Mutual Life Building, Seattle, Washington. Photo by Marion Dean Ross, May 4, 1974. Image courtesy University of Oregon Libraries, Architecture of Oregon & the Pacific Northwest.
Mutual Life Building, Seattle, Washington. Photo by Marion Dean Ross, May 4, 1974. Image courtesy University of Oregon Libraries, Architecture of Oregon & the Pacific Northwest.
HistoryLink has an article about this here: http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=8799 – notable that Historic Seattle purchased the building in 1983 and did an awesome job restoring it.
These pictures are not taken on the same day. The lower one has signs over the corner paneling which the upper one doesn’t have. There is also a tree planter and what appears to be a newspaper stand in the upper one that don’t appear in the lower one.
The lower one shows the then new planted median on 1st, while the upper one doesn’t have one yet. Anyone know when those were installed?
This is the early days of the Pioneer Square revival, the days of Das Gasthaus and the Salad Gallery. There was a restaurant/bar on the first floor of the Mutual Life building, which I think you can see in the bottom picture. I don’t recall it lasting very long, and I’m thinking it might have been 1973 rather than 1974.
I’m glad the restorers didn’t paint over the MUTUAL LIFE INS CO N Y legend on the back.
Matt, Isn’t that sign a tile mosaic?
It feels much more open in these early 70′s shots – the street trees are so much bigger now.
^ Ha! I just now noticed that little twig of a tree in the first pic. It’s in a planter.
Colin, yeah, it could be. That would explain the boxy shape of the letters. I’ve never seen it up close.
This building has some lovely faces in the architectural elements separating the stories.
At the Old Swiss in Tacoma there’s a great picture of an old fella leaning up against the wall below the stained glass panel on the Yesler side of the Mutual Life Building. A few months after these pictures were taken I was working as a pedicab tour guide in the Square for Uncle Goose Pedicab, and we were all excited about how the area was cleaning up….”There was music in the cafes at night, and revolution in the air”.
In addition to Das Gasthaus & the Salad Gallery that Jim mentioned, some of the other businesses, restaurants and bars were Timberlake’s, the Globe Cellar, Grand Central Station, Bombay Bicycle Shop, the Trojan Shield, the Mouse House, Old Firehouse Antiques, Chuky’s Sopapilla’s, the Pioneer Square Wax Museum, the Inside Passage, and of course, Shelly’s Leg. Bobby Foster still was alive and had The Central, and Stan Paul would hold court at the J & M, when he wasn’t hassling refs & visiting players at Sonics’ games.
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