending upon the number of balls.

A Market cafe I do not remember. I don't think that it is the Soup and Salad, which was running then. — A Market cafe I do not remember. I don’t think that it is the Soup and Salad, which was running then.

Looking to the north end curve of what the Market calls the "Lower Post Alley" to distinguished it, as Joan Paulson explains, from the Post Alley the runs north from Pike Place. — Looking to the north end curve of what the Market calls the “Lower Post Alley” to distinguished it,as Joan Paulson explains, from the Post Alley that runs north from Pike Place.

Stairs to the Market no longer stepped on.

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RETURNING SUNDAY NIGHT JUNE 1, 2014, AROUND MIDNIGHT

Plumbing fixture and Ten Cent paperbacks near the market - more Frank Shaw in 1975 — Plumbing fixture and Ten Cent paperbacks near the market – more Frank Shaw in 1975

Market view west across Elliott Bay, with ladder

Waiting for the boxcar races on the lower Pike Alley. There may have been more than one boxcar race at the Market in 1975. Here it is raining. In another record of racing limited to gravity motivation, the sun is shining on the Market.

Certainly Soup and Salad, a lower level nutritious dive with a view of Puget Sound, and visited often.

The stools at Soup and Salad, after closing for the day. — The stools at Soup and Salad, after closing for the day or perhaps before opening.

Looking north on Western Avenue and thru the old Pike Hill Climb before its big changes in 1976.

Looking south on Western from near the foot of Stewart Street.

More Soapbox fans looking into the curving pit of the lower Post Alley and the first curve. Click your mouse. Do you recognize anyone? — More Soapbox fans looking into the curving pit of the lower Post Alley at the first curve. Click your mouse. Do you recognize anyone?

Return to the roof top band on the Champions Building. Most likely it was entertainment for Soapbox day. The negatives are neighbors in Shaw's album. — Return to the roof top band on the Champions Building. Most likely it was entertainment for Soapbox day. The negatives are neighbors in Shaw’s album.

Finally - for this feature although not for Frank's photos - note the — Finally – for this feature although not for Frank’s photos – note the Stage One Theatre sign hanging over (lower) Pike Alley. Jean played there, a big role in his teens. He began visiting the Public Market then after school. He was already a talented thespian with a mature baritone and he was tall and so passed for someone older. Jean got an important speaking roll in Shakespeare’s Hamlet – one of Hamlet’s friends, the one who stabs him in the end – and the stories he tells of that production are wonderfully funny and deserving of their own theatre. Perhaps he will share his stories of Hamlet here. Jean is still tall and talented too.

Frank Shaw was a long-time member of the Mountaineers Club, and a great part of his collection records this "Charmed Land." This dark self-portrait is fitting for his pantheon or pantheism. Thank you Frank. Again, these have been a few of the photographs he recorded of the Market in 1975. There are many others for other years. — Frank Shaw was a long-time member of the Mountaineers Club, and a great part of his collection records this “Charmed Land.” Shaw’s dark self-portrait fits his pantheon and/or his pantheism. Thank you Frank. Again, these have been a few of the photographs he recorded of the Market in 1975. There are many others for other years.

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And Here Follows, THREE APT LINKS Found and Posted by Ron Edge

I have also added a panorama with the Hotel York, which was replaced by the Corner Market building.

Here is the area shown on the Sanborn map of 1905.

(courtesy of the Seattle Public Library)

Seattle Now and Then

Seattle Now & Then: A Hotel at Pike and Boren

May 24, 2014 jrsherrard 2 Comments

(click to enlarge photos)

THEN: Beginning with the Reynolds, three hotels have taken tenancy in this ornate three-story brick block at the northeast corner of Boren Avenue and Pike Street. (Courtesy Lawton Gowey)

NOW: The 1106 Pike Street address survives as the Villa, first during the Great Depression as a hotel, and since 1963 as the Villa Apartments.

What are now the Villa Apartments were first lifted above the busy intersection of Boren Avenue and Pike Street in 1909 for its then principal tenant, the Hotel Reynolds. That year, a Seattle Times classified promised, “Everything new and up-to-date in every respect. Rooms single or en suite, with private baths, electric lights and gas, rates reasonable.”

A Seattle Times clipping from June 20, 1909.

In addition to the hotel lobby and its namesake café, the storefronts facing Pike included, far left, a Singer Sewing Machine outlet on the corner with Boren, and on the far right at the alley, a purveyor of Paulhamus Pure Milk promised a “system of rigid cleanliness” beginning with the timely chilling of milk to fifty degrees at the dairy. Next door was the Auction House, and next to Singer was the North Western Quick Shoe Repair Shop, which proposed to fix yours while you wait. The classical entrance at the center of the Pike Street façade supported a tile frieze inscribed with the building name. Fortunately, ‘Lyre Building’ was written there and not ‘Hotel Reynolds,’ for the hotel soon moved out and on.

