 |
| Exterior of a state liquor store in Seattle. Circa 1971. Photo by Ron Allen, courtesy Washington State Digital Archives. |
Seattle’s State Liquor Store 1971
September 16th, 2009 @ 12:24 am by Cliffe | Sorted Photo Exposure |
I don’t have a lot to say on this one other than I really like the photograph. It’s simple and understated, has those great early 70′s colors. Bottoms up. Click for higher res.
Note the drive-in Theater screen in the background. Any ideas where that was?
Wow, not even a street number on that building for a clue! But here is a list of both open and closed drive-in theaters in Western Washington throughout the decades. The game is afoot!
http://www.geocities.com/hollywood/pavillion/2216/driveins.html
I wonder if the building was built out of level, with the right side higher, or if settling on the left tweaked it out of level?
Well, since the Aurora Drive-in was the only drive-in within the city limits, my guess is this liquor store was on Aurora between about N 135th and 137th Streets
Cool pic – you can see trees in the reflection in the windows, and that could be my dad’s pale yellow 1970 VW bug in the parking lot… At first I thought the photo was just bent causing the building to look ‘settled’ – but I think you are right – that one post, 2nd from the left, has sunk. I am not sure this is the Aurora location – wouldn’t the retail, including this liquor store, be on the other side of the screen? (Maybe I am wrong, my memory is fuzzy…)
I think something happened to the photo. I took a quick look in Photoshop and found among other oddities, the doors aren’t square. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
I think the reason the doors are not square (as are a number of the key lines) was that it was shot with a wide angle lens… the photographer worked to get the center of the shot at the center of the distortion… my guess it was shot with a 28 or 35 mm lens… straight on… but if you check it looks as if the roof lines are curving slightly…
The Aurora Drive In’s screen was at the east end- you looked to the east while maybe watching the movie.(I got kind of weak at the knees the first time I stood at the register at Sam’s Club- I saw Buzzard Auto Parts/aka Pay n Pak, and went “Heyyyy….”. Maybe I’ll put a Blue Plaque there) I’m guessing this shot is of the Duwamish D/I, where Pacific Highway heads up to SeaTac and Interurban heads south.
One of my fave features of the Norh Seattle News used to be “Marquee de Sad, or The Lost Picture Show”. Here’s to the Sno-King, the Green Parrot, the Colonial, et al