Tag Archives: Fifth Avenue

Seattle Now & Then: The Frances Hotel (aka 5th Avenue regrade)

(click to enlarge photos)

THEN: Looking north from Yesler Way over the Fifth Avenue regrade in 1911. Note the Yesler Way Cable rails and slot at the bottom. (Courtesy, Seattle Municipal Archive)
THEN: Looking north from Yesler Way over the Fifth Avenue regrade in 1911. Note the Yesler Way Cable rails and slot at the bottom. (Courtesy, Seattle Municipal Archive)
NOW: The industrial parts of sculptor John Henry’s Songbird (2011) – a kind of blue bird, perhaps – unwittingly repeat some of the concrete and timber devices used to keep the three hotels on the east side of Fifth Avenue north of Yesler Way from sliding away in the summer of 1911.
NOW: The industrial parts of sculptor John Henry’s Songbird (2011) – a kind of blue bird, perhaps – unwittingly repeat some of the concrete and timber devices used to keep the three hotels on the east side of Fifth Avenue north of Yesler Way from sliding away in the summer of 1911.

We will concentrate first on Jean Sherrard’s ‘repeat’ that looks into the face of Songbird, by sculptor John Henry.  The Chattanooga artist visited Seattle twice to study this northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and Yesler Way.  He determined what we, perhaps, have not considered. “The work would have to interact with the sight lines available, yield to the physical demands of the Yesler overpass and still compliment the architectural design of the building. It would be an exercise of creating a piece with enough strength to command the site yet subtle enough not to overpower its surroundings.”

Looking through the odd intersection of 5th and Yesler Way before the slide and the overpass.

Jean's repeat from below the Yesler Way overpass.
Jean’s repeat from below the Yesler Way overpass.
Looking northwest across Yesler Way to an early look at the Francis and its entrance on Yesler Way, with part of the east facade of the new City Hall (and Jail) showing far left across 5th Avenue. (Courtesy Lawton Gowey)
Looking northwest across Yesler Way to an earlier recording of  the Francis and its entrance on Yesler Way, with part of the east facade of the new City Hall (and Jail) showing far left across 5th Avenue.   Our Lady of Good  Help Catholic Church at 5th and Jefferson shows her steeple  upper-right. (Courtesy Lawton Gowey)
Jean's repeat looking northwest across Yesler Way.
Jean’s repeat looking northwest across Yesler Way.

The historical photo featured at the top, one of several taken by a public works photographer in the summer of 1911, documents the troubles the regraders were having here at Fifth Avenue and Yesler Way.  The clipping directly below form the Times for February 28, 1899 reveals that the slipping here was an old  worry.

A clipping from The Seattle Times for Feb. 28, 1899 introduces C. P. Dose the owner of the building at the northeast corner of 5th Ave. and Yesler Way, and his fundamental concerns.
A clipping from The Seattle Times for Feb. 28, 1899 introduces C. P. Dose, the owner of the building at the northeast corner of 5th Ave. and Yesler Way, and his fundamental concerns.
(I Click this one TWICE to read it.) The Times report on the left for July 14, 1902, describes the elaborate public work undertaken in 1902 to stabilize the fluid dynamics of this "Profanity Hill" (or later "Goat Hill") part of First Hill that bulges west from it like a resting tourist.
(I Click this one TWICE to read it.) The Times report on the left for July 14, 1902, describes the elaborate public work undertaken that year to stabilize the fluid dynamics of this “Profanity Hill” (or later “Goat Hill”) part of First Hill that bulges west from it like a resting tourist.

The featured subject looks north over the regrade mess on Fifth from the work-in-progress on the Yesler Way overpass. Beginning with the Frances Hotel, seen here at the northeast corner, there are two more structures between Yesler and Terrace, the next street north.  All three are in trouble.  When the responsibilities were at last resolved in the courts, twenty-four structures on Yesler, Terrace, Fifth, and Sixth, were counted as damaged by slides triggered by the Fifth Avenue regrade.

