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Seattle Now and Then

Seattle Now & Then: First Hill Row Houses

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(click to enlarge photos)

THEN: At the northwest corner of Columbia Street and Boren Avenue, two of the more ordinary housing stock on First Hill in the 1890s. (Courtesy MOHAI)
THEN: At the northwest corner of Columbia Street and Boren Avenue, two of the more ordinary housing stock on First Hill in the 1890s. (Courtesy MOHAI)
NOW: The parking lot that replaced the razed homes is linked here, in part, with the familiarly-colored red and yellow-orange busses of O’Dea, the high school on the west (out of frame to the left) side of the block.
NOW: The parking lot that replaced the razed homes is linked here, in part, with the familiarly-colored red and yellow-orange busses of O’Dea, the high school on the west (out of frame to the left) side of the block.

When I first saw this pioneer print pulled from its MOHAI files, I recognized none of it and yet sensed all of it.  By the qualities of its housing stock, a hilltop topography that is kind to construction, and the street work, this, I thought, is First Hill.  For judging my hunch, I quickly went to the top of Coppin’s water tower where the photographer Arthur Churchill Warner recorded a few clear impressions of that then adolescent neighborhood in 1890 or 91. Of course, I did not actually climb the tower but rather studied the Warner panorama that looks east northeast from high above the intersection of Terry Avenue and Columbia Street. 

A merging of two of Warren's recordings from the Coppins Water Tower. The view looks north, with good parts of northwest and northeast to the left and right, respectively. We used this comparison in our, with Berangere Lomont, Repeat Photography exhibit in MOHAI for their last production in their previous Montlake home. Jean's repeat is below.
A merging of two of Warner’s photos from the Coppins Water Tower. The view looks north, with good parts of northwest and northeast to the left and right, respectively.  With Beranger Lomont, we used this comparison in our Repeat Photography exhibit in MOHAI for the now venerable museum’s  last production in their previous Montlake home. Jean’s repeat is below. CLICK TWICE TO ENLARGE

Jean's-coppins-pan-n-northeast-WEB

Warner’s revealing photograph can be found on page 142 of Tradition and Change on Seattle’s First Hill, Historic Seattle’s still new book on the Propriety, Profanity, Pills and Preservation of what we think of as Seattle’s first exclusive neighborhood.  However, First Hill was not really so restrictive, and these two residences are proof of its equitable side.  While trim and even pleasing, they are still not fancy. In the Warner pan, they can be easily found side-by-side at the northwest corner of Columbia and Boren.

The part of the pan I first used as a Pacific Magazine feature early - March 6, 1988.
The part of the pan I first used as a Pacific Magazine feature, March 6, 1988.  CLICK TWICE TO ENLARGE

On the left at 1016 Columbia Street is a typical box house of the time, with some trimmings.  There were many more examples of modest residences like this in every Seattle neighborhood.  Next door at 1020, the three stairways to the three front doors make this row house appear bigger than it is.  Its central tower gestures at the grandeur of its neighbors, many of the city’s biggest homes.  Within

The King County Tax Card for the row at 1020 Columbia with a photo of the row in 1937. Courtesy Washington State Archive
The King County Tax Card for the row at 1020 Columbia with a photo of it fromt 1937. Courtesy Washington State Archive

two blocks are the Lowman, Hanford, Carkeek, Stacy, Lippy and Ranke mansions, and many more were under construction.  Of these just noted, only the Stacy mansion at the northeast corner of Boren and Madison survives, as the University Club.  By the authority of a King County tax card, the corner row house was razed in 1952, and probably its smaller neighbor, too.   The card’s construction date for the row house, 1875 (see above), is almost certainly too early by years.  

