VintageSeattle.org

This is a post today that literally hits close to home, in that I’m about to become neighbors with this house. I’m moving to the Squire Park neighborhood in the Central District — very exciting. So let’s take a look at 1522 E. Jefferson, built in 1902 according to the Department of Neighborhoods. The house is historically significant in that it once belonged to George Carmack, who is credited with discovering the gold that set the Klondike Gold Rush into motion in 1896. However, this claim is cloudy since it is said that he moved to California in 1900, which would be two years before the home was built. Anyone have any interesting old homes in their area of Seattle that are waiting to be documented? Well let’s take a closer look. Click on the images for higher-res versions.

1937 tax card photograph. Courtesy Department of Neighborhoods. This looks like it was once a stunning Dutch Colonial style house.	As you can see, the siding sections have changed yet the hipped dormer remains intact. It looks as though much of the woodworking is still original. The house just screams out to be properly preserved and returned to its original glory.
Right side of the house. The original porch structure looks very much the same.	The “No Trespassing” sign is not the warmest of welcomes. Dense overgrowth covers the yard.
Back of the house. An old shed with familiar glass bottle and chair setup. Juxtaposed with the Swedish Medical Center Cherry Hill Campus Parking Lot imposing in the background. This is the only house on the block that has not sold to the hospital.	Left side of the house. You can see more of the Swedish campus here. This whole block was once rows of houses but only this home now remains.
Far right side of the house. It would not be surprising if the window hardware was original.	Back of the house. The wood siding shows signs of dilapidation. Downtown Seattle hangs in the background.

Today’s Past Postcard shows us Industrial Ballard with the Olympic Mountains looming in the background. We here in Seattle are used to this dichotomy, of course. One similar and familiar sight is downtown Seattle with Mount Rainier as a backdrop. Note that this linen postcard was made when hand tinting of B&W photos was going out of practice as full color shots took center stage. They don’t hand tint them like they used to, eh? Also check out the postmark killer’s Smokey the Bear ad slogan. The vintage postcard reads:

Front: 318:–Lake Washington Ship Canal and Industrial Ballard, Olympic Mts. in the Background.

Back: C. P. Johnston Co., Seattle, Washington. En route to Mr. and Mrs. Hack in Philadelphia, PA on July 23, 1951.

A friend of mine from work recently recommended a really good book called Exploring The Olympic Mountains: Accounts of the Earliest Expeditions 1878-1890. In the late 1800’s many Seattle’ites were obsessed with what exactly was to the west in the mountains. There are some pretty interesting accounts from the Press Party’s expedition (including the Native American tale of the great Seatco, chief of all evil spirits, who guarded the area, was taller than the trees, louder than the ocean, could fly, trampled war parties, could change the course of rivers with his breath, and basically swallowed up passers-by). Even though they had no run-ins with Seatco, the Press Party had their own bad luck: their boat sank, the whiskey ran out, their mule fell over a ledge (died), but they eventually returned with many stories. Check the book out if you see it. Here’s part of the description from the back of the book:

Seattle Press Staff. Photograph courtesy Special Collections, University Archives, University of Washington, Seattle.	Press Party in the wild. Photograph courtesy Special Collections, University Archives, University of Washington, Seattle.

Let’s start off a fresh new feature here at Vintage Seattle called School Days. This first installment is the basketball team from the 1930 edition of Queen Anne High School’s Kuay Annual Yearbook. I’m a bit of a collector of this school’s yearbooks, so forgive me if I borrow from it too much (why? I almost lived there… long story). So what can we learn? 1. Basketball uniforms used to be much more stylish. 2. Petterson was known for “hard checking” his man. Think he was on the hockey team too? 3. White left. 4. Elias Hamilton clearly illustrates that not much has changed in 77 years of basketball team managers. Hard to say if he enjoyed being called a “roly-poly lad.” 5. In 1930, you needed exactly one manager for every 2 players. Anything I missed?

Kuay Annual 1930. Page 90.	Kuay Annual 1930. Page 91.

This coming Saturday is the last Pike Place Market Historic Walking Tour event of the season. If you’re new to the area or have friends from out of town, this is your chance to get educated on one of the more well known historic areas of Seattle. The one hour tour will be led by the Friends of the Market Organization — the group who led the fight to preserve the market in the 1960’s. This tour will compare the market to how it existed in the 1960’s. Oh, not to worry all you cheapskates, this thing is free. And meet at the pig under the clock if you’re going to go. That’s right I said meet at the pig under the clock!