One of Dose's proposals for securing the neighborhood by making it part of his solution for the growing traffic congestion on downtown streets. That The Seattle Times printed his plans is a sign of his influence.
One of Dose’s proposals for securing the neighborhood by making it part of his solution for the growing traffic congestion on downtown streets.  Note the Dose proposals a wall as part of his plan to stabilize the hill.   That The Seattle Times printed his plans is a sign of his influence.  Again CLICK CLICK!!!

Real estate speculator, C.P.Dose, the owner of The Frances, described himself and his neighbors as victims of City Engineer R.H. Thomson’s  “cutting off the toe off First Hill,” similar to the little Dutch boy pulling his finger from the hole in the dike.  Like others, Dose understood the hill’s abundant fluid dynamics. Those dynamics were high on the list of reasons that most of the original pioneers on Alki Point soon left that dry prominence to build a city on and beside this wet hill. After the cutting off of its toe, Dose concluded that most of the “so-called First Hill” should be carefully removed; otherwise, he advised, “It will all come sliding down.”

A Times clip from Feb. 14, 1907.
A Times clip from Feb. 14, 1907.
Times clip from Sept. 10, 1909 with radical proposals.
Times clip from Sept. 10, 1909 with radical proposals.
Desperate attempts to save the Allen, the Francis Hotel's first neighbor to the north on 5th Avenue.
Desperate and failed attempts to save the Allen, the Francis Hotel’s first neighbor to the north on 5th Avenue.
Times clip from August 24, 1911.
Times clip from August 24, 1911.
Times clip from August 23, 1911.
Times clip from August 23, 1911. The Francis is on the far right of the illustration.

If I have read the clues correctly, Dose built his Fifth Avenue Hotel, its first name, for $6,000 in the summer of 1900, soon after relocating his prospering real estate business from Chicago to Seattle.  With his son, C.C. Dose, he opened his real estate office in the clapboard hotel and soon became a leader among his neighbors in plotting what to do about their slippery situation.  A solution arrived on the 23rd of August, 1911, when all the windows in The Frances cracked as, The Seattle Times reported, it moved “one foot closer to the brink.”  The three hotels on Fifth Avenue were abruptly abandoned and soon razed.  Dose was comforted in the Mt. Baker Neighborhood.  He had been holding onto ten acres there since 1870, when he purchased the lakeside land sight unseen while still in Chicago.  In 1904 and 1907 he platted his “Dose’s Lake Washington Addition to the City of Seattle” and in 1912 built his home there, a colonial-style mansion with grand Corinthian columns at the front.  It still stands tall at 3211 S. Dose Terrace.

Dose's big home in his namesake addition appears here on the far left of the illustrations running below the feature's header. It dates from August 3, 1913. [Please CLICK CLICK]
Dose’s big home in his namesake addition appears here on the far left of the illustrations running below the feature’s header. It dates from August 3, 1913. [Please CLICK CLICK]
The Yesler Way slide was included in The Times four page chronology of the big local events of 1911 - although not on this page, which we have chosen for the cartoon.
The Yesler Way slide was included in The Times four page chronology of the big local events of 1911 – although not on this page, which we have chosen for the cartoon. CLICK CLICK
Alas, for Dose, The Seattle Times reports on March 25, 1914, that he lost to the city in his attempt to be paid for the loses of the 1911 slide.
Alas, for Dose, The Seattle Times reports on March 25, 1914, that he lost to the city in his attempt to be paid for the loses of the 1911 slide.
Looking north through Terrace Street on a muddy 5th Avenue from a soft spot between the new City Hall (the 400 Yesler Building) on the left and the Francis and its neighbors off camera on the right. Note Our Lady of Good Night's Sleep two blocks north at Jefferson. After putting up Jean's repeat for this, I'm off to bed, but will be back tomorrow with a few things to add.
Looking north to Terrace Street on a muddy 5th Avenue from a soft spot between the new City Hall (the 400 Yesler Building) on the left and the Francis and its neighbors off camera on the right. Note Our Lady of Good Help (and luck)  two blocks north at Jefferson.

