Its fading mural advertisement that faces north on 19th Avenue East asks a rhetorical question, then provides the seemingly self-evident answer: "Why pay downtown prices? Wait and see it at the Roycroft Theatre."
The ad recalls an earlier era before Blu-Ray technology, the DVD or the VHS tape when second-run theaters found a home in cities throughout the United States, but it concurrently calls us to take stock of our neighborhood history and ensure that the theater and historic buildings like it don't similarly fade away under the blades of development bulldozers.
Since I moved to East Capitol Hill, the building and its mural never fail to capture my attention during my frequent walks down 19th. I have art to thank for that, specifically, Frank Jump's.
Thank goodness for artists. Without them, we might continue to see the world in ways we always have and, thus, the commonplace and everyday would remain just that. With them, our eyes become like children's - open, impartial, receptive, curious - always on the look out for something new, always on the market for fresh eye candy.
Many years ago, I read about Jump in the New York Times. An HIV-positive photographer, he documents the vintage advertisement murals that dot the building-scape of New York City. He sees the murals as metaphors of survival, as legacies that out live the businesses that generated them in the first place. These ads publicly document the past in ways historical signage and tourist maps cannot. Take a trip to 12th and Madison in Seattle, and you too can witness this phenomenon.
That article, and Jump's art, spurred my interest in urban signage and, in turn, made me take notice of the old Roycroft Theatre, the current shared home of the Russian Cultural Center of Seattle and the Trinity Christ Memorial Baptist Church.
MUCH LOVED
Historian Jacqueline Williams, author of "The Hill with a Future: Seattle's Capitol Hill 1900 - 1946," dubbed the Roycroft one of Capitol Hill's "most loved institutions."
"Everyone that grew up here loves the Roycroft Theatre. Everyone mentions that theater," Williams explained.
Famously, Ted Akles, a previous owner, would stand on stage in a black robe and choose neighborhood boys and girls from the audience to be that week's Popeye, Wimpy and Olive Oil. Next door, the original Red Mill diner served ice-cream and sandwiches before it closed in 1967 only to be resurrected some 20 years later as Red Mill Burgers on Phinney Ridge.
The Roycroft Theatre once housed a Robert Morgan 2/4 Pipe Organ that has since moved to a church in Salem, Oregon. It once played movie serials - films shown in chapters such that viewers would return the following week to see if our hero would arrive just in time to save the fair damsel tied to the train tracks. It once showed second-run movies at bargain prices before our living rooms took on this role.
The Roycroft Theatre closed its doors in 1959, yet the building never shuttered its doors. The very next year, the Russian Community Center moved from 17th Avenue into its new digs at the Roycroft and continues to serve Seattle's Russian community to this day.
HARD TO SEE
Even with its current occupants, however, the old Roycroft theater is easy to miss. Indeed, its neighboring historical landmarks cast long shadows that dwarf the modest, two-story affair. What's a small theater to do when sandwiched between the impressive yet imposing multi-story Holy Names Academy and the just-as-impressive St. Joseph's Church?
At the same time, these neighbors unintentionally steal the historical spotlight and, thus, the attention of passers-by from the theater's off-pink Mediterranean-revival façade to the towering neo-classical pillars outside the academy and the art-deco stylings of the 18th Avenue church.
And therein lies the danger.
In one of America's only remaining up-beat housing markets, one continues to grow without pause and sometimes without forethought, buildings like the Roycroft prompt nothing short of a Pavlovian response in local developers.
Hence, my wish: a full-scale revival.
Pictures of the old Roycroft testify to its possibilities. It once served as a community meeting place where the neighborhood came together. Outside, a marquee nearly as grand and as tall as the marquee outside the Paramount once beckoned customers to come inside. Underneath its suspended canopy, light bulbs adorned the border much like they do on Broadway theater houses today (not our Broadway, mind you, the Broadway.)
With the continued success of the Washington Ensemble Theatre just down the street and the numerous local theater and artistic groups that need a home, perhaps the Roycroft might serve not just as a cultural center and a church but also serve any number of artistic constituencies. While this might create an admittedly idiosyncratic grouping, Capitol Hill thrives on such uniqueness.
Developers and outsiders might view my idea as motivated purely by nostalgia, yet it's not. Indeed, few things are more useless in and of themselves than nostalgia.
Instead, it's that sign - the faded, vintage mural advertisement that's survived 80+ winters, thousands of rain storms and hours of sunshine yet refuses to vanish or be forgotten. It stubbornly testifies not only to the theater's (and our) collective past but also to its (and our) potential.
Mario Paduano's column appears in the third issue of each month. He can be reached at editor@ capitolhilltimes.com.[[In-content Ad]]
