What Year Was I Taken? Take 2
June 4th, 2008 @ 1:17 am by Cliffe | Sorted Photo Exposure
Let’s try this again. Last time it didn’t go so well (mostly because I failed to come up with the actual date). However, I promise that this time I have a precise answer. So have at it. Use your wit, your intuition, your research skills — tell us all what year this bird’s-eye view of downtown Seattle was taken. The winner claims bragging rights in all future comment threads. And Shipley, I’m fairly certain this one is after Christ.
Update: Congrats to litlnemo, Mike, Bryan, violetdawn, Rachel, & Alan. Their detective work led to a correct date of 1918 and a Smith Tower vantage point.
Update: Congrats to litlnemo, Mike, Bryan, violetdawn, Rachel, & Alan. Their detective work led to a correct date of 1918 and a Smith Tower vantage point.
|
| Looking north from Smith Building. Lake Union in Distance. Showing portions of Second and Third Avenues. In the foreground, Arctic Building, home of the Arctic Club and the Chamber of Commerce and Commercial Club. Photograph by Asahel Curtis, The Argus, 1918. |
June 4th, 2008 @ 12:38 pm
The comments are turned off on your next post. Since I’ve been sitting here trying to come up with an answer for a couple of hours, and I really need to get to sleep, I’ll post it here instead.
And check back tomorrow.
I believe the photo is from between 1915 and 1924. But I can’t place it more specifically than that, so I’m just going to guess 1919. (No Olympic Hotel places it pre-1924; completed White-Henry-Stuart building and Pantages Theater places it 1915 or later.)
Other things to note: Rainier Club is there but without the later south wing addition. Carnegie Library is there. The old Orpheum, opened in 1911. 1st United Methodist and Queen Anne High School are easily seen. The Cobb Building, built 1910 and still around, is there. It is hard to see but I think there are some bits of Denny Hill still ungraded east of Fifth.
June 4th, 2008 @ 12:41 pm
Re the comment off post, the RSS for it can through with a passel of spam links, too. I assume that relates to the comments-off thing.
lilnemo’s gotten as far as I would on dating the thing. The only additional point I could offer would be to guess it was taken from Smith Tower, which would push it to the earlier end of the range (as the novelty of views from the building would presumably fade with time).
This guess is informed by having stood on the balcony of the thing during my wedding, which we held in the Chinese Room not quite ten years ago.
June 4th, 2008 @ 12:41 pm
can = came, sorry
June 4th, 2008 @ 12:42 pm
I believe I meant “east of Third” for the parts of Denny Hill that are unregraded.
And I think Mike is right about the photo location.
June 4th, 2008 @ 12:43 pm
I’m looking into the spam problem now. In the meantime, comments are re-enabled. Also moved the comments to this thread.
Cliffe
June 4th, 2008 @ 1:13 pm
I will guess it’s March 1926. At 2pm. And the fotographer had a cheeseburger for lunch, his left shoe is untied, and his dog’s name is pretzel.
June 4th, 2008 @ 1:37 pm
Picture definitely appears to be taken from the Smith Tower between 2nd and 3rd.
Looks like the 1924 Olympic Hotel between 4th & 5th on University is lacking, so that puts the upper end at 1924. The old Orpheum became the President by 1927 when the new Orpheum on Fifth Ave opened. The Arctic Club building on 3rd Ave is present in the picture which was completed in 1917, putting that at the low end. The 1910-1920’s era cars on 3rd Ave (probably Ford Model T’s) put it in that range as well.
Can see the McNaught Mansion moved in 1904 to the corner of 4th and Spring across from the Carnegie Library building.
June 4th, 2008 @ 2:01 pm
Wow, I just looked at the page source. It is indeed full of hidden prescription spam. Not good for one’s Google Page Rank. Or anything else.
June 4th, 2008 @ 2:15 pm
Yes, I’ve fixed the embedded spam now. Thanks for the heads up. Those blasted spammers are getting more and more cunning.