FRANCIS-looking-N-on-5th-WEB

WEB EXTRAS

Anything to add, lads?  A few more Edge Clips from the neighborhood and then some more old features from the same.  We will get as far as we can, but then surrender at 2am for the latest climb to nighty bears.  (How should we spell it?  Bill.)

THEN: This “real photo postcard” was sold on stands throughout the city. It was what it claimed to be; that is, its gray tones were real. If you studied them with magnification the grays did not turn into little black dots of varying sizes. (Courtesy, David Chapman and otfrasch.com)

THEN: The Sprague Hotel at 706 Yesler Way was one of many large structures –hotels, apartments and duplexes, built on First Hill to accommodate the housing needs of the city’s manic years of grown between its Great Fire in 1889 and the First World War. Photo courtesy Lawton Gowey

THEN: Sometime around 1890, George Moore, one of Seattle’s most prolific early photographers, recorded this portrait of the home of the architect (and Daniel Boone descendent) William E. Boone. In the recently published second edition of Shaping Seattle Architecture, the book’s editor, UW Professor of Architecture Jeffry Karl Ochsner, sketches William E. Boone’s life and career. Ochsner adds, “Boone was virtually the only pre-1889 Fire Seattle architect who continued to practice at a significant level through the 1890s and into the twentieth-century.” (Courtesy MOHAI)

THEN: On his visit to the Smith Tower around 1960, Wade Stevenson recorded the western slope of First Hill showing Harborview Hospital and part of Yesler Terrace at the top between 7th and 9th Avenue but still little development in the two blocks between 7th and 5th Avenues. Soon the Seattle Freeway would create a concrete ditch between 7th and 6th (the curving Avenue that runs left-to-right through the middle of the subject.) Much of the wild and spring fed landscape between 6th and 5th near the bottom of the revealing subject was cleared for parking. (Photo by Wade Stevenson, courtesy of Noel Holley)

THEN: A winter of 1918 inspection of some captured scales on Terrace Street. The view looks east from near 4th Avenue. (Courtesy City Municipal Archives)

THEN: 1934 was one of the worst years of the Great Depression. This look north on Third Avenue South through Main Street and the Second Avenue South Extension was recorded on Thursday, April 19th of that year. Business was generally dire, but especially here in this neighborhood south of Yesler Way where there were many storefront vacancies. (Courtesy Ron Edge)

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RETURNING to OUR LADY OF GOOD HELP – Looking Southeast across the intersection of 5th and Jefferson.

Our-Lady-of-Good-Help-web

Our Lade at the northeast corner of 3rd and Washington, its original location.
Our Lady at the northeast corner of 3rd and Washington, its original location.

OUR-LADY-of-GOOD-HELP-text-scanWEB

The Prefontaine Fountain at 3rd and Jefferson.
The Prefontaine Fountain at 3rd and Jefferson.
The Prefontaine Fountain, 1993.
The Prefontaine Fountain, 1993.

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Looking north on 5th Avenue from Terrace Street with the sidewalk face of Our Lady of Good Help on the right. 1939
Looking north on 5th Avenue from Terrace Street with the sidewalk face of Our Lady of Good Help on the right. 1939

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FOURTH AVE. REGRADE LOOKING NORTH FROM YESLER WAY

CLIP-4TH-AVE-regrad-n-fm-Yesler-web

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YESLER WAY CABLE’S LAST DAY

Yesler-Cable-at-Occidental-loading-may-be-last-ride-SNT-WEB

Yesler-Cable-Last-day-clippingWEB

"Safety Island" on Yesler Way, 1928.
“Safety Island” on Yesler Way, 1928.

yesler cable-Yesler-Way-cable-on-a-role-in-a-rr-car-web

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Looking west down Yesler Way and its overpass above 5th Avenue.
Looking west down Yesler Way and its overpass above 5th Avenue.

Yesler-fm-5th-overpass-ca.-1912-WEB

Yesler-lk-w-fm-5th-w-city-hall-WEB

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Yesler-Way-lk-w-fm-ca7,7-ca

First appeared in Pacific,
First appeared in Pacific, May 5, 2002

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Seattle City LIght-Yesler-Way-Transfer-station-web

First appeared in Pacific,
First appeared in Pacific, March 15, 1987.

