Bell Street Auto 1935
February 1st, 2010 @ 12:01 am by Cliffe | Sorted Photo Exposure |
I really like the way this photograph, taken by Roy Peak in 1935, is framed. Notice those nice brick streets and you can even make out some cars inside being worked on. It looks as though the building
is still around but the photo’s vantage point is now an empty lot. Click on the thumbnail for the super high res.
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| Bell St. Auto Repair Shop at 209 Bell Street, Seattle, WA., 1935. Photographed by Roy Peak. Image courtesy Washington State Digital Archives. |
That empty lot used to be that internet cafe/company and billiards hall, which burnt down almost a decade ago. I’m amazed it’s still an empty lot, frankly.
Isn’t this where Import Doctors was? I just checked and they’re now listed as being on Lenore, but I took a 73 Superbeetle to them for service for several years in the late 90s and I could have sworn it was on Bell.
Shannon: Was it Speakeasy?
http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=3301
Yes, that used to be Import Doctors, until it got turned into a nursery school for animals, a further indication of Seattle’s spiral into the decay of frivolity.
And, yes the vacant lot was the Speakeasy internet cafe, and before that a billiard hall. (I am 95 percent sure Speakeasy supplanted the billiard hall, and that they never coexisted.
Yikes! I was panning around in the high-res view and came smack up against that G-man in the window pane. I nearly jumped outta my chair! A beautiful image, this.
Notice how every window on the door on the right is broken?
Looks like the addition to the west where Mama’s Mexican Kitchen is now hasn’t even been built yet. Pretty cool this building is still here. Reminds me a little of the building that Elliot Bay Books is going into up on Capitol Hill.
Great photo, Jess. FYI, the 211 Club (pool hall) was upstairs from the Speakeasy Cafe for quite a while. A great old school place amidst the encroaching gentrification of Belltown. Pitchers of Rainier, clouds of smoke, and silent serious pool sharks…
The 211 occupied the large upper floor of the building from about 1987 – 2000. The Speakeasy was downstairs from about 1995 – the fire of 2001. Turned my stomach to drive past the charred remains…
Before the Speakeasy was there, it was the location of Display and Costume Supply. Then they moved out to Northgate.
I had the pleasure of working on this building this past fall. It was an import car repair shop until last year, now it is for lease. The building above in the background is still there, occupied by young city dwellers and dozens of stray cats. The block is a time capsule. Construction on the speakeasy parcel is scheduled to start this spring.
I’m curious what defendant’s exhibit means – was this taken for a lawsuit of some sort?
@Matt the J – Same! It felt like seeing a ghost to me for some reason!
another GREAT photo!!
Do we know the backstory here? I want to imagine that this is the day after a fire, maybe an arson — note that part or all of the door is gone, the window panes as someone noted are all blown out, and there’s a rope across the entrance — and that the spooky dudes outside are lawyers who are waiting for the photographer to finish taking this shot but preferred not to get their shoes mucky in the post-conflagration layer of ash and water. I’m just sayin’.
Matt…
Maybe they are arson investigators? Whatever it was, the reflection in the window across the street shows a building that was fairly damaged… Prohibition is over by 1935… but fire, or some other problem… Anne Rule, you there?
The 211 was a great place. I loved the rules that were posted. Rule number 1 was No Bulls**t!
Oh, this IS a very cool shot indeed. The possible intrigue of the broken winodws makes it even more interesting.
Greg, if I was smart, I’d look this up in the Seattle Times or Seattle Post-Intelligencer archives. Then we’d just know, wouldn’t we?