By 1910 Pike Street was developing into “Auto Row.” That summer the Avondale Hotel moved in and stayed until well into the Great Depression of the 1930s, when rooms rented from $2.50 to $3.00 a week. As late as 1958 rooms could be had for $7.00 a week, and for a dollar more, the by-then-renamed Villa Hotel offered room service. In 1962, taking advantage of Seattle’s Worlds Fair real estate opportunities, the Villa’s rates may well have been inflated for the six-month run of Century 21. After the fair, the hotel became an apartment house, and it is as the Villa Apartments that it survives.

Left of center, the Villa Hotel in 1939, from a negative recorded for the a billboard company. The picture’s own caption refers to the position of the billboard on the left, 60 feet west of Boren.

I thought it possible that the architect for this sturdy survivor was Walter Willcox. In 1910 the Hotel Reynolds took possession of the new Willcox-designed Crouley Building on Fourth Avenue, one block north of Yesler Way. Above the sidewalk, the hotel recycled the illuminated sign seen here on Pike. I also noticed that above the windows of both the Lyre and Crouley buildings are similar cream-colored tile keystones that stand out like bakers’ caps. I was wrong. Diana James, the author of Shared Walls, a history of Seattle apartments, nominated William P. White, a prolific designer of built apartments here between about 1902 and 1917. James then discovered that her “hunch” was supported by Michael House, State Architectural Historian, whose on-line essay on White’s career includes the Villa Apartments among his many accomplishments. Thanks again to Diana James.

West across Boren from the Villa, the Prince Rupert was built mid-block north of Pike Street. Here the hotel rest on a base of the 1912 Baist Real Estate Map

WEB EXTRAS

Anything to add, Paul? Yes Jean and again with Ron Edge’s help. Ron has found six neighborhood links and placed six photographs at the bottom to introduce them. As is our custom, they are often rich with allusions of many sorts, and as is also our way some of these may be have been used in other contexts. We continue to embrace my mother’s lesson learned from her in the late 1940s when she served a term as President of the Spokane Women’s Club, which was a few blocks from our home (actually, the church’s home: a parsonage) on 9th Avenue, one of the many verdant avenues on Spokane’s shaded but rarely shady South Hill. Mom – Cherry was her nickname – advised in all caps, “Repetition is the Mother of All Learning.” To some readers all six of these links will be familiar for they were all “top features” here within the last three years. The Plymouth Pillars printed next are, we hope and expect, treated in one of the six. They stand at the northwest corner of Boren and Pike, and so directly across Boren from our hotel. Following the pillars is a shot I snapped with with the popular and fast emulsion Tri-X 35mm film in the early 1970s. It looks south up Boren across Pike.

The enduring Plymouth Pillars at the northwest corner of Boren and Pike.

Seattle Now and Then

Seattle Now & Then: The Ship Canal Bridge

May 17, 2014 jrsherrard Leave a comment

(click to enlarge photos)

THEN: Long-time Wallingford resident Victor Lygdman looks south through the work-in-progress on the Lake Washington Ship Canal Bridge during the summer of 1959. Bottom-right are the remnants of the Latona business and industrial district, including the Wayland Mill and the Northlake Apartments, replaced now with Ivar’s Salmon House and its parking. (Photo by Victor Lygdman)

NOW: Standing near where the bridge’s “express lane” reaches Wallingford, Jean’s repeat includes what appears to be the color-coordinated sleeping gear and sneakers of a truly tired homeless citizen using the shelter and perhaps “white noise” of the Lake Washington Ship Canal Bridge for some slumber. ***[Below you will find that we are mistaken with this “now” caption. We are one block of and a few feet down. We will explain with the “anything to add” part of all this.]***

In The Seattle Times classifieds for February 7, 1958, the state highway department advertised: “…men wanted…to do design work in connection with the Seattle Freeway… First project is the Lake Washington Ship Canal Bridge.” Later that summer, local contractors Scheumann and Johnson’s low bid was awarded the contract to build the seven piers required to support the steel truss portion of the bridge, and the first concrete was poured on the 24th of September.

The Seattle Times caption for this reads in part . . . — From June 17, 1958, *The Seattle Times* caption for this reads in part . . . “Two State Highway Department engineers, Art Kaiser and Pat O’Reilly, examine a model of a bridge which will carry the Seattle Freeway over the Lake Washington Ship Canal. This view is looking toward Portage Bay, with the University Bridge in the center background. The bridge, 4,400 feet long with its lower deck 135 feet above the water, is estimate to cost $15,000,000.”