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First appeared in Pacific, Dec. 26, 1999
First appeared in Pacific, Dec. 26, 1999

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First-Brick-home-in-Seattle-#1-WEB

 First appeared in Pacific Oct. 12, 2002.
First appeared in Pacific Oct. 12, 2002.
The first brick home is found in this look up First Hill below the towered Court House on the horizon. That is Terrace Street with the steep steps climbing to the top of "Profanity Hill.' Jefferson Street is on the left and Yesler Way cuts through the cityscape. City Hall is left of center, the bright facade with the centered tower. It faces Third Avenue.
The first brick home is found in this look up First Hill below the towered Court House on the horizon. That is Terrace Street with the steep steps climbing to the top of “Profanity Hill.’ Jefferson Street is on the left and Yesler Way cuts through the cityscape. City Hall, aka the Katzenjammer Castle,  is left of center, the bright facade with the centered tower. It faces Third Avenue.

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KATZENJAMMER FRONT DOOR on THIRD AVE.

MIaIAH-CITY-HALL-THEN-WEB

First appeared in Pacific,
First appeared in Pacific, Sept. 30, 1984

Mariah-Now-#2-City-Hall-Park-web2

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Knights-Templar-faux-fort-WEB

First appeared in Pacific
First appeared in Pacific.

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clip-Return-to-Fortson-Sq. WEB

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CITY HALL, 1886

cityhall-ca-1886-WEB

CITY-HALL-1886--TEXT-WEB-

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LATER – RETURN TO FIFTH AND YESLER WAY

On the horizon Harborview Hospital is under construction and the top of King County's abandoned courthouse has been removed in prelude to it razing. This 1930 look from the Smith Tower also shows off the barren or cleared acres top-center and behind the flat-iron shaped 400 Yesler Building at the center. Our Lade of Good Help is on the left.
On the horizon Harborview Hospital is under construction and the top of King County’s abandoned courthouse has been removed in prelude to it razing. This 1930 look from the Smith Tower also shows off the barren or cleared acres top-center behind the flat-iron shaped 400 Yesler Building at the center.  These, some will remember, were roughly developed into a steep parking lot.   (See what follows.)  Our Lady of Good Help is on the left.
March 12, 1957, looking north on Fifth Avenue from the Yesler Way overpass into part of the sprawling and steep parking lot developed on the shaky acres once home to the tenements on Fifth Avenue's east side. Courtesy, Seattle Municipal Archive.
March 12, 1957, looking north on Fifth Avenue from the Yesler Way overpass into part of the sprawling and steep parking lot developed on the shaky acres once home to the tenements on Fifth Avenue’s east side. Courtesy, Seattle Municipal Archive.
Also from March 12, 1957 looking southeast through the parking lot to Yesler Way with Fifth Avenue at the base. (Courtesy, Municipal Archives)
Also from March 12, 1957 looking southeast through the parking lot to Yesler Way with Fifth Avenue at the base. (Courtesy, Municipal Archives)
Two years later, grading the former lot of the Lady of Good Help. The Yesler Way overpass is on the right. (Courtesy, Seattle Municipal Archive)
Two years later, grading the former lot of the Lady of Good Help. The Yesler Way overpass is on the right. (Courtesy, Seattle Municipal Archive)

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Reaching from Elliott Bay on the far right to First Hill on the left, this pan from the Smith Tower includes the "forsaken" or undeveloped slide area of its "Profanity" or Goat" hill part directly above the dark mass of the 400 Yesler Building,
Reaching from Elliott Bay on the far right to First Hill on the left, this pan from the Smith Tower includes the “forsaken” or undeveloped slide area of First HIll’s  “Profanity” or Goat” part directly behind and above the dark mass of the 400 Yesler Building in the flat-iron block bordered by Terrace Street, Yesler Way and Fifth Avenue (behind it) on the bottom-left, about one-fifth of the way in from the pan’s left border,  CLICK TWICE to ENLARGE

