VintageSeattle.org

While reading the excerpt from the last projectionist at the Colisevm Building @ 5th and Pike he stated that for all he knew, the boilers were still in the basement. I worked at Banana Republic as the LP agent for 3 years (98-01) and also managed the building maintenance. As one of my college degrees is in history I took an immediate interest in the history of the building. I volunteered to provide tours for anyone who asked and in the process learned a lot of trivia. When I left the basement was used for storage of packaging, visual display, and miscellaneous other items. The boilers were removed (I think) during the renovation in the late 80s. There were still a few items from the original building left down there. There is still evidence of the old coal shoot that the coal wagon delivery guys used to send to the basement. In the stock room (south side of building and under Pike street sidewalk) there are a couple rooms that are blocked off by sheetrock but accessed by a couple entry panels. One of the old doors has “Employees Only” (if I remember correctly) painted on it and an old medicine cabinet where a restroom was. The original safe is still on display in the building (or was as recent as my stint there). It can be opened. I met the owner of the building who is the grandson of the original owner (the last name fails me) who reminisced that when he was a young child he would come in and his grandfather would open the safe to give him change to get food from the concession stand. Someone who took a tour once told me that the movie Tora Tora Tora was the first movie there to use “surround sound” which apparently consisted of two very large speakers in the rear corners upstairs. Until an interior makeover in 2000, the Gap company had kept the store a theater theme with a string of theater lights along the ceiling and large drapes by the main entrance. Some of the old theater seats were also in the changing rooms. The old elevator shaft is still existent, behind employee access doors near the front entrance though I think the elevator was removed. A lot of the old piping still existed and every once in a while a pipe would back up and a plumber would have to go to the basement and get the treat of seeing some very old pipes. The smell would sometimes come up through the floor drains in the customer restrooms and we would have to go in with bottles of Pine Sol to temporarily quell the smell (nothing horrendous though).

When the new Men’s store was going in next door I entered the upstairs of the building above what had been the Warner Bros Store. It looked like it was an old hotel with communal bathrooms on each floor. The staircases were decked out with ornate wood banisters as well as the rooms. In the basement the contractor found a bunch of old tables and chairs as well as 55 gallon barrels of Civil Defense water (buildings’ basements had been marked as fallout shelters). That’s about all I recall at the moment but I hope I was able to add to the story of the building for readers.

Kelly Kersten
Loss Prevention Agent
Banana Republic (98-01)
Via e-mail 1/5/2008