At least parts of six of the seven piers can be found in this construction photo by Victor Lygdman, admiringly described in his Times obituary dated March 23, 2010, as the “unofficial Mayor of Wallingford.” Born in 1927, Lygdman became an artist in several media, including watercolors, cartoons, fiction and sculpture. (When my left knee complains, I carry a Lygdman cane, skillfully carved as a snake spiraling the shaft to the handle.)

VICTOR as a teen - or nearly - ca. 1950. — VICTOR as a teen – or nearly – ca. 1950.

Jean and I figure that Lygdman recorded the historical view from where the bridge meets the hill near 42^nd Street and Pasadena Avenue. [Reminder! We are off by one block. See below, under “anything to add.”] Pasadena was a busy commercial street in the Latona neighborhood until 1919, when the Latona Bridge was replaced by the University Bridge. The freeway bridge, with its 2,294 feet of steel trusses crossing the canal, conforms to what was the north-south line of the Latona Bridge, about 125 feet above it.

The I-5 bridge opened to traffic in December 1962, with only 2.2 miles of approaches. On December 18th, Times reporter Marshall Wilson reported on his test drive. “For the time being commuters in both directions may find that it’s quicker traveling their old and accustomed routes.” Wilson added, “The view is better on the freeway route. From high atop the Lake Washington Ship Canal Bridge, the old Aurora Bridge looks almost like a miniature. Even the Space Needle appears to be at eye level.”

Courtesy, Museum of History and Industry, aka MOHAI. From their collection of Post-Intelligencer Negatives.

After the bridge was painted “Washington Green” with brushes, it sat idle for more than a year waiting for the freeway to catch up. Plans to use it for Century 21 Worlds Fair parking were first approved and then dropped. As historian Genevieve McCoy remarks in her book “Building Washington,” published in 2000, “Today, frustrated motorists crawling across the span could surely advise future fair planners that you don’t need a world’s fair to turn a bridge into a parking lot.”

With the Space Needle up and waiting, the Ship Canal Bridge is able and willing to serve as a parking lot for Century 21 motorists. — With the Space Needle up and waiting, the Ship Canal Bridge is able and willing although not called to serve as a parking lot for Century 21 motorists.

WEB EXTRAS

Anything to add, Paul? Surely Jean, but first we must gathered it up.

Directly below are three picture links to other blog features that relate to our primary subject. The second of these, about the Latona Bridge in its last days, we printed in Pacific only two weeks past. It is still relevant. The third link starts with a feature of the split in the path of Lake Washington Bike Trail and its repeat looks north on the Lake Washington Ship Canal Bridge from the Roanoke Street overpass. The first link we were surprised to discover with our own “key word” search. It’s the same Victor Lygdman snapshot of the bridge supports printed on top, and it appeared first with two other relevant photos by Lygdman as an installment of a series we were running in 2011 called “Seattle Confidential.” The title is apt, for now – if you open the top link – you will find our caption from then, and may compare it to the one near the top here. But this requires another confession – now. The “then” feature this week – on top – is not given good service with its “now.” I may in the call of “team work” claim that WE – Jean and I – made a mistake. But it was really I who was “most” responsible. The “now” should have been taken one block further south where the bridge makes a big change to its center cantilever section. And it should have been taken from the top of the bridge (dangerous), and not from the lower express lane, or beside it with a sleeping bag. ( When we first reflected on this feature, Jean remarked that the Lygdman photo seemed closer and higher to the canal than the prospects I was promoting. And so once more, mea culpa.) You will find some of the evidence for this change in one of the two other Lygdman bridge photos included in the link directly below. It is a snapshot looking due east from the top of the bridge at that same time – 1959/60. Here it is again.

Looking east on N.E. 40th Street to the U.W.Campus from the top of the bridge. By Victor Lygdman

Another revealing photograph – a panorama over Wallingford to the Cascades – by our old friend, Lawton Gowey, looks west from near the south end of the Aurora Bridge. It is dated Jan. 1, 1960 and shows the “stub” of the Ship Canal Bridge when the top lane is a work-in-progress and aside from the concrete piers the cantilever work for the center span has not begun. It is from there – high and open on that south end – that Victor took the photograph that we feature at the very top and directly below. But first here is Lawton’s distant look at one high bridge from another, or near another: the Aurora Bridge. [CLICK to ENLARGE]

A detail of Lawton Gowey's Jan. 17, 1960 look east from Queen Anne Hill over Grandmas Cookies in Wallingford and further to construction on the Lake Washington Ship Canal Bridge, the University and its district, and the Cascades on a clear winter day. (By Lawton Gowey) — A detail of Lawton Gowey’s Jan. 17, 1960 look east from Queen Anne Hill over Grandmas Cookies in Wallingford and further to construction on the Lake Washington Ship Canal Bridge, the University and its district, and the Cascades on a clear winter day. (By Lawton Gowey)

MORE TO COME

We have other extras from the neighborhood to insert tomorrow Sunday Morning after a late breakfast.