Pike Place Market as it stood in 1920. Tell ‘em Geo. B. Helgesen sent ya! Photograph courtesy PEMCO Webster & Stevens Collection / Museum of History and Industry.

For today’s Vintage Seattle Postcard let’s look to Sea-Tac airport, way back when it probably didn’t cost a life’s savings to park during a trip. Based on the cars, I’m guessing this postcard is from the late 1950’s to early 1960’s. If anyone can come up with other clues that will zero in on a more precise date, let rip in the comments. You can see the Northwest and Pan-Am terminals along with a nice “Jets Round The World From Sea/Tac” slogan. The parking lot area in the middle must be where the multi-story parking garage sits today. Nice clear day with Rainier in the background as well. On the back you can see remnants of a stamp (no timestamp though, so was it mailed?) and “seen this” scrawled — but it’s difficult to say when this was written. So who’s got a theory? Jonathan Shipley, I’m looking at you…

Front

Back: Pub. by Ellis Post Card Co., Arlington, Washington

More Capitol Hill?! Yep, maybe I’m a sucker for it since it’s the first area of Seattle that I lived in. We’ll move on to other areas soon enough. Until then, let’s take a look at a reframe (vintage photograph, present day) of what used to be known as North Broadway (now East Broadway). The first reframe set shows the Albatross Apartments, which now look shockingly similar to the old times in Nov 1932. Not only has the parking garage stuck around (sans doors), but it looks like the curb may even be original. The old brick street gutter was a nice touch, now sadly gone. The second reframe shows just down the street past the Albatross. The large apartment building to the far left seems to be the most noticeable change. So, Vintage Seattle readers (all 5 of you), which areas of the city are you most interested in seeing here in the future? Just please don’t say the triangular area bounded by Yesler, James, and 2nd. That’s just cruel.

The Albatross apartments on 756 N. Broadway as they stood on November 30, 1932. Photograph courtesy Seattle Municipal Archives.	The street as captured on April 28, 2007. Sorry if it was your garage sale sign that I took down. I hear they only had Donny Osmond LP’s left anyway.
726 N. Broadway on the same day in 1932. Photograph courtesy Seattle Municipal Archives.	The 2007 version, now with landscaper! Maybe modern times aren’t so bad. The house on the left remains relatively unchanged, except for the landscaping. Hmm…

Today’s Past Postcard is First Presbyterian Church circa 1914. According to the church, the building was built in 1907 at Seventh and Spring and replaced in 1962 with a new building. Does anyone have any information on when the original building was demolished? Curiously, a relatively modern building with similar features stands right across the street from the church’s current building. This card was sent when a postcard stamp cost a whopping one cent. Looks like the postal service was plugging the upcoming Panama-Pacific International Exposition which took place the following year in 1915. This expo was a World’s Fair taking place in San Francisco serving to commemorate the building of the Panama Canal and the recovery from a recent earthquake. The postcard reads:

Front: 12721. First Presbyterian Church, Seattle, Wash.

Back: Pub. by The Acmegraph Co., Chicago.

Update 5/16/07: Added four more photos from the building. Had a chance this past weekend to go out and shoot some of my favorite buildings in the city. Some you probably know of, some maybe not. Let’s start out with one that is literally close to home (next street over from my apartment): The Troy Laundry Building. You can find it in South Lake Union at 307 Fairview Ave. N. It’s a 1927 Beaux Arts / Neoclassical building designed by Victor Voorhees. Western and northern additions came in 1944 and 1946. By this time, the Troy Laundry plant was the largest such operation in the Pacific Northwest. Currently the building is being used as a newspaper rack storage facility by the Seattle Times and is a City of Seattle landmark. I’d love to see the building restored and it would probably make a nice office space of some sort. What do you think?

Wide angle shot of the front of the building. I will have to revisit this shot in winter when trees are not obscuring the facade.	Right hand side of the building. Notice the intricate brick pattern detailing and beautiful terra cotta trim.
Entrance to the building with Troy Laundry sign above (sans letter U). Just inside the entrance, paint is peeling from the ceiling.	Troy Building sign. Now that’s vintage… and in contrast to the 1966 cinder block addition.
Side of building with loading docks. The building is now full of Seattle Times newspaper racks and odds and ends. The Seattle Times building is just across the street.	This image is telling. The transition from the original 1927 building to the 1944 addition is harsh. A lot can change in less than 20 years.
Southeast corner of the building. Most of the signs are rusting away and many windows are boarded up.	Northwest corner of building. This is the current loading dock for the Seattle Times racks. Signs refer to it as the “rack shop.”
This bird also happened to be scoping out the building. Inside, items are stacked up against the windows.	More trim details. Peering into this window gives you a good idea of the level of dilapidation.