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Seattle Now & Then: A Shoebox on Fifth

(click to enlarge photos)

 

THEN: Thanks again and again to Lawton Gowey for another contribution to this feature, this ca. 1917 look into a fresh Denny Regrade and nearly new “office-factory” at 1921 Fifth Avenue.  (Courtesy, Lawton Gowey.)
THEN: Thanks again and again to Lawton Gowey for another contribution to this feature, this ca. 1917 look into a fresh Denny Regrade and nearly new “office-factory” at 1921 Fifth Avenue. (Courtesy, Lawton Gowey.)
NOW: Many thanks also to librarian Steve Kiesow, who as a student started with the Seattle Public Library’s Main Branch History Department in 1968 and is still behind the History Desk, on the phone and on-line helping with answers.  Kiesow answered our call, and found for us much of the building’s most recent chronology.
NOW: Many thanks also to librarian Steve Kiesow, who as a student started with the Seattle Public Library’s Main Branch History Department in 1968 and is still behind the History Desk, on the phone and on-line helping with answers. Kiesow answered our call, and found for us much of the building’s most recent chronology.

Standing alone on a Denny Regrade lot, a reinforced concrete shoebox with a 30×109 footprint and a red brick veneer, stands at 1921 Fifth Avenue. In the 1880s a pioneer wagon road leading to Queen Anne Hill passed by here.  That was long before the regrade, but with half-closed eyes we may imagine the wagon crossing this sloping northeastern corner of Denny Hill very near the roofline of this sturdy box, or a few feet above the Monorail seen in Jean’s “now.”

Looking south thru the future Virginia Street on what is close to the future Fifth Avenue ca. 1886 - long before the regrading of Denny Hill.
From the eastern slope of Denny Hill, looking south thru the future Virginia Street (near the fence) on what is close to the future Fifth Avenue ca. 1886 – long before the regrading of Denny Hill. ( You will find the feature for the above pioneer photo in one of the images used as links below.  You must explore.)
Denny Hill from First Hill circa 19O3, the year the Denny Hotel then renamed the Washington, first opened.  The intersection below it, right-of-center, is Fourth Ave. and Stewart Street.  The rear of the then future "box" on 5th
Denny Hill from First Hill circa 19O3, the year the Denny Hotel then renamed the Washington, first opened. The intersection below it, right-of-center, is Fourth Ave. and Stewart Street. The rear of the then future “box” on 5th would be barely out-of-frame to the far right in the dark landscape.  The row of residences facing Fourth north of Stewart are featured in the subject that follows, photographed by A. Curtis looking east and north from the hotel.
Wallngford is far off on the north side of Lake Union, here on the far left horizon.  Stewart street is on the right, and Fourth Avenue at the base of this A. Curtis photograph from ca. 1904.  Capitol Hill covers most of the horizon.
Wallngford is far off on the north side of Lake Union, here on the far left horizon. Stewart street is on the right, and Fourth Avenue runs left-right at the base of this A. Curtis photograph from ca. 1904. Capitol Hill covers most of the horizon.

All the signs in the second floor windows are for political publications, including the Washington Democrat, whose name is also on the front door.  But by 1918 all had moved away, including the Democrats. The likely date here is 1917, or two years after 1915, the year tax records say this box was built. Peeking over the roof is a clue. It is a late construction scene for the terracotta tile-adorned Securities Building, described on line by its owner Clise Properties as completed in 1917.  The Clise Investment Company was one of the building’s first occupants.

A Seattle Times adver for the first section of theSecurities Building dated April 30, 1914.
A Seattle Times advertisement for the first section of the Securities Building, dated April 30, 1915.
A Seattle Times clip for Oct. 1, 1916.
A Seattle Times clip for Oct. 1, 1916.
Another Securities Building ad, this one listing the tenants, including the
Another Securities Building ad, this one listing the tenants, including the Clise Investment Company.  The Seattle Times date is Christmas Eve, 1916.