Latona School, "Class, Jan. 22, 1900." — Latona School, “Class, Jan. 22, 1900.”

The Latona campus on Sept. 6, 2006. — The Latona campus on Sept. 6, 2006 with a glimpse of the Lake Washington Canal Bridge.

Taken on Sept. 6, 2006, during the first year of my Wallingford Walks.

Latona School - the 1917 brick addition looking east on 42nd Street through 4th Avenue Northeast. — Latona School – the 1917 brick addition looking east on 42nd Street through 4th Avenue Northeast. The south end of the 1906 addition is seen far-right.

Looking across 42nd Street at the razing of the 1917 brick addition and revealing behind it the 1906 frame school house, 1998. — Looking across 42nd Street at the 1998 razing of the 1917 brick addition and revealing behind it the 1906 frame school house.

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Above: May Day festivities, like these at Latona School, were once a regular feature on the calender of many Seattle schools. Below: Latona graduates Dorothy Lunde and her youngest sister, Marcella Fetterly, far right, stand beside a moving football formation of Latona students in 1993, with a glimpse of the ship canal bridge to the east.

THE DAHLS at HOME on EASTERN

The Dahl home under a snow of 1985. — The Dahl home, on the left, under a snow of 1985.

Peruvian Lilies in the front yard, four times. — Peruvian Lilies from the McCoy Garden in the front yard, four times.

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Another - that is, not the one directly below - group of Latona School kids pose with their school and their report cards. — Another – that is, not the one directly below – group of Latona School kids posing with their school and their report cards. Who is the child marked with an “x” we do not know. Perhaps he does not look forward to going home with his report.

Clipping from The Times Pacific Magazine for Dec. 29, 1991.

Frank DeBruyn with wagon in front of the family home at 4123 Eastern Ave. N..

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Jean's alternative to the sleeping bag scene (Here he stands above the sleeper.), taken on the same afternoon, but still a block too far north on my misguidance. — Jean’s alternative to the sleeping bag scene (Here he stands above the sleeper.), taken on the same afternoon, but still a block too far north on my misguidance.

Work-in-progress on the express land access off of 42nd Street and 7th Avenue. E.. The ramp on the left passes above Pasadena Avenue, once an important commercial street in Latona. (by Victor Lygdman)

Marking the I-5 freeway route. Note that both the Wayland Mill - future site of Ivar's Salmon House - and the Northlake Hotel - future site of the Salmon House parking - can be found above the "Lake Union" tag, bottom left. — Marking the I-5 freeway route. Note that both the Wayland Mill – future site of Ivar’s Salmon House – and the Northlake Apartments – future site of the Salmon House parking – can be found above the “Lake Union” tag, bottom left. (Courtesy, Ron Edge) [**CLICK TO ENLARGE]**

A tax photo of the Northlake Apartment at the northwest corner of Northlake and 5th Avenue N.E. [Courtesy Washington State Archive, Bellevue Branch]

The Salmon House parking, former site of the Northlake Apartments.

A detail pulled from the late 1950s aerial printed above shows close-up the Wayland Mill, future Salmon House, and the Northlake Apartments at the northwest corner of Northlake and 5th Ave. N.E.. [Courtesy Ron Edge]

With the help of the 1936 aerial mapping survey on the right, and a ca. 2012 satellite shot of the same acres, we can compae the changes to the Salmon House - and its parking - site and its neighbors. The freeway bridge is far-right in the ca.2012 view. — With the help of the 1936 aerial mapping survey on the right, and a ca. 2012 Goggle Earth (courtesy of) satellite shot of the same acres, we can compare the changes to the Salmon House – and its parking – site and its neighbors. The freeway bridge is far-right in the ca.2012 view. The red dot marks the spot of the Wayland mill’s burning silo on the right, and the same spot, appropriately new the fire place, in the Salmon House bar, on the left.

A Feb. 4, 1953 tax photo looking east thru the Wayland mill site from the foot of 4th Avenue n.e. on Northlake. The mill's burning tower is obvious center-right and beyond it to the east the open bascules of the University Bridge. — A Feb. 4, 1953 tax photo looking east thru the Wayland mill site from the foot of 4th Avenue n.e. on Northlake. The mill’s burning tower is obvious center-right and beyond it to the east the open bascules of the University Bridge.