About a century ago a worker named N.G.Tormo took up the Seattle Times offer to contributed some "creative writing" for publicaition in the paper, and the paper did it. Tormo lived in our - or rather his row house at 1020 Columbia.
About a century ago a worker named N.G.Tormo took up the Seattle Times request that readers contributed some “creative writing” for publication in the paper, and the paper like Tormo’s impression of the  “chromatic symphony” one might her on their way up First Hill after work.. Tormo lived in our – or rather his –  row house at 1020 Columbia.

“Pacific Northwest” readers are encouraged to find a copy of Tradition and Change on Seattle’s First Hill.  Well-wrought and well-illustrated (with Jean’s panorama from the Smith Tower on the cover), it is Historic Seattle’s admired study of the diverse history of this neighborhood, which includes among its preserved mansions the Dearborn House, home since 1997 for Historic Seattle.  

FrontCover-web

WEB EXTRAS

And here’s a look just around the corner at O’Dea High School:

O'Dea on a winter's day...
O’Dea on a winter’s day…

Anything to add on this beautiful Spring weekend?

Sure Jean, a sight tan on the top of my bald head, and your repeat looking north-northeast from the Coppins Water Tower,  which we may decide to insert into the text “proper” above, side by side or following the historical view.  And the tower ascends again near the bottom with two more Times clips from former Pacific features.  But now we begin with more links pulled by Ron Edge from the archive of those now-then features which we have hither-too scanned, and often used for other of this blog’s Sunday sets.

THEN: Built in the early twentieth century at the northeast corner of Jefferson Street and Boren Avenue, Bertha and Frank Gardner’s residence was large but not a mansion, as were many big homes on First Hill. (Courtesy Washington State Museum, Tacoma)

BOREN-&-University-Denny-&-Ainsworth-Homes-THEN-mr

THEN: This detail from the prolific local photographer Asahel Curtis’s photograph of the Smith/Rininger home at the northwest corner of Columbia Street and Summit Avenue dates from the early twentieth century when motorcars, rolling or parked, were still very rare on the streets of Seattle, including these on First Hill. (Courtesy, Historic Seattle)

THEN:

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MORE OF THE COPPINS WATER TOWER

A September 14, 1986 clipping from Pacific.
A September 14, 1986 clipping from Pacific. CLICK TWICE TO ENLARGE
CENTRAL SCHOOL from Coppins Water Tower - a clip from Pacific for July 28, 1996.
CENTRAL SCHOOL from Coppins Water Tower – a clip from Pacific for July 28, 1996.

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The Coppins Water Tower seen from the tower of the Haller Mansion at the northeast corner of James Street and Terry Avenue. The towering Central School at Sixth and Madison and the Olympic Mountains, across Puget Sound appear beyond the water tower.
The Coppins Water Tower seen from the tower of the Haller Mansion at the northeast corner of James Street and Terry Avenue. The also towering Central School at Sixth and Madison and the Olympic Mountains, across Puget Sound, appear beyond the water tower.
The Granville Haller big home at the northeast corner of James Street and Terry Avenue as seen form the back lawn of the Campbell home.
The Granville Haller big home at the northeast corner of James Street and Terry Avenue as seen form the back lawn of the Campbell home.
Our last look down from the Coppins tower. This view looks to the southeast. The markings were made with the help of Carrie Campbell Coe, my primary informant on life on First Hill as the end of the 19th Century when she lived kitty-korner to the Haller Mansion. Included among Carrie's marks are the Haller home on the far left.
Our last look down from the Coppins tower. This looks to the southeast. The markings were made with the help of Carrie Campbell Coe, my primary informant on life on First Hill at the end of the 19th Century when she lived kitty-corner to the Haller Mansion. Included among Carrie’s marks are the Haller home on the far left and her family home nearer the center.
Tea with Carrie Campbell Coe in her Washington Park home nearly thirty years ago.
Looking at historical photos and having some tea with Carrie Campbell Coe in her Washington Park home nearly thirty years ago.

