Comments on: Hotel Penbrook & Apartments

By: Joe Mabel

Joe Mabel — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 22:12:49 +0000

The flag in the 1917 image is doubtless drawn in, but the rest of it looks pretty clearly like a photo. Drawing in things like that was pretty common back then.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Mon, 18 May 2009 18:23:59 +0000

The National Register page seems to explain why the two sides of the building appear different — one style for the hotel side and another for the apartment side to distiguish them. I think both the postcard drawing and the 1917 image are elevation drawing updates to the plan. The register page implies the building was not started until sometime around 1915 or after. The 1917 image appears to be a drawing to me as well, the H.L. flag is too perfect to be a picture and the people in the image do not look real either. I think the 1917 image was a revised elevation drawing to accommodate the real slope of Marion St. and the first image was the initial plan elevation.

By: Cliffe

Cliffe — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:42:25 +0000

Don’t have a date on the postcard. It was never sent.

By: Matt F

Matt F — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:38:32 +0000

Actually, that link appears to have gone down Marion again. Take a walk south on Fourth to the doorway at the south end of the building.

By: Matt F

Matt F — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:36:24 +0000

You know, the more I study this the weirder it gets. Notice that the postcard shows details on the low Fourth Ave end (above the portal) that appear today, but they’re on different floors (see Google link below). It looks to me as though an artist drew this from original plans but then a regrade on Fourth forced a different design, including “raising” the portal design up one floor.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=4th+and+Marion,+seattle,+wa&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=81.674909,85.253906&ie=UTF8&ll=47.605382,-122.332217&spn=0.008861,0.010407&t=h&z=17&iwloc=A&layer=c&cbll=47.605307,-122.332394&panoid=fcom4U_DZQh4_IV8sLAdKg&cbp=12,186.96,,0,-2.24

By: Matt F

Matt F — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:27:35 +0000

Ah, I missed the link to the ealier photo. So the bland bricks were a later thing, maybe because of earthquake damage? What did it look like before and after 1964?

I still say that Fourth could have been raised a bit on this stretch before 1917.

Jess, what’s the date of the pcard?

By: Colin

Colin — Thu, 14 May 2009 18:09:43 +0000

I don’t think the ground was raised, the building is already on a big slope. I think it was just refaced with newer brick. maybe in the late 1920’s.

By: Cliffe

Cliffe — Thu, 14 May 2009 17:29:26 +0000

The 1917 photo I linked to has the same facade as the postcard, though.

By: Matt the Engineer

Matt the Engineer — Thu, 14 May 2009 17:22:03 +0000

That was my thought, that a regrade forced them to move the entrance to the 2nd floor. This was done with many downtown buildings, and if you go on the underground tour you can see full storefronts completely underground. Although the different facades do point to this postcard being a rendering.

By: Matt F

Matt F — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:02:51 +0000

My first thought was yours, that this was drawn before completion. The windows on the first (undecorated floor) are still visible today, but just the tops of them, as though the real slope of Marion Street ended up being steeper than that depicted here, so that the windows on the bottom were undergrade by the time Marion reaches Fourth. Also, it looks like someone ran out of money for fancy stonework and spires halfway through - another item suggesting this was a pre-construction rendering. Another idea: I know the North/South streets were graded at some point, probably much earlier than this, but could it be that Fourth was raised at this point?