Comments on: Reframe: Bellevue & Olive

By: skye

skye — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 05:22:08 +0000

the nearest car is at the corner of Summit and Howell

By: skye

skye — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 05:21:18 +0000

the oddly shaped building turned into wingdome and is now the Saint

By: Matt the Journeyman

Matt the Journeyman — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:25:15 +0000

@Shannon:
The Historic Aerials dataset for 1936 indeed shows a small house where the Starbucks parking lot is now. It was gone by 1968. The house in this shot looks larger, but I think a lot of that mass is the apartment building behind it.

About the house seeming to be in the intersection of Denny/Olive — keep in mind that those old lenses were shaped in a way that they compressed the field of view (behaving like telephoto lenses), while today’s lenses typically are built to do the opposite (show more periphery = wide angle). Witness the Google view, where you can’t even see the bend in the road because it’s “so far away”.

So in the image above, there is actually a severely compressed block or two between the bus parked on the right and the house in question. Denny is actually crossing immediately in front of the bus, I think. There’s a car or truck barely visible on Denny that has just crossed Olive heading west.

By: -Marty

-Marty — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:39:33 +0000

Interesting how whenever one compares almost any old/vintage picture of Seattle
with the same spot today, there is almost always MORE Trees in the current picture… Pioneer Square is a good example of this.

By: Colin

Colin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:36:34 +0000

It’s hard to make out that sign because the lamp post & size but I can see that the last part of the name is downie’s and the bottom looks like Camera or laundromat. Hard to tell with this picture

By: Brad

Brad — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:30:27 +0000

Does anybody know what business is in the building just to the left of the beer billboard? I can’t make out the sign. The Crescent Tavern is there now.

By: Julie Anne

Julie Anne — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:36:16 +0000

I love that little triangle building that once was Westinghouse.

I adore oddly-shaped buildings.

By: Shannon C.

Shannon C. — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:02:26 +0000

That house is confusing, perspective wise. It looks like it’s right at the intersection of Olive and Denny. Maybe somone could look it up on HistoricAerials? I can’t get that site to work here at my workplace, or else I would do it right now!

By: GAM

GAM — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:23:39 +0000

I think that house is where Starbucks’ parking lot is now. I think the Starbucks building is barely visible to the left of the large house. Would it have been the Plaid Piper at this time?

By: Encolpius

Encolpius — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 08:22:20 +0000

Remarkably similar to the view today. It looks like there is a house located where the Starbucks is now. The perspective in the Google is a bit hard to match up. I wonder if the billboard was where the newer building and trees are, or if it extended in front of the apartment house next door?