 

 

Seattle Now and Then

Seattle Now & Then: The Summit Avenue Hospital

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(click to enlarge photos)

THEN: This detail from the prolific local photographer Asahel Curtis’s photograph of the Smith/Rininger home at the northwest corner of Columbia Street and Summit Avenue dates from the early twentieth century when motorcars, rolling or parked, were still very rare on the streets of Seattle, including these on First Hill. (Courtesy, Historic Seattle)
THEN: This detail from the prolific local photographer Asahel Curtis’s photograph of the Smith/Rininger home at the northwest corner of Columbia Street and Summit Avenue dates from the early twentieth century when motorcars, rolling or parked, were still very rare on the streets of Seattle, including these on First Hill. (Courtesy, Historic Seattle)
NOW: Five Swedish Hospital nurses, from the twelfth floor oncology ward, gathered here in the hospital’s lobby for Jean Sherrard’s repeat.
NOW: Five Swedish Hospital nurses, from the twelfth floor oncology ward, gathered here in the hospital’s lobby for Jean Sherrard’s repeat.

In Jean Sherrard’s “now,” five nurses from Swedish Hospital’s oncology ward stand at or close to what was once the southeast corner of Columbia Street and Summit Avenue.  This was also the prospect for Asahel Curtis’s “then,” recorded early in the twentieth century when this First Hill neighborhood was still known for its stately homes, big incomes and good manners.

With about 110 years between them, both Sherrard and Curtis are sighting to the northwest, and both their photographs are only the center thirds of wide panoramas.  Sherrard’s shows Swedish Hospital’s lobby during a renovation.  Curtis’s pan at its full width is merged from three negatives.  It reaches from the northeast corner of Columbia and Summit, on the right, to far west down Columbia, on the left.  (The full pans of both now hang in the lobby of Town Hall, the former Fourth Church of Christian Science, another First Hill institution on the southwest corner of Eighth Avenue and Seneca Street.)

Asahel Curtis' original
Asahel Curtis’ original
Sherrard's repeat
Sherrard’s repeat

The big home, centered here at the northwest corner of the intersection, was built for the Seattle banker-industrialist, Charles J. Smith. He in turn sold it to the doctor-surgeon Edmund Rininger in 1905, about the time Curtis visited the corner, perhaps at Rininger’s request.  With his wife Nellie and daughter Olive, Rininger moved into the house next door on Columbia, in order to set about building his Summit Avenue Hospital at the corner.

Another detail pulled from the 1912 Baist Real Estate Map.
Another detail pulled from the 1912 Baist Real Estate Map.  The intersection of Columbia Street and Summit Avenue is center-lower-right, or between the blocks 120, 131, 132 and 101.  The Otis Hotel is at the northeast corner and the Rininger’s home west across Summit at its northwest corner with Columbia.  Madison Street crosses through the upper-left corner.
The Rininger home at the northwest corner of Columbia Street and Summit Ave. appears here
The Rininger home at the northwest corner of Columbia Street and Summit Ave. appears here right-of-center with its sun-lighted west facade.  Across Summit is the Otis Hotel.  A nearly new Providence Hospital is on the right horizon and the twin towers of Second Hill’s Immaculate Conception mark the center-horizon, directly above the Otis..  The photograph was taken from an upper floor of an apartment house at the northeast corner of Marion Street and Terry Avenue.

The surgeon’s plans were fatally upset on July 25, 1912,å when, while driving home from a house call in Kent, the forty-two year old Rininger, alone in his motorcar, collided with a Puget Sound Electric Railway train.  With the death of her husband, Nellie Rininger sold the nearly completed hospital to the Swedish Hospital Association in the spring of 1913.  As part of this fateful transfer, Nellie Rininger also gifted her late husband’s large medical library and his then new x-ray machine to Swedish Hospital.

A clipping from The Seattle Times for Feb. 16, 1913.
A clipping from The Seattle Times for Feb. 16, 1913. CLICK TO ENLARGE

Both the china and linen monogramed SAH for Rininger’s Summit Avenue Hospital came with the sale.  No doubt for reasons of economy the Swedish Hospital Association (SHA) decided to use both in spite of the reordering of the letters.

