Comments on: Greenfield’s Grocery Building Pt. 1

By: here it is

here it is — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 07:50:48 +0000

I had been looking for information on this for a long time, thankful somebody finally wrote about it

By: Edith Ochs

Edith Ochs — Fri, 08 May 2009 18:48:29 +0000

My grandparents bought the house (712 23rd Ave.) next to Barnes Fuel Yard in 1942 and the family became fast friends with Mr. Barnes and his family. When I was born in 1944 I spent the first six weeks of my life in that house until my mother could join my sailor father in Corpus Christi. Over the years we lived in the house a number of times. I remember Mr. Barnes as a tall elegant man who always wore a uniform of jodphurs and knee high black boots. When my brother started exploring the fuel yard as a toddler (1954) Mr. Barnes put up a chain link fence between our house and the fuel yard so that my brother wouldn’t fall into the coal pit. On really hot days in the summer sometimes he’d even bring us ice cream cones.

The Greenfield Grocery building housed a number of small businesses over the years including a dry cleaners and a shoe repair. If you lived nearby (or next door in our case) the merchants in the building were like a little village that knew who belonged where, and whose kids were out too late and needed to be sent home. The building does look a little odd without its “awnings,” but it’s great to see how well the exterior has held up over the years.

If I get back to Seattle one of these days, I’ll have to go check out the old neighborhood…

By: Kim

Kim — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 00:24:48 +0000

I went to Garfield in the 80s, and remember well the building’s Dilettante incarnation–it was their test kitchen, so they sold their usual chocolates plus anything that broke coming out of the mold, etc. Huge slabs of mangled Santa Clauses, say, for cheap. Plus, during the lunch hour, pizza!

A coffee shop in that area would do tremendous business…though I’m wondering where the Dilettante has gone?

By: Ben Lukoff

Ben Lukoff — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 04:56:55 +0000

It was a PCC.

I can’t believe that coal is still lying around!!

By: didi

didi — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:15:22 +0000

Can’t wait to see the inside.

By: joshuadf

joshuadf — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 15:21:59 +0000

Beautiful! Reminds me of the Third Place Ravenna building, which I believe also used to be a grocery store.