Seattle Now and Then

Seattle Now & Then: The Post-Fire Post-Intelligencer

May 10, 2014 jrsherrard 1 Comment

(click to enlarge photos)

THEN: In the late afternoon and evening of Seattle’s Great Fire day, June 6, 1889, Leigh and Lizzie Hunt’s home at the northwest corner of Fourth Avenue and Columbia Street was, within a few hours, arranged to accommodate the family’s business, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper. (Courtesy Lawton Gowey)

NOW: The parking garage, at what was the Hunt’s corner, was built in 1923 and survives as an unheated shelter for a few dozen cars. This Central Business District corner is valued by the taxman at more than four-and-one-half thousand times the value of this reinforced concrete “improvement.” The Rainier Club, its neighbor across Four Avenue, can be glimpsed on the right. — NOW: The parking garage, at what was the Hunt’s corner, was built in 1923 and survives as an unheated shelter for a few dozen cars. This Central Business District corner is valued by the taxman at more than four-and-one-half thousand times the value of this reinforced concrete “improvement.” The Rainier Club, its neighbor across Fourth Avenue, can be glimpsed on the right. The figure making his way down Columbia is production tech/designer/inventor/wunderkind David Verkade.

One of the five men posing beside The Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s office may well be Leigh Hunt, who with his wife Lizzie was the owner of both the newspaper and the house. The latter became the P-I’s temporary quarters after the city’s Great Fire of June 6, 1889, destroyed the paper’s office and plant at the corner of Mill Street (Yesler Way) and Post Avenue (aka Post Alley). Before the sign was even in place, the P-I began publishing, here at the northwest corner of Columbia Street and Fourth Avenue.

The worst part of the rip in this clip reads, "Two little job presses worked by foot power." — The worst part of the rip in this clip reads, “Two little job presses worked by foot power.” The clip is also a LINK that will take you to the full two-page edition of Hunt’s Post-Intelligencer, the first following the June 6 “Great Fire,” and the one composed in part by foot power. [CLICK to open.]

In 1886, at age 33, Hunt had given up his presidency of the Agricultural College of Iowa at Ames for the exhilarating, if risky, enterprise of running his own newspaper, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The paper had begun in 1873 as the Seattle Gazette, a one-sheet weekly and Seattle’s first newspaper, and carried on with a variety of names and owners. Hunt’s stay lasted little more than six years, ended in bankruptcy triggered by the nation-wide economic panic of 1893.”

Although deep in debt, Hunt’s powers of persuasion soon moved the Great Northern Railroad to help pay his way to Korea, where he founded the Oriental Consolidated Mines and quickly made millions extracting gold. After he returned to Seattle, Hunt opened an office announcing that he was prepared to “meet all his debtors and pay in full.”

Leigh Hunt began the 20^th century with a safari to Egypt’s upper Nile “for his health,” but “like the wide-awake American everywhere,” soon developed his trip into a scheme to get richer by growing cotton in the Sudan with British cooperation and the labor of American Negroes. Hunt’s characterization of his plan to give the colonizing blacks opportunities to acquire homes and skills got him no help from the black educator Booker T. Washington, who while in Paris, announced that “I am here merely to study the best known French manual training schools and have no intention of proceeding to Cairo to meet Leigh Hunt.”

In the summer of 1932 the 75-year-old Hunt’s planned visit to Seattle was cancelled when he fell from a twenty-foot ladder while examining a mine near Las Vegas, Nevada, his last hometown. His Seattle Times obituary of October 5, 1933, made claims on him. “It was here that Mr. Hunt entered his business career, which eventually took him all over the world, and it was here that he left the imprint of his genius for organization, promotion and development.” Hunt’s Times obit. is attached immediately below in a context of a few other stories that day.

[CLICK to ENLARGE]

WEB EXTRAS

Anything to add, Paul?

The best addition is from Ron Edge. It is the clipping from the P-I’s first issue following the fire. It is an extra you have already encountered – we have embedded it in the story above. We will also include a link from 2012, the feature about the Burnett Home across Fourth Avenue from Hunts, at the northeast corner of 4th and Columbia. Include within its link are other features from the neighborhood, including one on the Meydenbauer Home, which was also on Columbia and near by at its northeast corner with Third Avenue.

Seattle Now and Then

Seattle Now & Then: A Late Latona Bridge

May 3, 2014 jrsherrard 1 Comment

(click to enlarge photos)

THEN: The historical view looks directly south into the Latona addition’s business district on Sixth Ave. NE. from the Northern Pacific’s railroad bridge, now part of the Burke Gilman Recreation Trail. (Courtesy, Lawton Gowey)

NOW: The Lake Washington Ship Canal Bridge, constructed in the early 1960s, scattered whatever appeal the old strip on Sixth Ave. NE. might have still had for business.