With help from the Seattle Public Library, clipped from the THE SEATTLE TIMES, April 15, 1968.
With help from the Seattle Public Library, clipped from the THE SEATTLE TIMES, April 15, 1968.  CLICK TO ENLARGE

WEB EXTRAS

Anything to add, Paul?  Yes Jean and again with help from Rod Edge.   First, several links below, and all include features that relate to the neighborhood and sometimes just beyond it.  Some will be found twice, perhaps even thrice.  The most relevant feaure is probably the last one about the General Hospital.  It first appeared here not so long ago.   Also featured here is my “mea culpa” (I am guilty) confession concerning my flubs with the  the Anderson mansion, and my humble correction.

THEN:

THEN: First Hill’s distinguished Old Colony Apartments at 615 Boren Avenue, 1910.

THEN: Both the grading on Belmont Avenue and the homes beside it are new in this “gift” to Capitol Hill taken from the family album of Major John Millis. (Courtesy of the Major’s grandchild Walter Millis and his son, a Seattle musician, Robert Millis.)

THEN:The front end damage to the white Shepherd Ambulance on the right is mostly hidden behind the black silhouette of either officer Murphy or Lindberg, both of whom answered the call of this morning crash on Feb. 18, 1955.

THEN: This Seattle Housing Authority photograph was recorded from the top of the Marine Hospital (now Pacific Tower) on the north head of Beacon Hill. It looks north to First Hill during the Authority’s clearing of its southern slope for the building of the Yesler Terrace Public Housing. (Courtesy, Lawton Gowey)

THEN: Looking northwest to Seattle General Hospital at the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and Marion Street, circa 1909. (Courtesy of Michael Maslan)

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SOME OTHER HOSPITALS ON THE HILL

GRACE HOSPITAL on Summit Avenue between Union and Pike Streets. Seattle's Protestant hospital could not compete with the Catholic's Providence, and it closed to be replaced with Summit School, below.
GRACE HOSPITAL on Summit Avenue between Union and Pike Streets. Seattle’s Protestant hospital could not compete with the Catholic’s Providence, and it closed to be replaced with Summit School, below.

Grace - Summit

A new Harborview from above.
A new Harborview from above.
Virginia Mason
Virginia Mason
Before their was a Virginia Mason Hospital there was photographer Imogen Cunningham's home and studio.
Before their was a Virginia Mason Hospital there was photographer Imogen Cunningham’s home and studio.  (You can find this feature FULL-SIZED in the history books button, at the top.   It is the 111th feature included in SEATTLE NOW THEN Vol. One. 
A 1950 aerial with Marion Street climbing First Hill far right. That makes the next thruway up the hill Columbia Street. New the upper-left corner it reaches the early Swedish Hospital in 1950 on the Rininger corner with Summit Ave. Sixth Avenue runs along the bottom of the subject, between James Street on the right and Marion. A little more than a decade later the blocks between Sixth and Seventh were cleared for the Seattle Freeway, as it was then called. (Courtesy, Ron Edge)
A 1950 aerial with Marion Street climbing First Hill far left. That makes Columbia Street the next thruway up the hill Columbia. Near the upper-left corner it reaches the early Swedish Hospital campus  in 1950 on the Rininger corner with Summit Ave. Sixth Avenue runs along the bottom of the subject, between James Street on the right and Marion. A little more than a decade later the blocks between Sixth and Seventh were cleared for the Seattle Freeway, as it was then called. (Courtesy, Ron Edge)  CLICK TWICE TO ENLARGE

BACK TO THE CORNER

Otis ADRIAN-COURT-pix-and-map-DYPTICH-WEB

Otis-Hotel-on-Summit'-with-NOW-3-28-2001-WEB

coda HO144

Jumping nurses
Jumping nurses