Besides the publishers, the early user history of the building included a furniture dealer handy with hardwood billiard tables and fumed-oak davenports. In 1928 the place was remodeled for the auto-renter Aero-U-Drive-Inc, with a wide door cut at the sidewalk to move cars in and out of the long garage inside.  Upstairs on the second floor was the Colony Club, one of the many speak-easies that the State Liquor Control Board announced in the spring of 1934 that it would soon padlock. John Dore, Seattle’s brilliant and sometimes bellicose mayor, gave the prohibition police no help, announcing to the press, “We have matters of greater importance and dearer consequence to consider than closing up speakeasies.” Hizzoner was thinking of that year’s waterfront strike.

The WPA tax card, printed in 1937.
The WPA tax card, printed in 1937.
Looking southwest thru the block in 1937 with the Orpheum Auto Hotel next door to
Looking northwest thru the block in 1937 with the Orpheum Auto Hotel next door to the car rental in the “box.”
In 1939, north from Olive thru Stewart through the block to Virginian.
In 1939, north from Olive thru Stewart and the block to Virginian.
A remodeled 1921 Fifth Ave. with Singer the tenant, and tax photo dated April 28,1949.
A remodeled 1921 Fifth Ave. with Singer the tenant. The tax photo is dated April 28,1949.

The surviving 1949 remodel with glass bricks was for a new business, Singer Sewing Machine.  After the sewing, Uptown Music sold guitars and rented school band instruments in the 1970s. In 1980 the glass-adorned box was rented for the Reagan-Bush Washington State Headquarters.  The Republican Party was replaced with partying. Two music clubs paid the rent, the Weather Wall and Ispy.  In 2008 the latter was promoted as an “Urban Comedy Jazz Café.”  And so it figures that next year the little – for the neighborhood – shoebox may, if it likes, trumpet its centennial.

Uptown Music announces that it is leaving 1921 5th with, of course, a moving sale.
Uptown Music announces that it is leaving 1921 5th with, of course, a moving sale.

WEB EXTRAS

Anything to add, Paul?   Yup Jean, Ron is going to post a few past features that relate to this neighborhood with relevant subjects – many of them on 5th Ave. – and a few irrelevant subjects mixed in.

THEN: Before this the first shovel of the last of Denny Hill was ceremonially dropped to the conveyor belt at Battery Street, an “initial bite of 30,000 cubic yards of material” was carved from the cliff along the east side of 5th Avenue to make room for both the steam shovel and several moveable belts that extended like fingers across the hill.  It was here that they met the elevated and fixed last leg of the conveyor system that ran west on Battery Street to the waterfront.  (Courtesy, Seattle Municipal Archive)

THEN:  Built in 1888-89 at the northeast corner of Fourth Avenue and Pine Street, the then named Norwegian-Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church marked the southeast corner of Denny Hill.  Eventually the lower land to the east of the church (here behind it) would be filled, in part, with hill dirt scraped and eroded from North Seattle lots to the north and west of this corner.  (Courtesy, Denny Park Lutheran Church)

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Fifth Avenue looking north from the top of what remained of Denny Hill after the regraders reach Fifth and stopped in 1911.  Soon after this image was recorded for Seattle Public Works on March 8, 1929, work began on razing what remain of the hill east of Fifth Avenue.  (Courtesy Seattle Municipal Archive.)
Fifth Avenue looking north from the top of what remained of Denny Hill after the regraders reach Fifth and stopped in 1911. Soon after this image was recorded for Seattle Public Works on March 8, 1929, work began on razing what remained of the hill east of Fifth Avenue. (Courtesy Seattle Municipal Archive.)
Frank Shaw with his back close to the "Box" looks thru the Monorail to the Orpheum Theatre on March 17, 1962
Frank Shaw with his back close to the “Box” looks thru the Monorail to the Orpheum Theatre on March 17, 1962
Close again to the "box" here for a "Remember the Pueblo" demonstration on Dec. 7, 1968.
Close again to the “box” here for a “Remember the Pueblo” demonstration on Dec. 7, 1968.

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