While I have not yet found a date for this look into the Latona business district, I think it was recorded, perhaps by a municipal photographer, to show off the closely packed collection of three bridges that in their last days were fittingly called by one name, Latona.

Perhaps it (may be) likely that this record of the bridge was taken by the same Municipal photographer on the same day from the Paysee Hardware Store. The trio of bridges are used the same as in the featured photograph, and the line-up of motorcars behind the truck may be compared by, for instance, the size of their rooftops. (Courtesy Municipal Archive) — Perhaps it is (or merely may be) likely that this record of the bridge was taken by the same Municipal photographer on the same day but here from the Paysee Hardware Store. The trio of bridges are used the same as in the featured photograph, and the line-up of motorcars behind the truck may be compared by, for instance, the size of their rooftops. The wagon also appears in the photograph at the top. (Courtesy Municipal Archive)

Out-of-frame to the left – about 150 feet east from the center of this bridge – the University Bridge also crossed the narrows into Portage Bay. With an almost obligatory speech by Edmond Meany, the University Bridge was dedicated on July 1, 1919. Meany was by then the oldest and easily most professing of the University of Washington’s history professors. With his wife Lizzie, Edmond also lived, appropriately, on 10^th Ave. E. at the north end of the bridge. A living landmark, Meany was a brand name with both the University District’s art deco hotel, the Meany, (since renamed the Deco) and the University’s largest auditorium named for him. Exceptionally, both names were pinned to him before his death in 1935.

One of many renderings of the handsome history professor, the artist here is (and I am mildly speculating) Herbert P. Muehlenbeck, who was also responsible for painting portraits of the U.W. figureheads. — One of many renderings of the handsome history professor, the artist here is (and I am mildly speculating) Herbert P. Muehlenbeck, who was also responsible for painting portraits of other U.W. figureheads, which most likely still hang on-campus. .

The professor had also attended the dedication of the Latona Bridge, exactly twenty-eights years earlier, on July 1, 1891. A boy’s choir from nearby Fremont serenaded the ceremony. (Both Fremont and Latona, north lake neighborhoods, were incorporated into Seattle on April 3, 1891, an annexation that added about seventeen, at the time, remote square miles to Seattle but very few citizens.) Most likely Seattle Pioneer David Denny was also at the ’91 dedication, for it was Denny who built the bridge as part of an agreement with the City Council, which gave him the right of franchise to build his trolley line over the bridge to the newly annexed Latona and the future University District, then still called Brooklyn.

Here (at top) with trolley tracks leading to it, the lift-span trolley bridge is on the right. Curiously, at the subject’s center, the right southbound side of the swing bridge made for vehicles is crowded with them. Perhaps they are headed for the 1919 dedication of the new bridge that was then still variously called the 10^th Avenue Bridge, the Eastlake Bridge, and sometimes even the Latona Bridge.

The Latona Bridge (or bridges) photographed from the University Bridge. Although no date cam with it, perhaps it too was photographed on the same day as the others. — The Latona Bridge (or bridges) photographed from the University Bridge. Here we see that both a swinging span and a lift span were used to open the bridge to vessels. Although no date came with it, perhaps it too was photographed on the same day as the others.

Found on the Municipal Archives web site, this revealing subject comes with a confident date, July 26, 1919, or 22 days after the dedication of the new University Bridge. The west facade of the Diamond Tires warehouse, which sat on the west side of Eastlake. With persistent inspection Diamond's big shed can also be found in the feature's "then" at the top. — Found on the Municipal Archives web site, this revealing subject comes with a confident date, July 26, 1919, or 22 days after the dedication of the new University Bridge. South side access to the Latona Bride on Fuhrman Street has be barricaded. The west facade of the Diamond Tires warehouse, sat on the west side of Eastlake. With persistent inspection Diamond’s big shed can also be found in the feature’s “then” at the top. This relatively steep decent with a curve to reach the bridge was long considered a hazard, and locals like the Brooklyn Community Club lobbied for its correction. (Brooklyn was an early name for the University District.) Here’s a news report of the Community Club’s concerns, including the approach to the bridge, dated from March 25, 1902.

CLICK TO ENLARGE

The Brooklyn Community Club's news from March 25, 1902. — The Brooklyn Community Club’s news from March 25, 1902.

WEB EXTRAS

Anything to add, Paul? Yes Jean and starting with Ron Edge’s selection of four past features from this blog that stay – for the most part – in the neighborhood. In this regard we gently remind readers that we treat our subjects and their parts as like themes in musical compositions, by which we mean that we can use then over and over again, but in different contexts. For instance is the first feature that Ron links below, we will come upon image(s) that appear again in this feature. This “The Latona Bridge” is not so old either. It was first published less than a year ago on June 29. We figure some readers will remember it still.

