Remembering The Coliseum Theater
December 27th, 2007 @ 12:41 am by Cliffe | Sorted Historic Buildings
This past summer I posted a profile of the Coliseum Theater (now Banana Republic store) highlighting one of downtown Seattle’s most magnificent buildings. Lucky for all of us one person who caught that entry was Mike Lewis, who was a projectionist at the theater in its later years. Mike was kind enough to send along some thoughts and anecdotes about his time at the Coliseum. Take it away, Mike:
I was hired to be the projectionist, no recollection of when that hire date was. I was the last projectionist at the Coliseum. Mel did run the movie the last night, it seemed so important to him and I could go and have some fun in the lobby. I remember one theater manager (Mark) would let his friends run amuck in the place and his wife would hang on to the curtains and they would raise and lower the curtains. I think the curtains were made of asbestos and they broke after a few ups and downs with people hanging on to them so that was that with the grand raising of the curtains to start a movie.
I think the next manager did get the curtains fixed, but who can remember. This management group also befriended the old bums who hung out in the alley and gave them free popcorn and soda and on cold nights let this one homeless man, who said his name was Strawberry, sleep there. Nice gesture, but not a good way to run a business.
The next manager was Tim and he put a stop to all that kind of stuff, in fact Tim was told by the company that ran the theater that he did such a good job of taking care of the building and fixing things that it was determined to keep the theater open for an extra year.
The basement was always scary to me with all the gigantic machinery and stuff collected over the decades. The two boilers were huge and I bet they are still there, because they were huge and when turned on sounded like jet engines firing up. The basement would sometimes fill up with water and when that happened we would not turn the boilers off because we could not get to the on/off switch without standing in water up to our knees. So you know the next day the building was like a giant sauna and the water was gone and we could turn off the boilers and have heat the rest of the day. I remember going down to turn on the boilers and hearing a noise… like in the movies when searching for its origin. In an area that would be just under the sidewalk on 5th Ave I found a wall that had fallen down over the years and I could see some light coming in from a grate above. I could even see people walking over it. I looked down and saw a naked man about 6′ tall sanding there in a pile of filth. I ran and never returned to the basement alone.
Later that day I was told a man by the name of Stephen King came up to the old ticket box and asked for a tour and was told “no” because no one knew who he was… I could have told him about the naked man living under the sidewalk on 5th Ave!
I was told that Gone With The Wind was the first movie that sodas were sold at. They put the sodas in tubs out front on the street.
One time we had to change the combination on the old gigantic safe in the office and the man who came to do the job became a little emotional after opening the safe door. It turned out his family-owned lock company had changed the lock before, his father, grandfather and great-grandfather had all changed the lock combinations over the years and left their tags on the inside of the door. The inside of the safe door also had a small painting of a farmhouse painted on the door.
Mike Lewis
Projectionist, Coliseum Theatre
Via e-mail 10/28/07
I think the next manager did get the curtains fixed, but who can remember. This management group also befriended the old bums who hung out in the alley and gave them free popcorn and soda and on cold nights let this one homeless man, who said his name was Strawberry, sleep there. Nice gesture, but not a good way to run a business.
The next manager was Tim and he put a stop to all that kind of stuff, in fact Tim was told by the company that ran the theater that he did such a good job of taking care of the building and fixing things that it was determined to keep the theater open for an extra year.
The basement was always scary to me with all the gigantic machinery and stuff collected over the decades. The two boilers were huge and I bet they are still there, because they were huge and when turned on sounded like jet engines firing up. The basement would sometimes fill up with water and when that happened we would not turn the boilers off because we could not get to the on/off switch without standing in water up to our knees. So you know the next day the building was like a giant sauna and the water was gone and we could turn off the boilers and have heat the rest of the day. I remember going down to turn on the boilers and hearing a noise… like in the movies when searching for its origin. In an area that would be just under the sidewalk on 5th Ave I found a wall that had fallen down over the years and I could see some light coming in from a grate above. I could even see people walking over it. I looked down and saw a naked man about 6′ tall sanding there in a pile of filth. I ran and never returned to the basement alone.
Later that day I was told a man by the name of Stephen King came up to the old ticket box and asked for a tour and was told “no” because no one knew who he was… I could have told him about the naked man living under the sidewalk on 5th Ave!
I was told that Gone With The Wind was the first movie that sodas were sold at. They put the sodas in tubs out front on the street.
One time we had to change the combination on the old gigantic safe in the office and the man who came to do the job became a little emotional after opening the safe door. It turned out his family-owned lock company had changed the lock before, his father, grandfather and great-grandfather had all changed the lock combinations over the years and left their tags on the inside of the door. The inside of the safe door also had a small painting of a farmhouse painted on the door.
Mike Lewis
Projectionist, Coliseum Theatre
Via e-mail 10/28/07
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| The Coliseum Theater in 1934. Photograph courtesy PEMCO Webster & Stevens Collection / Museum of History and Industry. |
December 28th, 2007 @ 5:55 pm
I enjoy reading first hand historical accounts like these. Also, someone should have given Steven that tour as well.
December 29th, 2007 @ 2:25 am
I really like reading these as well. Was hoping there would be more people writing in like this as I posted on more subjects, but its been slower than I’d like to see. Hopefully some people will read this and come out of the woodwork.
Cliffe
December 30th, 2007 @ 5:54 pm
I was thinking the same thing when I first started my blog. I have a had a few but not as many as I had hoped. One day they will start pouring in and I won’t have time to read them all.