June 4th, 2008 @ 4:10 pm
While I wouldn’t like to take a guess at the timeframe it was taken, because I don’t have that sort of time to do it with a 10 month old in arms, I would like to say that the Smith Tower was the largest building west of the Mississippi River for almost 50 years, and so using the newness of the tower as a frame of reference because it’d lose it’s appeal is a bit off, I’d say. It’d be like going to the Empire State Building, and saying, even now, “eah, that’s old news.”
June 4th, 2008 @ 4:57 pm
Ooh1 I have a date diagnostic!
Open the image at full rez. Midway down the right side of the frame, find the first clearly visible street intersection. It’s just above the right corner of the large white multistory building which is so prominent in the right foreground.
On that corner, you can see about four placards assembled to form a fence around… an active building site!
If we can identify the address of that site, chances are reasonable that there may still be that completed building there, which would get us pretty close to what we are after.
Shadowchasers, please note also the clear orientation of the shadows in the shot - we really could get a decent time of day estimate!
Finally, Cliffe, any chance of slinging a superduper hi-rez version of this up for us to look at? If I could read those ads, maybe I could tell right off!
June 4th, 2008 @ 5:03 pm
wait, is that corner what is now the parking and entrance for the Rainier Club? I think so!
June 4th, 2008 @ 5:17 pm
Check out the South end of the Rainier Club site. You can see “Seattle’s oldest standing house” from this photo:
http://smarterneighbors.com/2008/06/01/house-for-sale-in-downtown-seattle-circa-1919/
It’s faint, but you have to zoom in to see it. P-shop helps, too.
Mike: If you’re talking about the placards at this site, I just loaded up the super-duper high-res .tif and you can’t read them. Good thought though.
Cliffe
June 4th, 2008 @ 6:57 pm
I was wondering about that house! Well, the For Sale sign isn’t in this picture, and the billboards are different… but everything else is exactly the same. If I could see the trees better to get an idea of their relative height… that would help.
Anyway, I think my 1919 guess is still pretty close.
June 4th, 2008 @ 7:47 pm
The photo is definitely between 1917 (arctic building completed) - 1924 (dexter horton building on 2nd ave completed).
June 4th, 2008 @ 8:01 pm
June 19, 1922. That, or 6 A.D.
June 4th, 2008 @ 9:58 pm
I think that the big giveaway that the photo was taken earlier than the 1920s is that you can’t see the big flotilla of Liberty Ships that were moored in Lake Union right after the war.
http://content.lib.washington.edu/cgi-bin/viewer.exe?CISOROOT=/seattle&CISOPTR=987
These were ships that were completed right as the war ended, and had no place to go. So my guess is tha the photo is somewhere between 1917-1919, unless those ships are obscured by the angle of the camera
June 5th, 2008 @ 12:20 am
I noticed that house, too! Now I’m gurning over not tying it to the previous post.
Cliffe, nemo, I’m signing on to the 1919 posse. The ‘for sale’ image is definitively 1919, and in the current view, it seems that possibly the same placards are up, tho it’s hard to say. Assuming that once sold, the house was demoed or the sign was removed, I’m guessing the large view here is just prior to the sign posting.
Alas, if we could see the foliage, that would likely be truly diagnostic, as the ‘For Sale” view is certainly a late midwinter view, maybe taken on the usual nice weekend in February. That would place the elevated view squarely in 1919.
June 5th, 2008 @ 1:18 am
*trumpet blast*
Well done litlnemo, Mike, Bryan, violetdawn, Rachel, & Alan.
Correct on two accounts. The photo was indeed taken from Smith Tower and the year was 1918. Very impressive detective work!
Until next time.
Cliffe
June 5th, 2008 @ 1:40 am
Yay! That was fun.
June 5th, 2008 @ 10:10 am
I cheated and guessed solely on the appearance of the vehicles parked on the streets. I don’t know much about the buildings in Seattle. I reasoned that the cars seemed to be late teens to early twenties, so it must be late twenties. Kind of hard to tell from the photo, though, whether they are cars or little black smears.