Seattle Now and Then

Seattle Now & Then: Post Office Teams on University Street

April 26, 2014 jrsherrard 3 Comments

(click to enlarge photos)

THEN: Looking west from First Avenue down the University Street viaduct to the waterfront, ca. 1905. Post Office teams and their drivers pose beside the Arlington Hotel, which was then also headquarters for mail delivery in Seattle. (Courtesy, Gary Gaffner)

NOW: Jean notes, "The Lin family, visiting Seattle on a near-Spring day, takes in two views from the Harbor steps - one looking over my shoulder at the Seattle Art Museum and the other of a cherry blossom-framed, if blustery, Elliott Bay." — NOW: Jean notes, “The Lin family, visiting Seattle on a near-Spring day, takes in two views from the Harbor steps – one looking over my shoulder at the Seattle Art Museum and the other of a cherry blossom-framed, if blustery, Elliott Bay.”

Here we stand – about a century ago – with an unidentified photographer recording five U.S. Postal Service teams and their drivers. The year is about 1905, six years after the Post Office moved from its previous headquarters on Columbia Street here to the Arlington Hotel. Larger quarters were needed, in part for sorting mail.

The Arlington Hotel with tower, looking southwest through the intersection of First Ave. and University Street. Below: the hotel sans tower from a postcard.

On the left (of the top photo) is the hotel’s north façade extending west from the corner of University Street and First Avenue. Above the sidewalk on First, the hotel reached four ornate brick stories high with a distinguished conical tower at the corner, not seen here. To the rear there were three more stories reaching about forty feet down to Post Alley. First named the Gilmore Block, after its owner David Gilmore, for most of its eighty-four years this sturdy red brick pile was called the Arlington, but wound up as the Bay Building, and it was as the Bay that it was razed in 1974.

Frank Shaw's record of work-in-progress on the razing of the Bay Building. The subject looks east from the viaduct on University Street to the Diller Hotel on the southeast corner of First and University. — Frank Shaw’s record of work-in-progress on the razing of the Bay Building. The subject looks east from the viaduct on University Street to the Diller Hotel on the southeast corner of First and University.

The caption that came with this look west on the trestle dates it Sept.8, 1946. It was photographed from a prospect near that used by the "more historical" photographer who recorded the subject at the top. — The caption that came with this look west on the trestle dates it Sept.8, 1946. It was photographed from a prospect near that used by the “more historical” photographer who recorded the subject at the top.

Frank Shaw dated this August 18, 1973, which should be a sufficient clue for come curious reader to figure out what movie is being shot here. It is a quiz. Answer correctly and win the glory of being right. — Frank Shaw dated this August 18, 1973, which should be a sufficient clue for some curious reader to figure out what movie is being shot here. It is a quiz. Answer correctly and win the glory, or satisfaction if you prefer, of being right.

By beginning the construction of his hotel before the city’s Great Fire of June 6, 1889, Gilman performed a considerable, if unwitting, service. The south foundation of the structure was formidable enough to stop the fire from reaching University Street. Off shore, a chain of volunteer fire fighters, passing buckets of water pulled from Elliot Bay, stopped the fire’s northerly advance as well along the off-shore quays and trestles built of pilings for warehouses and railroad tracks.

A sidewalk view revealing the savior-wall at the base of the south facade following the June 6, 1889 "Great Fire" that consumed most of the Seattle waterfront - to the tides - and over 30 city blocks. The view looks south-southwest. The north facade of the ruined cracker factor at Seneca is seen in part at the top-left corner. — A sidewalk view revealing the savior-wall at the base of the south facade following the June 6, 1889 “Great Fire” that consumed most of the Seattle waterfront – to the tides – and over 30 city blocks. The view looks south-southwest. The north facade of the ruined cracker factor at Seneca is seen in part at the top-left corner.

Free mail delivery started in Seattle on September 11, 1887, with four carriers. Remembering that booming Seattle’s population increased in a mere thirty years from 3,533 in 1880 to the 237,194 counted by the federal census in 1910, we may imagine that this quintet of carriers and their teams were a very small minority of what was needed to deliver the mail in 1905. Behind the posing carriers, University Street descends on a timber trestle above both Post Alley and Western Avenue to Railroad Avenue (Alaska Way). Most likely some of the mail was rolled along the trestle both to and from “Mosquito Fleet” steamers for waterways distribution.

[Click to ENLARGE] The swath of destruction along the waterfront seen from the northwest corner of Front Street (First Ave.) and Union Street. The rebuilding has obviously begun, and while the business district and waterfront are building, several business have temporarily taken to elaborate tents. The Gilmore/Arlington at First and University appears here at the panorama’s center where the hotel’s construction has laid a floor on its foundation. (Courtesy, Lawton Gowey)

After the post office moved three blocks to the new Federal Building at Third Avenue and Union Street in 1908, First Avenue between University and Seneca Streets continued as a block of hospitality with seven hotels.

