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| Hartford Building, 2nd & James, Seattle, Washington. Photographed May 4, 1974 by Marion Dean Ross (1913-1991), courtesy Visual Resources Collection, Architecture & Allied Arts Library, University of Oregon Libraries. |
Hartford Building, Art-Deco Delight
March 2nd, 2010 @ 12:10 am by Cliffe | Sorted Historic Buildings |
Building of the Day goes to the Hartford Building at 2nd and James. It was built in 1929 for the First Realty Company and designed by noted Seattle architect John Graham Sr. very nice writeup on the building here. Check out the 1974 photo below and click for the high res.
Nice! On the present-day street view, you can see the outlines of the fire escape that, in the above image, is still clinging to the side of the Lyon Building in the background. I miss fire escapes. Miss them a lot. And water towers.
I pass by this building every day on the way down to the place I’m currently working (in the Schwabacher building at First and Yesler, although we’ll be moving to another Pioneer Square building soon.) I’ve been meaning to post a bit about that one over at my own place, but haven’t gotten around to bringing in a camera for it yet.
Why, I do believe that’s a state liquor store on the bottom! (Bottoms up!)
It’s not the greatest picture ever, but here’s a quick picture of the building I grabbed on the way home from work today: Aside from the tenants (there’s a flower shop, a coffee shop and an art gallery in there right now and the addition of awnings, not much has changed. Oh yeah, and there’s also the Columbia Tower in the background that wasn’t there before.
Love the details on this building. Especially the upper corners. I can’t imagine any modern architect designing anything close to this.
I also noticed a sweet Fallout Shelter sign on the building next door. I wonder when they stopped putting those up and how many are left around town?
This building location was State Liquor Store #1. It was owned at the time by Sam Israel