Pike Place Market. May 5, 1974. Photo by Marion Dean Ross. Image courtesy University of Oregon Libraries, Architecture of Oregon & the Pacific Northwest.
Wigs, Bell Bottoms & Coca-Cola 1974
January 12th, 2011 @ 12:24 am by Cliffe | Sorted Photo Exposure |
Prolific Seattle documentarian Marion Dean Ross is back with this 1974 photograph of Pike Place Market. There’s some nice signage to take in here — including Coca-Cola, wigs and bell bottoms. What a combination. We talked about the brick vs blacktop roads in this post from the same photo session. Click for high res.
Pike Place Market. May 5, 1974. Photo by Marion Dean Ross. Image courtesy University of Oregon Libraries, Architecture of Oregon & the Pacific Northwest.
Pike Place Market. May 5, 1974. Photo by Marion Dean Ross. Image courtesy University of Oregon Libraries, Architecture of Oregon & the Pacific Northwest.
What a ghost town! I wish I was there.
You can see the post for that lamp we talked about recently poking up between the N and the T on the big red market sign. Also, water tower! (sans tank).
I’m surprised at how much better the Market looks now.
The market had been “saved” by 1974, but First Avenue, especially south of the market, was still a very bad place at that time.
Also, I spy flannel man! The stereotypes are true!
@Colin: Oh yeah, that guy screams Sub Pop
When did they put in the famous fish stand? I zoomed in and saw it looks like it was a Vegetable stand of some sort.
One thing you can say. The pavement looks nice. Unlike what it is now.
I do love a good old fashioned wig shop
How about that “Modern Barber College” sign above the taxi on the right.
You can also get your dentures fixed at the place upstairs on the left above the “Cola” on the sign – look for the sign in the window “Plates Relined”.
The wig shop is offering mens wigs – do they offer side burns to go with them!
Things certainly have a chnaged…
Love the picture!
Wow !
That picture is really awesome !
I’ve just discovered this blog and I’m shocked !
I love Seattle and I wish I was living there at that time.
Greetings from Spain
JeffW is right. Before the market and its surroundings were turned into a tourist destination, there were all kinds of wonderful – and affordable – shops and services down there. When I was growing up in the north end, we went down there every Saturday to do our meat and produce shopping. I’d be surprised to hear of anyone doing that today.
I was 14 in 1974 and living in Everett. Bell bottoms were all the rage and the coolest ones were “Swabbies” that one would purchase at an Army-Navy surplus store like the one in the photo. I think they were $7 a pair.
@jim & Jeff- Absolutely, Vet’s Thrift Shop, Salvation Army & Goodwill, and when you got thirsty, the Victorola and Pig Alley. Liberty Malt used to be our stop for comics and magazine back issues, but one thing I’ll always remember was going to a surplus store in the Market in the late ’70′s, and when I paid, the woman behind the counter reached for my money, and there on the inside of her forearm was a tattoo, a faded blue number. It still gives me chills.
This photo reminds me of how I knew Seattle as a child. Cold, deserted, unfriendly. But somehow still exciting for the little boy in the back seat of a Ford Galaxy 500. Imagine my shock when I realized coming home in the mid-1980′s that something had definitely changed. The town no one cared or knew anything about had become a real place.
There’s a wig shop (the same one, perhaps?!) still there – just a door up from where the new Hard Rock Cafe is!
@Ann, I was wondering the same thing.
lovely, heartbreaking pic; I moved to Seattle at 18 in 1973 and this really brings back the very real Market that was, boringly useful and trailing secrets and stories in the same moment. The idea that it would ever be considered a tourist destination would have been just laughable to me back then. I pretty much gave up and stopped going there for any routine needs around the time they erected that idiotic Post Alley sign, and by the time I left Seattle in the late 90′s, most of the Market had become such a sad approximation of Fisherman’s Wharf it wasn’t even on my miss-you list. The place I do miss is in this picture, and it died on the operating table years ago. Plastic surgery can be dangerous.
Hi,
How are you ?
Our company can supply all kinds of wigs for you .Our company website is http://www.bipolarhair.com .There are many wigs in stock , If you want to buy them ,please let me know .I will do my best for you .
We accept western union ,paypal and money gram .
Wasn’t that wig shop there for decades? I can remember walking past it, or one of its descendants, in the late 80s. I really love the cool, clean light in these old pictures, that sense of Sunday morning stillness, whatever day it is. Seattle might be more Disneyfied these days, but I miss something about that grimy peacefulness, too.
I totally miss the “old” Seattle. The market, and the old Woolworth’s. The Bon, frederick’s, Klopensteins, i.Magnin.
The gritty part of First Avenue, and the old City Light building with its space-age glamour. The Doghouse and The Athenian Grill and Trader Vics and all the other dumpy diners. Westlake before they fancied it up. The Marine Room and the Top of the Hilton.
But I especially miss the old people. There used to be old people all over downtown, living in studio apartments and “residential hotels”. Most of them were friendly, all of them were civil. Good for a laugh and a story. I wonder where they all went.
Seattle was a much more interesting and fun place in the 1970′s.
@Fortysomething There is plenty of gritty in Seattle still. Hang out on Ranier Ave South any evening of the Spring Summer or Autumn. And as for the old people that are cool to talk to, they are on all the Metro buses now. I have had lots of great conversations about old Seattle while taking the buses and even light rail a few times. (^:=