WEB EXTRAS

Anything to add, Paul? A few variations from the neighborhood, Jean, beginning with a look south on First Avenue through University Street.

Another Gowey contribution. Lawton dated this slide May 23, 1969.

FIRST AVENUE SOUTH THRU UNIVERSITY STREET

At least by April 19, 1976, Lawton's date for his slide, the block is gone. — By April 19, 1976, Lawton’s date for his slide, the block is gone.

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Either Horace Sykes or Robert Bradley (they were friends in the Seattle Camera Club) recorded this look east on University Way in 1953 when the viaduct was opened to the club before, of course, the traffic. Here in the shadows at the bottom we see that the viaduct has been cut off at the east side of Western Avenue.

Lawton Gowey's up-close portrait of the viaduct's stub, again looking east across Western Avenue, this time in 1982. — Lawton Gowey’s up-close portrait of the viaduct’s stub, again looking east across Western Avenue, this time in 1982.

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WHERE THE UNIVERSITY STREET RAMP REACHED RAILROAD AVENUE

Looking west down the University Street ramp or viaduct in 1899 towards ship impounded for and suppling for the Spanish American War. (Courtesy, University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections.) — Looking west down the University Street ramp or viaduct in ca. 1900 towards ship impounded for and moving supplies for the Spanish American War. On the far right the Sung Harbor Saloon appears again, this time from behind. (Courtesy, University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections.)

[NOTE: The NOW describe directly above has not been found, or rather a good print or the negative for it stays hidden.]

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WESTERN AVENUE LOOKING SOUTH FROM THE UNIVERSITY STREET VIADUCT

Another A. Curtis record, this one looking south on Western Avenue from the University Street ramp. The south end of the rank of hotels that crowd the west side of First Avenue between University and Seneca Streets rise above the narrow block of warehouse and manufacturing sheds that fill the block between Western and Post Alley (aka Post Avenue.)

Recorded from a back window of the Arlington Hotel, the subject looks northwest across the University Street viaduct to the industry to either side of Western Avenue and Railroad Avenue, circa 1899. The Schwabacher Dock, far left, face Railroad Avenue. Next to it is an earlier version of the Pike Street Wharf, soon to be replace by what we still have as the city's aquarium. — Recorded from a back window of the Arlington Hotel, the subject looks northwest across the University Street viaduct to the industry to either side of Western Avenue and Railroad Avenue, circa 1899. The Schwabacher Dock, far left, faces Railroad Avenue. Next to it is an earlier version of the Pike Street Wharf, soon to be replace by what we still have as the city’s aquarium.

[ANOTHER NOTE: The “Contemporary photo noted in the paragraph directly above may have joined the other “now” subject missing above it. ]

The hole as Frank Shaw recorded it on March 11, 1975 and many of us still remember it. The SeaFirst Tower still holds the majesty it grabbed with its topping-off in 1968. — The hole as Frank Shaw recorded it on March 11, 1975 and as many of us still remember it. Here the SeaFirst Tower still holds the majesty it grabbed with its topping-off in 1968.

March 11, 1975, Gowey — March 11, 1975, Frank Shaw

Terracing the hole, also Nov. 21, 1975 by Frank Shaw.

October 25, 1974, eight months earlier from in front. (Lawton Gowey) — October 25, 1974. Standing now almost in memoriam, the skin like a skull and the wits within nearly removed. “Thine are these orbs of light and shade; / Thou madest Life in man and brute; / Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot / is on the skull which thou hast made.” Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H. (Lawton Gowey)

Less than three years later, a sampling of Friends of the Rag head south on First Ave., with landmark Myres Music at 1216 and so across the street from "the hole," during the Fat Tuesday Parade on Feb. 18, 1978. — Less than three years later, a sampling of Friends of the Rag head south on First Ave., with the landmark Myres Music at 1216 and across First Ave. from “the hole,” during the Fat Tuesday Parade on Feb. 18, 1978. (Frank Shaw)

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Here – if Ron Edge reads his mail on awakening Sunday Morning – we may find a link for the story feature we published here on the Buzby’s Waterfront Mill, which was nearby at the foot of Seneca Street. After the story of Buzby and his pioneer flour, we follow Jean and his students off to Snoqualmie Falls for another now-then. After a few more digressions, the linked feature returns to the “hole,” above, for more of Frank Shaw’s photos of it. This may all transpire soon for Ron arises about the time I join the other bears here for another long winter’s sleep.

[CLICK THE LINK BELOW]

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Now & then here and now…