You know, when I was a punk kid I only wanted to go to one place. Chuck E. Cheese’s. Wow those singing robots were just plain creepy. But the ball pit! Ok, anyway, the only other place I wanted to go as a child was the zoo. So let’s dedicate this Past Postcard to the Woodland Park Zoo, shall we? This card was sent May 27, 1911 to Millerton, Pa. Considering the stark concrete slab, the caption on the card would no doubt make any modern zookeeper chuckle: And the inscription:

Front: New Zoo, Woodland Park

Back: The Pacific Northwest Photographic Series

So I was talking to fellow Seattle blogger Laura Gjovaag the other day and she was asking if that’s Denny Hill off to the right in this postcard. And it is, although this area looks quite different today due to the Denny Regrade — the hill was literally flattened. The building circled in red below was the Denny Hotel (later renamed the Washington Hotel) built in 1889 but demolished in 1907 during the regrade. One notable Denny Hotel guest was none other than President Teddy Roosevelt, who stayed there in 1903. Here are a couple photographs:

Denny regrade before and after from 1906 and 1908. Note that roughly where the original Washington Hotel stood, a new one sprang up and the building still stands today.

Photographs of Denny Hill from 1928, 1936, and 1964. New features from ‘64 include a Space Needle and enhanced photo stitching technology sans seams. Photograph courtesy Seattle Municipal Archives.

Coming up this Saturday, May 12th is a free (everyone loves free stuff, right?) lecture on the History of Seattle Architecture put on by the Seattle Architecture Foundation. The specific topic will be Architecture and Urbanism from 1935 to the present. It’ll happen beginning at 1pm through 3pm in the Microsoft Auditorium of the Seattle Central Library. This is the 2nd lecture in a series and includes post-World War II suburban development, the impact of the automobile, growing interest in historic preservation, and urban design. So mark your calendars! I know I’ll be there, you’re coming right? Hey, hey, don’t let the word “lecture” scare you off, I’m sure we’ll learn something worthwhile. Speaking of the impact of automobiles, check out this image of the Battery Street Subway (connecting the Viaduct to Aurora Ave N.) carbon monoxide tests from 1954.

Brave souls take part in a carbon monoxide test inside the Battery Street Subway, July 16, 1954. Photograph courtesy Seattle Municipal Archives.

For this Past Postcard let’s go ahead and continue that Seattle Waterfront theme. This card was sent August 1st, 1959 to Minneapolis, Minnesota. You can see The Harbor Tourist speeding by the Kalakala (oh, you know we’re going to have more on *that* ferry soon enough). For those wondering what in blazes Ektachrome was, well it was a type of Kodak film popular from the 40’s on and used when Kodachrome wasn’t fast enough. Josef Scaylea needed this film since The Harbor Tourist was obviously approaching ludicrous speed. The postcard reads:

Front: Herb Gladys McDowell Seattle, Wash. Waterfront Aug 1, 1959

Back

Kicking off our first Past Post feature is this postcard of the Seattle Waterfront from 1906. You may recognize this image from the VS.org banner graphic. You can see that it was missent to Waverly, Nebraska when it was actually meant to go to Waverly, Iowa. Remember, there were no zip codes at that time. It reads:

Front: Section Seattle Water Front, looking North. No. 2015. Lowman & Hanford S. & P. Co., Seattle.

Back

Well let’s start things off with a feature called Reframe. You’re smart, you probably know what that means. But in case you don’t, these are photograph comparisons with the vintage shot on the left and the updated present day frame on the right. I go out into the field and frame the shot just as it was, literally standing in the footsteps of the original photographer from years ago. This first Reframe features Capitol Hill’s Seattle Fire Station No. 7. You can find it on Fifteenth Ave. East and Harrison Street. The original photo was taken on March 24, 1921 and the present day shot taken April 28, 2007. The building is now occupied by a video rental store, On 15th Video. So now you can go check out this vintage building and rent Big Momma’s House all at the same time! Click on the thumbnails for a larger view.

The old Fire Station as it stood in 1921. You can see two Ford Model T’s parked on the side of the building. Photograph courtesy Seattle Municipal Archives.	As she stands today, a DVD rental joint. Notice the “Engine Company Seven” facade inscription has been stripped, yet most architectural details remain.